bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Communities of Difference: A Critical Look at Desegregated Spaces Created for and by Youth
Authors: Fine Michelle , Weis Lois , Powell Linda
Published: May 2015

In this article, Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, and Linda Powell juxtapose three different school communities and the schools' various approaches to dealing with differences among their students. They use notions of equal status contact theory, supplemented by three literatures — those of community, difference, and democracy, to discuss three desegregated spaces on a continuum, from one in which racial differences are unquestioned and racist discourse uninterrupted by faculty or staff to one in which teachers are actively working toward creating a space where differences are acknowledged and respected. Through this contrasting of desegregated spaces, the authors challenge readers to "imbalance privilege, incite community, to both value of pluralize difference" — to create teaching and learning spaces that nurture multiracial and multiethnic communities.
Learning in the Dark: How Assumptions of Whiteness Shape Classroom Knowledge
Authors: Maher Frances , Thompson Tetreault Mary Kay
Published: May 2015

In this article, Frances Maher and Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault revisit data presented in their book, The Feminist Classroom. In the book, they located their analysis in a traditionally feminist position of marginality, where they saw themselves allied with women of color in resisting a patriarchal academy. Subsequent discussions with colleagues and the proliferation of literature on Whiteness led them to realize that their own Whiteness, and the effects of Whiteness itself, remained uninterrogated in their original work. In this reanalysis of data from their book, they examine how assumptions of Whiteness shape the construction of knowledge as it is produced and resisted in the classroom. Drawing on classroom and interview data, they investigate how students' constructions of gender, class, ethnicity, and race are informed by unacknowledged assumptions of Whiteness.
Further Comment
Authors: Anderson Haithe , Lather Patti
Published: May 2015

Can accessible and clear writing styles unlock the power of feminist theory? Can clearly articulated ideas change the world? Some academic feminists think so. They feel that feminist theory should be measured against its ability to contribute to social change. Anything less and their work would look merely academic. Patti Lather's work, judging by her recent article, "Troubling Clarity: The Politics of Accessible Language" (Fall 1996), has been criticized by other feminists precisely because her desire to appeal to intramural readers appears to overshadow her commitment to extramural change. Gaby Weiner (1993), for example, implies that Lather's use of dense prose denies equal access to the interesting ideas that her complicated style of writing contains. Weiner assumes, as do other feminists, that feminist theory in education should be written in a clear and accessible way so that it can reach beyond the classroom to edify the world. Lather responds to this call for clarity by defending her complex writing style and her desire "to be heard," as she writes, "in the halls of High Theory." She justifies her position by pointing out that academic feminists "can't do everything and that the struggle demands contestation on every front" (p. 526).
Elite College Discrimination and the Limits of Conflict Theory
Authors: Farnum Richard
Published: May 2015

In this article, Richard Farnum critiques and offers a supplement to Jerome Karabel's 1984 article, "Status-Group Struggle, Organizational Interests, and the Limits of Institutional Autonomy: The Transformation of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1918–1940," an analytic model of educational change and the rise of discriminatory admissions in elite colleges and universities based on conflict theory. Farnum argues that a more complex and more complete understanding of discrimination in admissions, specifically the WASP exclusion of Jews and other minorities, can be achieved by broadening Karabel's concept of "interests" to include differences in educational philosophy, ideology, and institutional character of the elite colleges. He also argues that the model could be improved by analysis and inclusion of the shifting historical and functional context within which the interests of the elite and the colleges operated. Recognition of such changing social contexts, as well as institutional ideals and ideologies crucial to elite college perceptions of their organizational interests, suggests a process of change in which, over time, elite colleges experienced an increase in autonomy and became less dependent on the interests of their traditional constituency.
Reflections on Writing a History of Women Teachers
Authors: Weiler Kathleen
Published: May 2015

In this article, Kathleen Weiler reflects on the historiography of Country Schoolwomen, her recent study of women teachers in rural California. Using a broad definition of feminist research, Weiler summarizes some of the most salient issues currently under debate among feminist scholars. She raises questions about the nature of knowledge, the influence of language in the social construction of gender, and the importance of an awareness of subjectivity in the production of historical evidence. Using several cases from Country Schoolwomen, Weiler discusses the importance of considering the conditions under which testimony is given, both in terms of the dominant issues of the day — for example, the way womanliness or teaching is presented in the authoritative discourse — and the relationship between speaker and audience. She concludes that a feminist history that begins with a concern with the constructed quality of evidence moves uneasily between historical narrative and a self-conscious analysis of texts.
Voices Inside Schools - Cacophony to Symphony: Memoirs in Teacher Research
Authors: Hankins Karen Hale
Published: May 2015

