Democracy and Education

Social Justice, Deferred Complicity, and the Moral Plight of the Wealthy

Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández et al. — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:51:13 PDT

Faced with the facts of economic inequality, the wealthy are confronted with a particular set of moral, social, and political questions, not least of which is the question of how to preserve a sense of being a “good” human being. In the case of justifying privilege, the problem becomes how to position oneself as being uniquely able to enact a superior moral character. In this response to Swalwell’s article, we argue that her data show how being good and having moral standing is a social outcome that is premised on the unequally distributed ability to do certain things, to enact certain roles, and to mobilize particular discourses. Swalwell demonstrated the complicated ways in which privileged students understand what it means to have a commitment to social justice, and her analysis raises questions about the possibility of as well as the potential for educating students with economic privilege toward social justice commitments. In this response we highlight the important symbolic role that economically disadvantaged groups play in the imaginary of students who attend elite private schools and what this illustrates about the ways in which they are complicit in sustaining social inequality.

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”: Privileged Students’ Conceptions of Justice-Oriented Citizenship

Katy Swalwell — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:11:13 PDT

How do students from privileged communities respond to educational efforts encouraging them to become justice-oriented citizens? Observational and interview data collected during a semester-long case study of eleven high school students in a social studies class at an elite private school reveal four markedly different interpretations of their teacher's call to be justice-oriented citizens. Under Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) conceptions of citizenship as an analytical frame, only one of these interpretations aligns with the tenets of justice-oriented citizenship and the desired outcomes of social justice pedagogy. Given that all eleven students considered themselves to be justice oriented, these findings reveal a disconnect between students’ conceptions of social justice and the principles undergirding a social-justice education. This paper emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding of how students make sense of their social responsibilities as privileged people and reveals the deeply embedded nature of hegemonic common sense within privileged individuals and institutions.

Appropriate Urban Teaching Philosophies. A Book Review of Sketches in Democracy: Notes from an Urban Classroom

Kirstin C. Busch — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:56:18 PST

This is a book review for Sketches in Democracy: Notes from an Urban Classroom written by Lisa DeLorenzo, a professor of music education at Montclair State University. DeLorenzo took an extraordinary leap of faith by using her sabbatical year to teach for the very first time within an urban school setting. Her recognition of her limitations in preparing preservice teachers for an urban school environment without herself having had that experience speaks volumes of her reflective capabilities, which she also employed in writing this thought-provoking analytical narrative of her experience teaching in a newly fledged charter conceived as a democratic school. The author succeeded in providing a rich contextual description of what it means to be an urban teacher and this book serves as a jumping off point for preservice teachers to develop appropriate urban teaching philosophies.

Educating for a Critical Democracy: Civic Participation Reimagined in the Council of Youth Research

Nicole Mirra et al. — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:56:06 PST

This article explores civic learning, civic participation, and the development of civic agency within the Council of Youth Research (the Council), a program that engages high school students in youth participatory action research projects that challenge school inequalities and mobilize others in pursuit of educational justice. We critique the neoliberal view of democracy that dominates in the existing research, policy, and practice around urban school reform and civic education and instead turn to evidence from social movements and critical social theory as a foundation for a reimagined, more robust vision of critical democracy. Through our analysis of the activities that the Council students engaged in during and after a five-week summer seminar, we offer findings about the kinds of learning and pedagogy that characterize a critical democratic space. We discuss how students and teachers learn through dialogue that characterizes them as public intellectuals; we explore how students develop new forms of civic participation through their engagement with digital, participatory media and interactive presentations to community stakeholders; and we document the developing sense of agency that students experience as a result of these authentic civic learning opportunities. We conclude by highlighting the impacts of this program and its potential to create a new paradigm for civic life and civic education.

Pushing the Boundaries: What Youth Organizers at Boston's Hyde Square Task Force Have to Teach Us About Civic Engagement

Meredith L. Mira — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:25:56 PST

Across the United States, researchers and youth workers alike have identified an increasing number of civically engaged youth who are organizing to improve their communities and schools. By taking an action-oriented approach, these youth are speaking back to the notion that they are uninvolved in society. This interview-based study explores the meaning-making experiences of youth organizers at Boston’s Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF) to better understand how they engage. Findings suggest that HSTF is engaging two broad groups of youth by focusing on both their personal development and their sense of community awareness. The study introduces an organizing model of youth engagement at the HSTF and calls on educators to consider organizing as an effective approach to civic engagement.

Education as a Human Right in the 21st Century

Sharon E. Lee Dr — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:25:53 PST

According to the United Nations, education is a right to which all human beings are entitled. Since 2000, the UN has been promoting the Millennium Development Goal to achieve free universal primary education for all, regardless of gender, by 2015. If the UN is correct to suggest that education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights, then there is an important need to question the role that governments should play to support the institutional reforms necessary to achieve basic primary education for all. Moreover, there is an important need to question the role all individuals should play to ensure that the institutional structure dedicated to the provision of basic primary education is set up not only to provide children with access to a vague notion of education but to a notion of basic education that can provide children with the freedom to do something with that education once they have obtained it.

