bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reverence in Classroom Teaching
Authors: Garrison Jim , Rud A. G.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Our article develops insights from Paul Woodruff's book, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2001), to discuss reverence in teaching. We show how reverence is both a cardinal and a forgotten virtue by situating it within the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics, which involves traits of character as embodied predispositions to act in certain ways in concrete contexts. Virtue ethics sometimes conflicts with abstract, rule-governed ethics, much as the ethics of care does. Virtue ethics appeals to emotional conviction in ways that rule-governed ethics does not. This article looks specifically at the emotions of shame and respect that are associated with reverence for the high ideals that may bind together an otherwise diverse, even diverging, schooling community.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of this article is to understand spiritual dimensions of teaching by elucidating the cardinal and forgotten virtue of reverence. Reverence has a power beyond a typical understanding of it as something religious. The article shows reverence in a wider context that does not diminish its spiritual connotations, but rather shows its importance and relevance to teaching in today's classrooms. The study considers how the virtue of reverence is supported by appropriate classroom ritual and ceremony and discusses several examples of reverence and irreverence in classroom teaching.

Research Design

Philosophical analysis combined with qualitative case study analyses as illustrations.

Conclusions/Recommendations

To be reverent is to realize that we as humans are limited and imperfect, and the proper reaction to this state is humility, awe, and wonder. In subsequent articles, we will examine reverence in educational leadership and in a school's community. Our goal in this article and those to follow is to restore reverence to its rightful place in the ordinary daily activities of teachers in relation to administrators, students, and parents in school and in the community.
The Persistence of Presentism
Authors: Hargreaves Andy , Shirley Dennis
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This study draws on the voluminous research on teachers’ workplace orientations and especially on Dan Lortie's documentation of conservatism, individualism, and presentism among teachers.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study investigated a school reform network of over 300 secondary schools entitled Raising Achievement Transforming Learning (RATL) to explore the role of the network's interventions in increasing or diminishing presentism.

Setting

England.

Population/Participants/Subjects

Quantitative performance data were analyzed for all 300 schools. Site visits were made to 10 RATL schools in which educational administrators and teachers were interviewed individually and in focus groups. Additional phone interviews were conducted with administrators in 14 RATL schools.

Intervention/Program/Practice

RATL provided a combination of interventions and supports for schools in the network, including data analysis and capacity enhancement; partnering mentor schools with low-performing schools; regional conferences; a Web portal for schools in the project; and a menu of short-, medium-, and long-term strategies for change.

Research Design

Qualitative interviews and focus groups of educators in RATL schools, along with secondary analysis of pupil performance data.

Conclusions/Recommendations

In Dan Lortie's seminal research on teachers’ workplace orientations, he identified “presentism,” or short-term thinking, with conservatism and individualism. This research indicates that in the RATL project, individualism among teachers diminished, but this did not diminish either conservatism or presentism. The research identifies three kinds of presentism—endemic, adaptive, and addictive—that have amplified educational conservatism while altering its nature to fit the current culture and political economy of fast capitalism.
An Exploration in Mindfulness: Classroom of Detectives
Authors: Reid Elizabeth , Miller Lisa
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This exploratory feasibility study assesses a mindfulness program in a fifth-grade classroom. The research discussed herein was built on a previous study targeted at a specific population of children within the classroom and assessed the benefits of teaching mindfulness meditation to 7- and 8-year-old children who met criteria for generalized anxiety disorder.

Purpose/Focus of Study

The primary aim of this exploratory study was to investigate the feasibility of a mindfulness training workbook written for young children. The mindfulness workbook uses a fictional character in a storybook format. The goal was to help children understand and access their own mindfulness within the classroom setting without instruction by teachers and without using meditation techniques.

Setting

The study was conducted in a school-based setting.

Participants

Participants were 24 children of low socioeconomic status (SES) from urban areas in Fairfield County, Connecticut, who attended a summer program. The subjects described were of a nonclinical population, and all were rising fifth graders.

Research Design

The predominantly qualitative study was rooted in an action research design method, which allowed for program adjustments to be made as needed.

Findings

The mindfulness program was feasible, and overall improvements in attention were evident.