We are pleased to inaugurate our new Voices Inside Schools section with "Cacophony to Symphony: Memoirs in Teacher Research," by Karen Hale Hankins. In this article, Hankins explores the connection between her personal history and her present classroom teaching through the process of journal writing. She records in her journal her observations about her class, her teaching, and her memoirs of her own past as they are sparked by present events, feelings, and challenges in her classroom. Hankins discovers that her past experiences, when carefully reflected on, can help her better understand, and thus reach and teach, her students, even those with whom she once felt she had little in common.
Symposium: Bilingual Education for Puerto Ricans in New York City: From Hope to Compromise
Authors: Valle Sandra Del
Published: May 2015

In this article, Sandra Del Valle examines the struggle for bilingual education as a fight for civil rights in which lawyers and litigation have played a large role. By specifically looking at the role of Puerto Ricans in New York City in these struggles, she examines the fatal gap between two visions of bilingual education—the vision of the grassroots Puerto Rican community that saw bilingual education as educational enrichment, and the remedial model that was ultimately adopted and advanced by lawyers and other professionals in the courts. As Del Valle argues, national policymakers, federal courts, and advocacy organizations have raised the nation's consciousness on issues affecting language-minority students; however, these forces have also contributed to the compromised nature of bilingual education, making it especially vulnerable to attack. Therefore, the role between these entities—that is, education advocates, policymakers, and the courts—must be constructed differently and take its cues from students, parents, and local grassroots organizations.
Voices Inside Schools - Teacher as Rain Dancer
Authors: Hole Simon
Published: May 2015

In this article, Simon Hole uses the metaphor of the teacher as rain dancer to explore some aspects of the nature of being a teacher. Hole observes his teaching partner as she attempts to help her class democratically elect reporters for a school newsletter. A dilemma emerges when her desire to satisfy one student's interest in this position collides with her goal for the class to elect the reporters democratically. Hole uses his telling of this dilemma to provoke conversation among his colleagues about the tensions inherent in trying to meet conflicting classroom needs. Reflecting on his colleagues' dilemmas and responses to them, he raises the question of whose needs are being met in the classroom—teachers' or students'. Hole considers a moment in his own practice when he feels acutely the tension created by facing a choice between pursuing his students' agendas and his own.
Reporting Ethnography to Informants
Authors: Page Reba , Samson Yvette , Crockett Michele
Published: May 2015

The value of reporting research to the people who agree to participate in it has been accepted as commonplace in the last ten to fifteen years, especially in applied disciplines such as education. However, there are few detailed accounts of what actually happens when university researchers and school practitioners engage in conversation over knowledge about schooling. There is even less evidence about how, when, where, or for whom the process might be valuable. In this article, Reba Page, Yvette Samson, and Michele Crockett provide such an account. They first describe their experience with teacher seminars in which they reported their research to members of two high school science departments in whose classes they had studied curriculum extensively. They then interpret these experiences from three orientations.
Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research
Authors: Bernal Dolores Delgado
Published: May 2015

In this article, Dolores Delgado Bernal outlines a Chicana feminist epistemological framework that is new to the field of educational research. This framework, which draws from the existing work of Chicana feminists, questions the notions of objectivity and a universal foundation of knowledge. A Chicana feminist epistemology is also grounded in the life experiences of Chicanas and involves Chicana research participants in analyzing how their lives are being interpreted, documented, and reported, while acknowledging that many Chicanas lead lives with significantly different opportunity structures than men or White women. As part of this framework, Delgado Bernal also introduces the concept of cultural intuition to name a complex process that acknowledges the unique viewpoints that many Chicana scholars bring to the research process. In the latter half of the article, she illustrates the importance of this framework in educational research by describing an oral history project on Chicana student resistance and activism as seen from this framework. Her conceptual discussion and research example together demonstrate that employing a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research is one means of resisting traditional paradigms that often distort or omit the experiences and knowledge of Chicanas. (pp. 555-582)
Not the Color Purple: Black Feminist Lessons for Educational Caring
Authors: Thompson Audrey
Published: May 2015