Conclusions

The children who needed the most help at the onset of the program showed the greatest improvement by the end.
A “More General Crisis”: Hannah Arendt, World-Alienation, and the Challenges of Teaching for the World As It Is
Authors: Levinson Natasha
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article is part of a special issue on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Hannah Arendt's essay, “The Crisis in Education” and her book The Human Condition. Despite the proliferation of books and articles on Arendt's work since the mid-90s, “The Crisis in Education” does not figure all that much in writing on Arendt. It is important to situate the arguments that Arendt makes rather cryptically in this essay in the broader context of her work. Doing so not only explains the problematic in more detail but also complicates Arendt's exhortation to teachers to take responsibility for the world. How can we expect teachers to do so under the more general conditions of world-alienation to which we are all susceptible and for which we have little in the way of conceptual guidance?

Purpose/Focus of Study

My article explains the shift in thinking about the purpose of education from being primarily about and for “the world” to being for “life.” Arendt holds progressive educational ideas responsible for this shift, although she concedes that in so doing, the progressives were simply reflecting the “prejudices” of the modern age. My article explains what these prejudices are, how they have contributed to world-alienation, and the difficulties we are likely to encounter if we think that a simple “return” to teaching “content knowledge” rather than “life skills” will solve the problem.

Research Design

This article is a philosophical analysis.

Conclusions/Recommendations

If world-alienation is the fundamental problem, then the educational solution would seem to be to make education more worldly. However, my reading of Arendt's critique of the most worldly disciplines—political philosophy, history, economics, and the behavioral sciences—shows that each of these disciplines has contributed to the phenomenon of world-alienation. This suggests that simply returning to an education based on “the disciplines” (or “content knowledge,” in contemporary educational discourse) will not be all that helpful unless the “return” to the disciplines brings the problem of world-alienation to the fore and shows how each of these disciplines has, at times, contributed to this phenomenon.
School Composition and Contextual Effects on Student Outcomes
Authors: Willms J. Douglas
Published: November 2021

Background

Findings from several international studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between literacy skills and socioeconomic status (SES). Research has also shown that schools differ considerably in their student outcomes, even after taking account of students’ ability and family background. The context or learning environment of a school or classroom is an important determinant of the rate at which children learn. The literature has traditionally used school composition, particularly the mean SES of the school, as a proxy for context.

Focus of Study

This study examines the relationships among school composition, several aspects of school and classroom context, and students’ literacy skills in science.

Population

The study uses data from the 2006 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) for 57 countries. PISA assesses the knowledge and life skills of 15-year-old youth as they approach the end of their compulsory period of schooling.

Research Design

Secondary analyses of the data describe the socioeconomic gradient (the relationship between a student outcome and SES) and the school profile (the relationship between average school performance and school composition) using data for the United States as an example. The analyses demonstrate two important relationships between school composition and the socioeconomic gradient and distinguish between two types of segregation, referred to as horizontal and vertical segregation. The analyses discern the extent to which school composition and classroom and school context separately and jointly account for variation in student achievement.

Findings

The results show that school composition is correlated with several aspects of school and classroom context and that these factors are associated with students’ science literacy. Literacy performance is associated with the extent to which school systems are segregated “horizontally,” based on the distribution among schools of students from differing SES backgrounds, and “vertically,” due mainly to mechanisms that select students into different types of schools.

Conclusions

An understanding of socioeconomic gradients and school profiles for a school system is critical to discerning whether reform efforts should be directed mainly at improving the performance of particular schools or at striving to alter policies and practices within all schools. Both horizontal and vertical segregation are associated with lower student outcomes; therefore, we require a better understanding of the mechanisms through which students are allocated to schools. When the correlation of school composition with a particular contextual variable is strong, it calls for policies aimed at increasing inclusion or differentially allocating school and classroom resources among schools serving students of differing status.
A Crisis of Authority in Predominantly Black Schools?
Authors: Kelly Sean
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Black students are no less engaged or more disruptive than other students of similar achievement levels and socioeconomic status. However, because Black students are more likely to have disadvantaged family backgrounds and lower levels of achievement, segregation concentrates the risk factors for problem behavior in predominantly Black schools. As a result of the behavioral climate in predominantly Black schools, teachers may rely on instructional methods that facilitate an orderly classroom and minimize the negative effects of disruptions, possibly resulting in an instructional approach that is less engaging for students in those classrooms. I rely on Metz's typology of developmental versus incorporative instruction and research on classroom discourse to identify instruction that may negatively impact student engagement.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

First, how do reports of problem behavior from teachers and administrators in predominantly Black schools differ from those in integrated and non-Black schools? Second, how does the prevalence of developmental instruction vary across schools with different racial compositions?

Research Design

This study uses the 2003–2004 Schools and Staffing Survey data to analyze reports of problem behavior from teachers and administrators. Logistic regression models are used to provide estimates of the prevalence of behavioral problems, adjusting for academic performance and socioeconomic status of the student body. The Chicago School Study (CSS) and the Partnership for Literacy Study (Partnership) data are then used to investigate the prevalence of developmental instruction. The CSS data contain student and teacher reports of the incorporation of student ideas into instruction. In the Partnership data, time summary statistics of observational records of teachers’ instructional activities (e.g., lecture, discussion, seatwork) and question property statistics from a coding of classroom discourse are presented.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Consistent with prior research, teachers are much more likely to report incidences of problem behavior in predominantly Black schools. Consequently, the instructional environment in predominantly Black schools and classrooms is tailored somewhat to reduce classroom disruptions and maintain an orderly environment. Specifically, the result is less interactive discourse and more seatwork. However, the differences in teachers’ instructional approach are relatively modest; there is no “crisis” of authority. Further research is needed on the effects of segregation on social relations in schools and how classroom instruction is affected.
Cracking the Code of Electronic Games: Some Lessons for Educators
Authors: Alexander Gadi , Eaton Isabelle , Egan Kieran
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Students’ ready engagement in electronic games and the relative ease with which they sometimes learn complex rules have intrigued some educators and learning researchers. There has been growing interest in studying electronic gaming with the aim of trying to work out how learning principles that are evident in games can be harnessed to make everyday academic learning more engaging and productive. Many studies of students’ learning while gaming have yielded recommendations for teaching and learning in regular classrooms.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus

The intent of this work is to describe various ways in which students’ ready engagement in, and quick learning when playing, electronic games have been assumed to provide useful guidance to educators. This goal is pursued by means of analysis of the relevant research and the prescriptions for classroom teaching and learning that have emerged it. Close critical examination of these attempts to infer educational practices from electronic gaming yields three general strategies that have been pursued. The focus of this study has been on evaluating the relative value of these three general strategies.

Research Design

This is an analytic article that provides a description of an array of attempts to derive educational principles from the perceived success of students’ learning while they are engaged in electronic games, a meta-analytic organization of these attempts into three general categories, and an evaluation of each of these categories’ success in contributing to education or failure to do so.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The analysis leads to the conclusion that the three main approaches to understanding the connection between gaming and education have included, first, seeing games as teaching desirable learning skills through the simple act of playing; second, a focus on the integration of curriculum content into games; and, third, an effort to abstract learning principles embedded in electronic games and applying these to educational content. Close examination of each of these three approaches in turn leads to the conclusion that the third approach is the one that holds the greatest potential value for educational practice.
Gendered Behavior Patterns in School Board Governance
Authors: Mountford Meredith , Brunner C. Cryss
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Educational leadership literature lacks research focused on how gender influences decision making, in particular at the highest level of school governance, the school board table. Consequently, whether gender makes a difference during decision making at the school board table has yet to be determined.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article examines the influence of gender during decision making at the school board table as related to board members’ perceived vocal space/influence and perceptions from others (board colleagues and superintendents) about board members’ vocal space/influence. Findings from one of the few studies of women school board members and some of the published literature on women superintendents are used to support discussions and to increase insight into how gender dynamics may play out at the school board table.