In this article, Audrey Thompson offers a critique of the "colorblindness" found both in the psychological literature on caring and in theories of caring in education. Thompson argues that, insofar as theories of care fail to acknowledge and address the Whiteness of their political and cultural assumptions, they are in effect colorblind. She calls for a reexamination of the Whiteness embedded in these colorblind theories, which have been universally framed and have thus sidestepped the issues of racial imbalance implicit in colorblindness. She adds to the critique of these theories by showing how differently some of the themes that have proved generative for theories of care might have been interpreted if a Black feminist perspective rather than a liberal White feminist perspective had been assumed. Following her critique of four key themes—the moral relevance of the situation, the primacy of survival, the significance of the standpoint from which values are understood, and the moral power of narrative—Thompson calls our attention to how we think about, develop, and implement an anti-racist curriculum and practice in classrooms. Her point is that colorblindness in teaching and learning situations limits us from benefiting from other perspectives that may inform educational practice. To overcome these limitations, Thompson suggests that theorists and teachers reexamine their approaches and ideologies, and include perspectives of caring that are based in non-White and/or poor cultures in their work. (pp. 522-554)
Good Readers, Good Teachers?: Subject Matter Expertise as a Challenge in Learning to Teach
Authors: Holt-Reynolds Diane
Published: May 2015

In this article, Diane Holt-Reynolds critically examines the importance placed on subject matter expertise in the training of secondary school teachers. Recognizing that knowledge of subject matter has been a major concern in national calls for education reform, Holt-Reynolds explores the role that such knowledge plays in a prospective teacher's conceptualization of skillful and successful teaching. Through a case study of Mary, one subject matter expert enrolled in a college-level teacher training program, Holt-Reynolds demonstrates how, for this teacher, subject matter expertise does not translate into an understanding of how to model that expertise or share it with students. Providing extensive data to support her identification of Mary as an expert reader, she then shows how Mary fails to see her expertise as learned and suggests that this failure causes Mary's expertise to be "unavailable" for teaching literature as a subject. Drawing on her conclusions from this case study, Holt-Reynolds expands the definition of subject matter expertise to include an awareness of that expertise as learned. She ends with a clear challenge for teacher educators to help prospective teachers recognize their subject matter expertise and learn ways to share and model it with students.
Charter Schools as Postmodern Paradox: Rethinking Social Stratification in an Age of Deregulated School Choice
Authors: Wells Amy Stuart , Lopez Alejandra , Scott Janelle , Holme Jennifer Jellison
Published: May 2015

For the last two-and-a-half years, authors Amy Stuart Wells, Alejandra Lopez, Janelle Scott, and Jennifer Jellison Holme have been engaged with a team of researchers in a comprehensive qualitative study of charter schools in ten California school districts. They have emerged from this study with a new understanding of how the implementation of a specific education policy can reflect much broader social changes, including the transformation from modernity to postmodernity. Given that much of the literature on postmodernity is theoretical in nature, this article invites readers to wrestle with the complexity that results when theory meets the day-to-day experiences of people trying to start schools. In their study, the authors examined how people in different social locations define the possibilities for localized social movements, and how they see the potential threat of greater inequality resulting from this reform within and among communities. They started with a framework that questioned how charter schools came into being at this particular time that is characterized by global economic developments and demands for a more deregulated state education system. This framework allowed the authors to examine the particularistic nature of a reform that defies universal definitions. Their purpose was not to definitively state whether or not charter school reform is "working," or whether or not it is leading to greater social stratification across broad categories of race, class, and gender. Rather, the authors focused on understanding how modern identities and postmodern ideologies converge and, thus, for whom charter school reform is "working," under what conditions, and on whose terms.
In His Prime: Dirk Jan Struik Reflects on 103 Years of Mathematical and Political Activities
Authors: Powell Arthur , Frankenstein Marilyn
Published: May 2015

In this interview, Arthur B. Powell and Marilyn Frankenstein elicit a perspective on the importance of teacher-student relationships for academic, social, and political learning through the voice of mathematician and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Emeritus Dirk Jan Struik, who was 103 years old at the time of the interview. Through his words, we gain insights into European schooling from the end of the 1800s to the present, and into the intellectual and political life in the early part of this century. We learn about the impact of McCarthyism on intellectual freedom in the United States and about the importance of ethnomathematics from a man who not only lived through these times, but who also became an active political intellectual during this period of history. In this context, Struik discusses his intellectual, academic, and political trajectories, relating stories of his life as a student, teacher, mentor, colleague, professor, political activist, and Marxist intellectual.
Symposium: "Habits of Thought and Work": The Disciplines and Qualitative Research
Authors: Page Reba , Spindler George , Hammond Lorie , Heath Shirley Brice , Metz Mary Haywood , Rogers Annie , Lampert Magdalene
Published: May 2015

As George Marcus notes in Ethnography through Thick and Thin, the academic disciplines are built on particular "habits of thought and work."1 While Marcus was referring specifically to anthropology, the same can be said of other disciplines: each has its own epistemology, conventions, and sets of questions.