Research Design

This qualitative study is a secondary analysis of a larger study (Mountford, 2001) that investigated many factors related to board member decision-making styles, such as motivation for board service and conceptions of power.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The article concludes with a discussion of how decisions are impacted by gender dynamics prior to and during decision making and further suggests ideas for school board training and educational leadership programs of ways in which programs can be improved to address gender issues impacting decision making at the board table.
Film as Identity Exploration: A Multimodal Analysis of Youth-Produced Films
Authors: Halverson Erica Rosenfeld
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Researchers have begun to document and understand the work youth do as they compose in multiple media including video games, online virtual worlds, participatory fan cultural practices, and in the digital media arts. However, we lack mechanisms for analyzing the products, especially when it comes to understanding the relationship between storytelling and identity.

Objective

In this article, I bring together prior research on youth-produced media, social semiotic analysis frameworks for analyzing these products and the formal analysis of films to construct an analytic framework for understanding youth-produced films as spaces for identity construction and representation.

Research design

The research reported on in this article is the design and illustration of an analytic framework for understanding how youth construct and represent their identities through the films they make. The framework design begins with Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) work on the analysis of visual design as a set of semiotic resources for describing how we make meaning with multimodal texts. However, this work does little to depict how the specific tools of film both cinematic (e.g., editing, cinematography) and filmic (music, action) (Burn & Parker, 2003) are used to construct and communicate identities. Therefore, I turn to film theory to develop a coding scheme that can assist in the meaningful interpretation of the phases and transitions of youth-produced films. I then illustrate this framework in action by analyzing one youth-produced film, Rules of Engagement, as a multimodal product of identity.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This analysis demonstrates how films like Rules of Engagement display the construction of a viable social identity primarily through the interactions among filmic elements. Specifically it is in the transition spaces between phases of the film where youth actively insert their understanding of how to represent complex portraits of how they see themselves, how others see them, and how they fit into their communities. Analyzing the products of a rich, complex literacy practice is a critical way to make sense of how youth engage with issues of identity through the media they create. This is especially important for youth who feel marginalized in mainstream institutions and do not have opportunities to explore a positive sense of self in traditional institutional contexts. Understanding how the construction of multimodal representation supports identity development processes can help us to bring these new media literacy practices to youth who are most in need of alternative mechanisms for engaging in positive identity work.
Undergraduate Time Use and Academic Outcomes: Results from the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey 2006
Authors: Brint Steven , Cantwell Allison M.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Previous research has established the significance of academic study time on undergraduate students’ academic performance. The effects of other uses of time are, however, in dispute. Some researchers have argued that students involved in activities that require initiative and effort also perform better in class, while students who engage in mainly passive entertainments perform less well. Other researchers have argued that students who are connected to the campus through residence, work, or extracurricular activities perform better, while those who are separated perform less well.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of this study is to develop a theory-based framework for examining the academic consequences of student time and to test hypotheses drawn from this framework using survey data.

Research Design

The framework focuses on three dimensions of student time use: study/non-study, active/passive, and connecting/separating. The survey analysis is based on more than 6000 responses to the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES).

Findings/Results

Controlling for students’ socio-demographic backgrounds, previous academic achievements, and social psychological stressors, we find that study time is strongly connected to both academic conscientiousness and higher grade point averages. We find that “activating” uses of time, such as physical exercise and volunteering, are associated with higher levels of academic conscientiousness, but not directly to higher grade point averages. Time spent on “passive” entertainments show negative associations on academic conscientiousness. Uses of time that connect students to campus life showed relatively weak and inconsistent effects, as did uses of time that separate students from campus life. Off-campus work was an exception. It showed a strong net association with lower grade point averages.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our findings have implications for theory: They lead to a stronger focus on academic study time as the central key to positive academic outcomes, and a renewed focus on off-campus work as a major obstacle to positive academic outcomes. They suggest further that college and university administrators should find ways to “unplug” male students from their computer entertainments and to help minority students who need to work to find employment on campus.
Network Search: A New Way of Seeing the Education Knowledge Domain
Authors: Mcfarland Daniel , Klopfer Eric
Published: November 2021

Background

The educational knowledge domain may be understood as a system composed of multiple, co-evolving networks that reflect the form and content of a cultural field. This paper describes the educational knowledge domain as having a community structure (form) based in relations of production (authoring) and consumption (referencing), and a cognitive structure (content) based in relations of ideas and concepts.

Purpose

We propose developing an online interactive system whereby the vast array of available knowledge artifacts can be mined for information reflective of these networks, and which can be visualized, measured, and explored over time. We argue that the creation of such a system will benefit the field of education manifold: it will greatly enhance individual learning of online materials; create more efficient searches; open access to knowledge creation and consumption to a wider public; enable greater practitioner involvement; facilitate direct study of the educational knowledge domain; and identify various means towards accelerated innovation.

Design

Building on the ideas of online communities, network visualizations, e-commerce, and advanced search engines, Scholar Practitioner Information Networks for Education (SPINE) not only facilitates access to education information resources, but also allows the community to view multiple sources of information in a relational context. At the heart of SPINE are multiple sources of information (journal articles, case studies, reviews, etc.), reviews of information, and ratings of reviewers. Connecting these sources are advanced analyses of production and consumption, allowing unique insights into established fields.

Conclusion

We illustrate that such a system is being developed in piecemeal fashion within other disciplines and propose a means by which they can be synthesized into a multi-network, interactive system for the field of education.
Listening to Strangers: Classroom Discussion in Democratic Education
Authors: Parker Walter
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The literature on classroom discussion often undercuts itself by treating discussion only as an instructional method, confining its role to the instrumental. Although discussion does serve as an effective means to other curricular ends (teaching with discussion), the capable practice of discussion can also be considered a curriculum objective in its own right (teaching for discussion). The latter is justified on the grounds that listening and speaking to what Danielle Allen called “strangers” about powerful ideas and public problems is crucial to democratic citizen formation; indeed, it defines democracy, signaling a citizen's coming of age while at the same time creating the public sphere that democracy requires—a space where political argument and action flourish.

Purpose /Focus of Study

The author outlines a discursive approach to the cultivation of enlightened political engagement in schools. He argues that schools are the best available sites for this project because they have the key assets: diverse schoolmates (more or less), problems (both academic and social), “strangers” (schoolmates who are not friends or family), and curriculum and instruction (schools are intentionally educative places). Ambitious classroom discussion models—for example, seminars and deliberations—can mobilize these assets; but new habits, especially those that build equity and trust, are needed.

Setting

Two empirical cases of classroom discussion ground the argument in classroom practice. In one, high school students deliberate whether physician-assisted suicide should be legalized in their state. In the other, suburban middle school students conduct a seminar on Howard Fast's novel of the American revolution, April Morning.

Research Design

This is an analytic essay/argument.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Schools in societies with democratic ideals are obligated to cultivate enlightened and engaged citizens. Helping young people form the habits of listening to strangers, at that very public place called school, should advance this work.
Listening to a Challenging Perspective: The Role of Interruption
Authors: Haroutunian-Gordon Sophie
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Taking up an issue explored by John Dewey, Austin Sarat, and Walter Parker, as well as many others, I continue my study of the conditions under which people choose to listen to a perspective that challenges their own beliefs.

Research Question

In my book, Learning to Teach Through Discussion: The Art of Turning the Soul (2009), I present a case study that shows students and teachers learning to listen. The reader sees that as they engage in what I call “interpretive discussion”—that is, discussion about the meaning of texts—they become more eager to understand their meaning and to understand the ideas of others in the group. In some instances, people work to listen to ideas that challenge their own, rather than eschewing them. The present article continues my investigation into the conditions under which people try to listen to a challenging perspective and draws implications for the challenge of so doing for teachers.

Research Design

The research described in Learning to Teach Through Discussion moved me to examine a fictional case and assert five hypotheses about the conditions under which listening to a challenging perspective occurs. Then, I examined a nonfictional, introspective case that focused my attention on the second of the five hypotheses. Next, with Elizabeth Meadows and others, I studied two nonintrospective, nonfictional cases. These analyses helped to clarify four conditions that obtain at the point identified by the second hypothesis. Clarification of the four conditions enabled me to identify a challenge that teachers face in trying to help students and themselves listen to challenging perspectives.