Among the many disciplines influencing the study of education are anthropology, pedagogy, linguistics, psychology, and sociology. Each has brought rich perspectives and methodologies, including qualitative methodologies, to educational research. Their intersection and their entry into the mainstream of educational research at varying points can lead to a complex and ongoing conversation about the past, the present, and the future of qualitative research on education.

Our goal as editors of this Symposium is to encourage and spark that conversation among those who read, write, and do qualitative research. To do so, we posed the following questions to five researchers, each of whom represents one of the above disciplines: What has been your field's most important contribution to the general area of qualitative research? How has your field influenced the methods of qualitative research? How has your field influenced the central questions of qualitative research? Because qualitative research is an evolving area, how do you see that evolution occurring? Where do you see that process of change leading? We also invited a response to these articles, which reaches across the disciplines with a conversation we hope continues among you, the readers, writers, and doers of qualitative research.
HER Classic Reprint - Student Social Class and Teacher Expectations: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Ghetto Education
Authors: Rist Ray
Published: May 2015

In 1970 the Harvard Educational Review published an article by Ray Rist that described how, for the one class of children he observed, their public school not only mirrored the class system of the larger society but also actively contributed to maintaining it. Now, thirty years later, the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review has decided to reprint this article as part of the HER Classics Series. We hope that by reacquainting readers with this article, and by introducing it to new readers, we can encourage all of us to think about the work that remains in creating a just and equitable educational experience for all children.

Many studies have shown that academic achievement is highly correlated with social class. Few, however, have attempted to explain exactly how the school helps to reinforce the class structure of the society. In this article, Dr. Rist reports the results of an observational study of one class of ghetto children during their kindergarten, first- and second-grade years. He shows how the kindergarten teacher placed the children in reading groups which reflected the social class composition of the class, and how these groups persisted throughout the first several years of elementary school. The way in which the teacher behaved toward the different groups became an important influence on the children's achievement. Dr. Rist concludes by examining the relationship between the "caste" system of the classroom and the class system of the larger society.
The Thing Never Speaks for Itself: Lacan and the Pedagogical Politics of Clarity
Authors: Aoki Douglas Sadao
Published: May 2015

In this article, Douglas Sadao Aoki argues that teaching conceived as the translation of complex materials into plain language is actually a refusal to teach. He challenges the commonsensical conviction that good teaching, like good writing, makes its meaning clear and accessible — a thing that speaks for itself. The authority of that conviction, he shows, has elevated the desire for clarity into an institutional demand. Yet, like many other commonsensical convictions and institutional demands, teaching framed by clarity is suspect in its politics and radical in its limitations. Aoki uses the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, which reveals the suspect exclusionary practices of those pedagogical politics, to show that the love of clear writing turns out to be a hatred of language, a hatred that motivates a refusal to teach. Aoki suggests that the crucial recognition that neither teaching nor language ever speaks for itself is what gives us the chance to refuse the refusal to teach.
American Indian Geographies of Identity and Power: At the Crossroads of Indígena and Mestizaje
Authors: Grande Sandy Marie Anglas
Published: May 2015

In this article, Sandy Marie Anglás Grande outlines the tensions between American Indian epistemology and critical pedagogy. She asserts that the deep structures of critical pedagogy fail to consider an Indigenous perspective. In arguing that American Indian scholars should reshape and reimagine critical pedagogy, Grande also calls for critical theorists to reexamine their epistemological foundations. Looking through these two lenses of critical theory and Indigenous scholarship, Grande begins to redefine concepts of democracy, identity, and social justice.
Voices Inside Schools - A Charter to Educate or a Mandate to Train: Conflicts between Theory and Practice
Authors: Hadden Johanna Elena
Published: May 2015

In this article, Johanna Elena Hadden distinguishes between two very different ideas of teaching — a charter to educate and a mandate to train — through a retelling of her experience as a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher in Utah. On the one hand, Hadden asserts, some critical theorists suggest that teachers should be given a charter to educate in which they are encouraged, and expected, to challenge normative practices and policy. On the other hand, teachers are routinely given a mandate to train that requires them to follow administrative dictates without question or challenge. Hadden contends that by establishing and supporting a mandate to train, many school environments constrain teachers — through overt and hidden forms of control — from thinking and acting independently and, in turn, from training students to think and act independently. She further argues that the pressures created by administrative expectations frustrate teachers who may ultimately be forced to choose between compliance with pedagogical and curricular standards and leaving their teaching position.
Do Teacher Unions Hinder Educational Performance?: Lessons Learned from State SAT and ACT Scores
Authors: Carini Robert , Powell Brian , Steelman Lala Carr
Published: May 2015