Conclusions

The evidence that I have collected suggests that when one listens to a challenging view, it is because one is trying to resolve a question and seeks help in doing so. Then, one allows one's listening to be interrupted; that is, one stops trying to answer the initial question and starts trying to resolve a new question. The shift occurs because one hears, in the other's words, an idea that challenges a heretofore tacit belief. The listener then starts listening to determine whether the belief should be accepted or rejected. I argue that when teachers allow their listening to be interrupted by a challenging perspective, they open themselves to recognition of heretofore tacit beliefs, to new questions, and to new ideas about the resolution of those questions.
The Role of Psychological and Developmental Science in Efforts to Improve Teacher Quality
Authors: Rimm-Kaufman Sara E. , Hamre Bridget K.
Published: November 2021

Background

Theory, methods, and knowledge gained from years of study in psychological science and human development apply to the understanding and improvement of teacher quality and, ultimately, student achievement and social and emotional outcomes. With these applications, educational research has stronger potential to make more effective and systematic contributions to the improvement of teaching in American schools. This potential can be realized by linking the scientific study of psychology and teachers’ development (social, relational, psychological, and cognitive) to teachers’ classroom behaviors (the mechanisms and processes underlying quality) and student achievement of educational and social and emotional objectives (the outputs of quality). New funds of knowledge in developmental and psychological science can serve as a basis for future research on inputs into teacher quality.

Purpose

The present article advances an interdisciplinary perspective on the factors influencing teacher quality, specifically defined as teachers’ practices and their interactions with students that can be shown to relate to student achievement. The article (1) offers a view of teacher quality focused on teacher–child interactions that serve as explanatory mechanisms in predicting children's achievement; (2) introduces key principles of human adult development that offer insights to link developmental research on teachers to teacher quality and, ultimately, to student achievement and social and emotional outcomes; and (3) discusses two bodies of research from psychological science that illustrate the ways in which psychological principles and an overarching view of teachers as developing people may contribute to current debates about teacher quality.

Research Design

The article synthesizes research from the fields of education and psychology.

Conclusions

The article closes with recommendations for basic, developmentally oriented research on teacher quality and student achievement.
Policy, Technology, and Practice in Cyber Charter Schools: Framing the Issues
Authors: Ahn June
Published: November 2021

Background

Online learning in K-12 education has grown rapidly in the past decade. Cyber charter schools (CCSs) have been a particularly controversial form of online school, but there is very little scholarly examination of these new organizations. As CCSs expand, policymakers and stakeholders have a critical need to understand how to evolve the charter school policies that govern these new school forms.

Focus of Study

Through a three-site case study, this paper (1) explores what current charter policies govern CCSs and (2) outlines the practices in these schools that might illuminate future policy needs. Specifically, the findings highlight how cyber charters problematize existing charter school policies in the areas of authorizers and governance, teacher policy, and student achievement.

Research Design

The study presents an exploratory, comparative case study. The exploratory analyses illuminate implications for how policymakers understand governance, teacher policy, and the evaluation of student achievement in cyber charters. The comparative case design also highlights how different state policy contexts might influence the practices of CCSs.

Conclusions

Cyber charter schools introduce new ways of delivering public schooling. The study shows how state leadership is vital to coordinate student enrollment across geographic boundaries, funding mechanisms, and conflicts between CCSs and established stakeholders. This paper also illuminates how teaching and learning practices differ in an online environment and introduces questions of teacher preparation and professional practices. Finally, CCSs in this study serve unique, niche student populations that opt out of the traditional school system. These considerations are vital for evaluating student achievement in cyber charters.
Tracing John Dewey's Influence on Progressive Education, 1903–1951: Toward a Received Dewey
Authors: Fallace Thomas D.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Determining John Dewey's exact influence on civic and social education during the early 20th century has been one of the most vexing issues facing curriculum historians. Generally speaking, interpretations of Dewey's work and influence have been plagued by four recurring methodological limitations: First, historians tend to interpret Dewey's work philosophically rather than historically. Second, they use their philosophically constructed Dewey to judge the fidelity of past educators against the standard of Dewey's “true” vision. Third, historians assume that because they have read all of Dewey's major and obscure works on education, the reformers of the past must (or should) have done so also. Fourth, historians assume rather than demonstrate Dewey's direct influence on others.