Teacher unions have been demonized by their critics and canonized by their advocates for years, but the actual relationship between teacher unions and educational performance has received very little empirical scrutiny. In this article, Lala Carr Steelman, Brian Powell, and Robert Carini examine the question, "Do teacher unions hinder educational performance?" Focusing on two of the best-known standardized tests, the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT), the authors examine whether interstate variation in standardized test performance is negatively linked to interstate variation in teacher unions. They find a significant and positive relationship: that is, the presence of teacher unions appears to be linked to stronger state performance on these exams. These findings challenge the position that teacher unions depress student academic performance, and in so doing invite further empirical scholarship on this topic from a range of academic disciplines.
The Value of Hard Work: Lessons on Parent Involvement from an (Im)migrant Household
Authors: Lopez Gerardo
Published: May 2015

In this article, Gerardo López expands the concept of "parent involvement" by illustrating ways that parents are involved in their children's educational development that lie outside of traditional school-related models. Rather than viewing involvement as the enactment of specific scripted school activities, López describes how the Padillas, an (im)migrant family, understood involvement as a means of instilling in their children the value of education through the medium of hard work, and viewed taking their children to work as a form of involvement. López argues that, while exposing their children to their hard work in the fields, the Padilla parents were simultaneously teaching them three important, "real-life" lessons: 1) to become acquainted with the type of work they do; 2) to recognize that this work is difficult, strenuous, and without adequate compensation; and 3) to realize that without an education they may end up working in a similar type of job. These findings not only challenge discursive/hegemonic understandings of parent involvement, but also open up new avenues for research and practice. (pp. 416–437)
Borders/Fronteras: Immigrant Students' Worlds in Art
Authors: Shreefter Robert
Published: May 2015

In my work as an artist and a writer-in-residence in a number of public schools in Wake and Durham counties in North Carolina, I was struck by changing school demographics and culture. These schools — which had been made up almost exclusively of Black and White students—were experiencing a growing population of immigrant children, mostly children of migrant workers from Mexico, whose families were choosing to settle permanently in the area.
Rethinking the Digital Divide
Authors: Light Jennifer
Published: May 2015

The term digital divide entered the American vocabulary in the mid-1990s to refer to unequal access to information technology. However, public debate has addressed the digital divide as a technical issue rather than as a reflection of broader social problems. In this article, Jennifer Light critically analyzes how access to technology is constructed as a social problem and examines the particular assumptions about technology and inequality that frame the debate. Drawing on historical examples, Light examines why hopes that technology would improve society have often not been fulfilled. The author examines the striking asymmetries between the current and earlier debates about the relationship between technology and society. She invites us to consider the different ways in which the problem of access to technology has been constructed, and suggests that these differences may generate ways to enrich the current debate and begin a conversation about more robust solutions. (pp. 710–734)
Eliminating Ableism in Education
Authors: Hehir Thomas
Published: May 2015

In this article, Thomas Hehir defines ableism as "the devaluation of disability" that"results in societal attitudes that uncritically assert that it is better for a child to walk than roll, speak than sign, read print than read Braille, spell independently than use a spell-check, and hang out with nondisabled kids as opposed to other disabled kids." Hehir highlights ableist practices through a discussion of the history of and research pertaining to the education of deaf students, students who are blind or visually impaired, and students with learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia. He asserts that "the pervasiveness of . . . ableist assumptions in the education of children with disabilities not only reinforces prevailing prejudices against disability but may very well contribute to low levels of educational attainment and employment."In conclusion, Hehir offers six detailed proposals for beginning to address and overturn ableist practices. Throughout this article, Hehir draws on his personal experiences as former director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs, Associate Superintendent for the Chicago Public Schools, and Director of Special Education in the Boston Public Schools.
"Not Bread Alone": Clandestine Schooling and Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust
Authors: Kardos Susan
Published: May 2015

In this article, Susan Kardos speaks to the importance of education by looking at the forms and purposes of clandestine schooling in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Building on archival evidence and survivor accounts, Kardos recreates the moving spirit and multiple endeavors of schooling that prevailed in the Ghetto. Despite horrific conditions and great danger, individuals and organizations within the Ghetto devoted themselves to ensuring that educational activities would continue. According to Kardos, schooling became a form of resistance against Nazi attempts to eradicate the Jews and their culture. She argues that schooling was oriented simultaneously to the past, present, and future: to the past by defying cultural and historical annihilation; to the present by providing a sense of normalcy that helped Jews survive their daily struggles in the Ghetto; and to the future by providing a sense of hope for the Ghetto inhabitants. Kardos unearths this heroic and inspiring historical episode to illustrate the importance of schooling as a means of survival and resistance by people who would not allow themselves to be erased.
Voices Inside Schools
Authors: Rodgers Carol
Published: May 2015