Purpose

To overcome these limitations, this historical study traces the influence of John Dewey on the discourse of civic and social education during the formative years of the progressive education movement by focusing on the received Dewey. By examining the specific ways in which Dewey's ideas were used by his contemporaries and peers, the author demonstrates that Dewey's words were often employed in various and conflicting ways to support a number of different curricular agendas. Specifically, the author argues that divisions between proponents of social justice and social efficiency, which play such a central role in the historical literature on progressive education, were not necessarily apparent to Dewey's contemporaries who cited him. In fact, Dewey's philosophy was often used specifically to assuage the gaps between these seemingly conflicting educational goals and objectives.

Research Design

The author focuses his inquiry specifically on the curriculum materials and discourse of secondary social and civic education. He focuses qualitatively on the various ways in which Dewey was cited and used by leading and lesser-known civic and social educators during the formative years of the American curriculum, with particular focus on uses of Dewey to support social efficiency and social justice. In the tradition of historiography, the findings are reported in a chronological narrative.

Findings/Conclusions

Although the evidence presented is merely suggestive, a few summative assertions regarding Dewey's influence on educators during the first half of the 20th century can be made. First, Dewey was often used by contemporaries to reconcile positivistic social science with pragmatic philosophy. Second, although Graham (1995) identified Democracy and Education as “the Bible of the educational reform movement then emerging,” there were in fact numerous Dewey texts cited, often without any reference to others. Third, Dewey's philosophy was used to support reform agendas aimed at social control and social adjustment as well as social reconstruction and social justice. To say that Dewey was used primarily in support of just one (or none) of these goals is a misrepresentation.
When Gender Issues Are Not Just About Women: Reconsidering Male Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Authors: Lundy-Wagner Valerie , Gasman Marybeth
Published: November 2021

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the research and literature on African American male enrollment, experiences, and degree completion trends at four-year HBCUs. The secondary goal is to recenter the gendered dialogue that occurs within HBCU undergraduate student research, such that barriers specific to African American men are identified and examined, with the expectation of better promoting their postsecondary success.

Research Design

Analytic essay, cross-sectional data analysis.

Data Collection and Analysis

First, we conducted a review of historical and contemporary literature to identify the role and contribution of four-year HBCUs on African American males over time. In addition, we employed a secondary data analysis of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to identify six-year graduation rates for one cohort of African American male and female student at HBCUs.

Findings/Results

Critical analysis of historical data from the mid-19th to early 21st century indicates that African American males have indeed been neglected in research on undergraduate enrollment, experiences, and degree completion at four-year HBCUs. African American males face a number of issues that are not absolved on matriculation to HBCUs merely because their environments are predominantly Black. Our analysis suggests that in general, the nurturing and supportive environment on HBCU campuses, when harnessed by African American male (and female) students, can promote postsecondary matriculation and success.

Conclusions/Recommendations

HBCUs have undoubtedly afforded African American males a route by which to gain access to postsecondary education. However, the lack of attention toward their struggles has served to silence their gendered experience and perpetuate a lack of accountability for African American male underachievement within the higher education establishment. Future gendered analyses of HBCU undergraduates ought to address both the male and female experience on these campuses using a variety of appropriate methodological approaches.
Introduction: Rethinking Globalization, Education, and Citizenship
Authors: Hansen David T.
Published: November 2021

Background/ Context

This essay is a part of a special issue that emerges from a year-long faculty seminar at Teachers College, Columbia University. The seminar's purpose has been to examine in fresh terms the nexus of globalization, education, and citizenship. Participants come from diverse fields of research and practice, among them art education, comparative education, curriculum and teaching, language studies, philosophy of education, social studies, and technology. They bring to the table different scholarly frameworks drawn from the social sciences and humanities. They accepted invitations to participate because of their respective research interests, all of which touch on education in a globalized world. They were also intrigued by an all-too-rare opportunity to study in seminar conditions with colleagues from different fields, with whom they might otherwise never interact given the harried conditions of university life today. Participants found the seminar generative in terms of ideas about globalization, education, and citizenship. Participants also appreciated what, for them, became a novel and rich occasion for professional and personal growth.