In this article, Carol Rodgers describes a four-phase reflective cycle that she uses in her professional development work with teachers. Drawing on the work of Dewey,Hawkins, Carini, and Seidel, Rodgers explores the roles of presence, description,analysis, and experimentation in helping groups of teachers slow down and attend to student learning in more rich and nuanced ways. She also encourages teachers to solicit structured feedback from their students so they can begin to distinguish between what they think they are teaching and what students are actually learning. Ultimately, Rodgers argues that supportive and disciplined reflective communities of teachers can help teachers understand that their students' learning is central,and that their own teaching is subordinate to and in service of that goal.
Buying Homes, Buying Schools: School Choice and the Social Construction of School Quality
Authors: Holme Jennifer Jellison
Published: May 2015

In this article, Jennifer Jellison Holme explores how parents who can afford to buy homes in areas known "for the schools" approach school choice in an effort to illuminate how the "unofficial" choice market works. Using qualitative methods, Holme finds that the beliefs that inform the choices of such parents are mediated by status ideologies that emphasize race and class. She concludes that school choice policies alone will not level the playing field for lower-status parents, as choice advocates often suggest.
Complexity, Accountability, and School Improvement
Authors: O'Day Jennifer
Published: May 2015

In this article, Jennifer O'Day builds on her earlier work defining and examining the standards-based reform movement in the United States. Here, O'Day explores accountability mechanisms currently associated with standards-based reform efforts that "take the school as the unit of accountability and seek to improve student learning by improving the functioning of the school organization." She examines such accountability mechanisms using the theoretical framework of complexity theory and focuses on how information travels through complex systems, with the understanding that information, its existence and usage, is key to improving schools. Drawing on work conducted with researchers at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education(CPRE), she contrasts the Chicago Public Schools' outcomes-based bureaucratic accountability approach with the combination of administrative and professional accountability found in the Baltimore City Schools. She argues that the combination of administrative and professional accountability presents a much more promising approach for implementing lasting and meaningful school reform.
Democracy and Education: The Missing Link May Be Ours
Authors: Willinsky John
Published: May 2015

In this article, John Willinsky calls on educational researchers to consider participating in scholarly publishing experiments that leverage information technologies. Willinsky argues that publishing systems that provide greater public access to educational research are likely to help us to better understand and extend Dewey's democratic theory of education while promoting a more deliberative democratic state. Through this appeal, researchers can expand education's role within democracy by increasing the impact educational research has on practice and by providing an alternative perspective to the media's coverage of educational issues. The author challenges researchers to participate in this democratic experiment by thinking of their work as a way to expand global opportunities for edification and deliberation within the public sphere of this information economy.
Extracurricular School Activities: The Good, the Bad, and the Nonlinear
Authors: Marsh Herbert , Kleitman Sabina
Published: May 2015

In this article, Herbert W. Marsh and Sabina Kleitman examine the effects of participation in extracurricular school activities (ESAs) on grade-twelve and postsecondary outcomes (e.g., school grades, coursework selection, homework, educational and occupational aspirations, self-esteem, freedom from substance abuse,number of university applications, subsequent college enrollment, and highest educational level). Their analyses are grounded in three theoretical models: the threshold model, the identification/commitment model, and the social inequality gap reduction model. They find that, consistent with the threshold model predictions, there were some small nonlinear ESA effects — monotonic increases over most of the ESA range, but diminishing returns for extremely high levels of ESA. Consistent with identification/commitment model predictions, school-based ESAs were more beneficial than out-of-school activities, and the most beneficial ESAs included both nonacademic(sports, student government, school publications, and performing arts)and academic activities. Finally, consistent with the social inequality gap reduction model predictions (as well as the identification/commitment model), ESAs benefited socioeconomically disadvantaged students as much or more than advantaged students. In summary, the authors' findings support the conclusion that ESAs foster school identification/commitment that benefits diverse academic outcomes, particularly for socioeconomically disadvantaged students who are least well served by the traditional educational curriculum.
Correcting the SAT's Ethnic and Social-Class Bias: A Method for Reestimating SAT Scores
Authors: FREEDLE ROY
Published: May 2015

The SAT has been shown to be both culturally and statistically biased against African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. In this article, Roy Freedle argues for a corrective scoring method, the Revised-SAT (R-SAT), to address the nonrandom ethnic test bias patterns found in the SAT. The R-SAT, which scores only the "hard" items on the test, is shown to reduce the mean-score difference between African American and White SAT test-takers by one-third. Further, the R-SAT shows an increase in SAT verbal scores by as much as 200 to 300 points for individual minority test-takers. Freedle also argues that low-income White examinees benefit from the revised score as well. He develops several cognitive and cultural hypotheses to explain the ethnic regularities in responses to various test items. Freedle concludes by offering some predictions as to how ethnic populations are likely to be affected by the new designs currently being proposed for the SAT, and describes the implications of the R-SAT for increasing minority admission to select colleges.
Constructing Women's Status: Policy Discourses of University Women's Commission Reports
Authors: ALLAN ELIZABETH
Published: May 2015

In this article, Elizabeth J. Allan explores how discourses embedded in university women's commission reports position women as victims, outsiders to the structure and culture of the institution, and as being in need of professional development. Using policy discourse analysis, Allan examines discourses generated by university women's commissions, which are policy-focused groups advocating for gender equity in higher education. Allan analyzes the text of twenty-one commission reports issued at four research universities from 1971 to 1996, and illustrates how dominant discourses of femininity, access, and professionalism contribute to constructing women's status in complex ways and may have the unintended consequence of undermining the achievement of gender equity. She also explores how a caregiving discourse is drawn on and challenges institutional norms of the academic workplace. Allan provides four suggestions for improving university women's commissions, including promoting awareness of policy as discourse; analyzing frameworks and assumptions of policy reports; examining implications of policy recommendations; and looking at how policy discourses construct images of women.
The Use of Argumentation in Haitian Creole Science Classrooms
Authors: HUDICOURT-BARNES JOSIANE
Published: May 2015

In this article, Josiane Hudicourt-Barnes critiques the claim that Haitian children cannot actively engage in science classrooms. Drawing from her own work as a bilingual science teacher and educational researcher, Hudicourt-Barnes highlights the Haitian cultural practice of bay odyans, a form of discourse similiar to scientific argumentation, as a potential building block for engaging Haitian children in scientific inquiry. She offers specific examples of Haitian students recreating bay odyans in science classrooms, and suggests that these students have a cultural experience that predisposes them to scientific inquiry. In making links between culture, scientific inquiry, and pedagogy, Hudicourt-Barnes seeks to broaden the research perspective on Haitian students and discourage the use of research paradigms that ignore the impact of culture in the classroom.
Voices Inside Schools: Skinning the Drum: Teaching about Diversity as "Other"
Authors: LAUBSCHER LESWIN , POWELL SUSAN
Published: May 2015

In this article, Leswin Laubscher and Susan Powell explore their experiences as professors who teach about difference and are themselves considered "different" or "other." The authors describe how society and their students perceive them, and illustrate the unique pedagogical opportunities that their course offers them and their primarily White, able-bodied, and socioeconomically advantaged students to struggle not only with the theory, but also with the experience, of "difference." The authors proceed from the premise that the professor marked by difference, and who teaches about that difference, is not just teaching an academic course but is also articulating his or her life experience and self. The authors emphasize how difference is embodied in the classroom, how students respond to this difference, and the costs and benefits to educators marked as other who strive to facilitate students' self-exploration, growth, and commitment to social justice.
Foot Soldiers of Modernity: The Dialectics of Cultural Consumption and the 21st-Century School
Authors: WILLIS PAUL
Published: May 2015

Drawing on more than twenty-five years of experience researching and theorizing about culture, youth, and society, Paul Willis presents a broad theoretical argument that positions the school as the site and instrument through which cultural responses to material conditions are played out. Willis distinguishes between three "waves of modernization" that stem from radical shifts in technological and material production and that are accompanied by specific cultural forms, particularly forms of youth culture. He argues that it is from these specific cultural forms that an effective struggle for social change can emerge.
Open Mics and Open Minds: Spoken Word Poetry in African Diaspora Participatory Literacy Communities
Authors: FISHER MAISHA
Published: May 2015

In this article, Maisha T. Fisher explores the resurgence of spoken word and poetry venues in the Black community and their salience as venues for cultural identity development and literacy practice. Calling them African Diaspora Participatory Literacy Communities (ADPLCs), Fisher describes two open mic poetry settings that recall the feeling and communal centrality of jazz clubs and literary circles of the Harlem Renaissance. These ADPLCs are predominantly created and supported by people of African descent who actively participate in literacy-centered events outside of school and work settings. Through ethnographic research, Fisher explores how these venues function as literacy centers in two communities. Fisher discusses the cultural practices that underlie the organization and orchestration of these events, explores what inspires and motivates participants, and examines how these venues operate as sites for multiple literacies.
Afterword: Contesting Culture: Identity and Curriculum Dilemmas in the Age of Globalization, Postcolonialism, and Multiplicity
Authors: MCCARTHY CAMERON , GIARDINA MICHAEL , HAREWOOD SUSAN JUANITA , PARK JIN-KYUNG
Published: May 2015