Purpose/ Objective

The purpose of the present essay is to outline the aims and activities of the faculty seminar on globalization, education, and citizenship. I describe its origins, its composition, and the sequence of discussions, readings, and writings participants undertook. I discuss how the seminar adopted as its method of working the form of the spoken and written essay. “Essay” derives from the French essayer, denoting a trial of ideas in an attempt to understand. The introduction also anticipates the scope and style of the essays that comprise this special issue of the journal.

Conclusions/ Recommendations

The final portion of this introduction raises questions for continued research and practical wisdom. Among them are questions about the nature and purposes of education in our time (with education treated as more than schooling); the meaning of unofficial as well as official notions of citizenship; the dynamics and problematic of “belonging” in a changing world; the meaning of learning as well as misuses of the concept; the place of beauty in inquiry into globalization, education, and citizenship; how the essay form opens up a reconsideration of faculty support and assessment; the benefits and limitations of technology; and the meaning of respect as an orientation in research and practice in globalized conditions.
[Re]claiming “Inclusive Education” toward Cohesion in Educational Reform: Disability Studies Unravels the Myth of the Normal Child
Authors: Baglieri Susan , Bejoian Lynne M. , Broderick Alicia A. , Connor David J. , Valle Jan
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article calls attention to the restrictive notions of inclusive education promulgated within the discourse of special education in the United States and asserts the value of using disability studies in education to support broader conceptualizations of inclusion that potentially incorporate all students.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

By dismantling the myth of the typical/average child, the authors reveal ways in which educational practices actively contribute to the creation of “normalcy” and discuss the harmful effects that this can have on all citizens. They illustrate selected practices that help constitute the normative center of schools by using the organizing principle of disability as a heuristic device to enable multiple simultaneous critical standpoints.

Research Design

Analytic essay.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The authors call for the dissolution of the normative center of schools through an interdisciplinary alliance between disability studies and other criticalist fields that share the aim of claiming value in human diversity over standardization.
An Experimental Study of the Effects of Monetary Incentives on Performance on the 12th-Grade NAEP Reading Assessment
Authors: Braun Henry , Kirsch Irwin , Yamamoto Kentaro
Published: November 2021

Background/context

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only comparative assessment of academic competencies regularly administered to nationally representative samples of students enrolled in Grades 4, 8, and 12. Because NAEP is a low-stakes assessment, there are long-standing questions about the level of engagement and effort of the 12th graders who participate in the assessment and, consequently, about the validity of the reported results.

Purpose/Focus

This study investigated the effects of monetary incentives on the performance of 12th graders on a reading assessment closely modeled on the NAEP reading test in order to evaluate the likelihood that scores obtained at regular administrations underestimate student capabilities.

Population

The study assessed more than 2,600 students in a convenience sample of 59 schools in seven states. The schools are heterogeneous with respect to demographics and type of location.

Intervention

There were three conditions: a control and two incentive interventions. For the fixed incentive, students were offered $20 at the start of the session. For the contingent incentive, students were offered $5 in advance and $15 for correct responses to each of two randomly chosen questions, for a maximum payout of $35. All students were administered one of eight booklets comprising two reading blocks (a passage with associated questions) and a background questionnaire. All reading blocks were operational blocks released by NAEP.

Research Design

This was a randomized controlled field trial. Students agreed to participate without knowing that monetary incentives would be offered. Random allocation to condition was conducted independently in each school.

Data Collection/Analysis

Regular NAEP contractors administered the assessments and carried out preliminary data processing. Scaling of results and linking to the NAEP reporting scale were conducted using standard NAEP procedures.

Findings

Monetary incentives have a statistically significant and substantively important impact on both student engagement/effort and performance overall, and for most subgroups defined by gender, race, and background characteristics. For both males and females, the effect of the contingent incentive was more than 5 NAEP score points, corresponding to one quarter of the difference in the average scores between Grades 8 and 12. In general, the effect of the contingent incentive was larger than that of the fixed incentive, particularly for lower scoring subgroups.

Conclusions/Recommendations

There is now credible evidence that NAEP may both underestimate the reading abilities of students enrolled in 12th grade and yield biased estimates of certain achievement gaps. Responsible officials should take this into account as they plan changes to the NAEP reading framework and expand the scope of the 12th-grade assessment survey.