In this closing article, Cameron McCarthy, Michael Giardina, Susan Harewood, and Jin-Kyung Park draw on the preceding articles of this Special Issue to develop the argument that educators need to pay special attention to developments associated with human immigration, cultural globalization, and the rapid migration of cultural and economic capital and electronically mediated images. In the plurality of social and cultural sites of practice reflected in these articles, McCarthy et al. find implications for pedagogical practice and the educational preparation of school youth. They specifically address questions concerning the reproduction of culture, identity, and community as they relate to contemporary educational debates. Given this range of cultural practices, how should we address the topic of culture and identity in the organization of school knowledge? McCarthy et al. suggest that pedagogical interventions that privilege popular culture as a site of legitimate critique can open up new avenues of exploration and investigation to a radical, progressive democracy premised on the basic values of love, care, and equality for all humanity.
Media Education and the End of the Critical Consumer
Authors: BUCKINGHAM DAVID
Published: May 2015

In this article, David Buckingham addresses the challenges media educators face in dealing with postmodern media culture. Buckingham begins by outlining the nature of contemporary developments in children's media environments and how these relate to broader changes in their social status. He argues that these developments represent a fundamental challenge to the modernist project of media education, with its emphasis on the production of critical consumers. Buckingham then moves on to draw on his own empirical studies of media classrooms in the United Kingdom. He deals first with the issue of identity formation and the implications of current changes for teaching about representation. Second, he considers the role of play, particularly in relation to students' media production, and the potential limitations of a more ludic, or playful, approach. Buckingham then addresses the difficulties posed by students' use of parody, both ideologically and in terms of learning. Finally, he considers a more comprehensively postmodern approach to media pedagogy. Ultimately, Buckingham suggests that the modernist project cannot simply be abandoned by media educators, but that it does need to be comprehensively reconsidered in light of contemporary developments.
"Welcome to the Jam": Popular Culture, School Literacy, and the Making of Childhoods
Authors: DYSON ANNE HAAS
Published: May 2015

In this ethnographic study of a group of African American first graders, Anne Haas Dyson illustrates the textual processes — the deliberate manipulation of popular cultural material — involved in the children's shared practices as playful children and good friends. These same processes shaped the ways the children made sense of and began to participate in school literacy. The observed children did not approach official literacy activities in their classroom as though they had nothing to do with their own childhoods. They made use of familiar media-influenced practices and symbolic material to take intellectual and social action in the official school world. Dyson offers a fresh perspective on children's experiences with popular media, emphasizing that they are an integral aspect of contemporary childhoods, not an external threat. Moreover, she presents an alternative view of the pathways and mechanisms through which children enter into school literacy practices, one that illuminates how children build from the very social and symbolic stuff of their own childhoods.
Merchants of Death: Media Violence and American Empire
Authors: TREND DAVID
Published: May 2015

In this article, David Trend illuminates the centrality of violent narratives in U.S. popular culture. He describes the ubiquity of violent imagery and the popular discourse it has generated. Trend argues that research on media violence has created a large academic subculture that has done little to advance our understanding of who is watching violent media and why. He draws on multidisciplinary sources and calls for scholars to collaborate across fields to reframe the discussion. He concludes that the mass production of violent media may be wasting an enormous resource that might otherwise be used for tremendous public good.
The Educational Science and Scientifically Based Instruction We Need: Lessons from Reading Research and Policymaking
Authors: PRESSLEY MICHAEL , DUKE NELL , BOLING ERICA
Published: May 2015

In this article, Michael Pressley, Nell Duke, and Erica Boling discuss the impact various scientific approaches have on early reading instruction research. The authors call for a second generation of scientifically based reading instruction that goes beyond the experimental, quasi-experimental, correlations, and qualitative designs currently informing public policy. The authors argue that the federal government's position on what constitutes "scientific research" embraces only a narrow range of potentially effective instruction. If this definition is expanded, educational policy, including for early reading instruction, can be much more successful.
Further Comment: Freedle's Table 2: Fact or Fiction?
Authors: Dorans Neil
Published: May 2015

In this section, Neil Dorans, from the Educational Testing Service, responds to Roy O. Freedle's article, "Correcting the SAT's Ethnic and Social-Class Bias: A Method of Reestimating SAT Scores," published in the Spring 2003 issue of this journal.