Emerson, Reading, and Democracy: Reading as Engaged Democratic Citizenship

Michael D. Boatright et al. — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:55:53 PST

“What is the right use of books?” Responding to the question he famously raised, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “books are for nothing but to inspire,” which we take as endorsing a pragmatic and pluralistic view of reading literature and other kinds of texts in a manner that keeps books open to a flow of continual questioning and renewal. The purpose driving Emerson’s democratic conception of reading, we argue, is not to arrive at definitive readings but to engender new possibilities for thinking about oneself in relation to others and to society at large. As such, an Emersonian perspective on reading is a key practice for engaged democratic citizenship that provides a necessary counterweight to increasing pressure on teachers to standardize learning in schools.

Educational Leadership or Followership?

David Gabbard — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:26:14 PST

Opponents of the neoliberal privatization of schools must be cautious in formulating their opposition so as not to situate themselves as the defenders of an otherwise indefensible status quo. Though we might expect professors in traditional university-based educational-leadership programs to protect their institutional self-interests and their traditional monopoly on the preparation of school leaders against the challenge presented by Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, do we know for a fact that the curriculum of Broad’s Academy differs significantly from their own programs? It would be hard for us to name very many professors who have defended those programs as bastions of democratic values.

Imagination and Experience: An Integrative Framework

Mark Fettes — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:26:05 PST

Three variations of experience identified in the educational literature entail different ways of thinking about and developing learners’ imaginations. The relationship between these different imaginative modes resembles shifts between different kinds of understanding in Kieran Egan’s theory of imaginative development. From this theoretical collision, a new framework emerges that gives greater weight to the connections between experience and imagination, and that may help to guide new forms of democratic educational practice.

Let’s Produce Culturally Responsive Pedagogues on Deck. A Response to "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective"

Christopher C. Jett — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:10:58 PST

In this response, I extend the conversation started by Hayes and Juárez (2012) by highlighting how culturally responsive teaching is spoken in one teacher education program where I worked and served in the preparation of middle-level teachers. I also share my reflections concerning this idea and pose questions for critical thought, dialogue, and action. Finally, I challenge teacher-educators to speak, enact, and work to produce culturally responsive teaching/teachers in their teacher preparation programs.

Assessing Eli Broad's Assault on Public School System Leadership. A response to "The Broad Challenge to Democratic Leadership: The Other Crisis in Education."

Fenwick W. English et al. — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 17:15:43 PDT

Eli Broad’s approach to reforming urban public education does not recognize his own self-interest in promoting changes within such educational systems, a classic problem of misrecognition. The Broad agenda is an assault on the notion of the mission of public education as a service instead of a for-profit enterprise concerned with making money for the owners and stock holders. This article examines the backgrounds of the graduates of the Broad Superintendents Academy and raises critical issues such as how can Broad claim that graduate preparation in educational administration is unnecessary when at least half of his own graduates already have advanced degrees from universities in the field and occupy high-level central office positions? Broad's remedies harken back to those advanced by Frederick Winslow Taylor, the creator of scientific management.

Swimming in Deep Waters. A Response to "A Review of Teaching as a Moral Practice"

Deborah Schussler et al. — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 17:00:51 PDT

The authors respond to a review of their book, Teaching as a Moral Practice: Defining, Developing, and Assessing Dispositions. The authors emphasize a vision of shared commitments for quality teaching whereby teacher-educators instill and nurture the wisdom and virtue that a moral teacher must possess in order to teach in a variety of circumstances where clear-cut answers do not exist. In addition, teacher-educators help teachers discern how, in that context, they should enact particular knowledge, skills, and commitments to reach desired ends. The key to enact this vision of teaching as a shared, moral practice is critical colleagueship.

A Review of Teaching as a Moral Practice: Defining, Developing, and Assessing Professional Dispositions in Teacher Education

Barbara S. Stengel — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 10:15:11 PDT

A review of the book Teaching as a Moral Practice: Defining, Developing, and Assessing Professional Dispositions in Teacher Education, by Peter C. Murrell Jr., Mary Diez, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, and Deborah L. Schussler (Harvard University Press, 2010).

Standardization and Whiteness: One and the Same? A Response to “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here”

Gary Weilbacher — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:15:53 PDT

The article "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective" by Cleveland Hayes and Brenda C. Juarez suggests that the current focus on meeting standards incorporates limited thoughtful discussions related to complex notions of diversity. Our response suggests a strong link between standardization and White dominance and that a focus on standards has helped to make White dominance and the discussion of race, class, gender, and language virtually invisible in teacher preparation.

Lessons Learned from Citizen Science in the Classroom. A Response to "The Future of Citizen Science."

Steven A. Gray et al. — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:15:51 PDT

Mueller, Tippins, and Bryan’s contrast of the current limitations of science education with the potential virtues of citizen science provides an important theoretical perspective about the future of democratized science and K–12 education. However, the authors fail to adequately address the existing barriers and constraints to moving community-based science into the classroom. We contend that for these science partnerships to be successful, teachers, researchers, and other program designers must reexamine questions about traditional science education and citizen-science programs and attend to certain dimensions, including: framing these projects around the nature of science, creating a dialog with experts and allowing access to the primary literature, and fostering the ability of the public to critique information and evidence. We argue that the resource constraints of scientists, teachers, and students likely pose problems to moving true democratized science into the classroom.

Links and Distinctions Among Citizenship, Science, and Citizen Science. A Reponse to "The Future of Citizen Science."

Caren B. Cooper — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:15:49 PDT

Mueller, Tippins, and Bryan (2012) presented a new conceptualization of citizen science that is meant to facilitate emerging trends in the democratization of science and science education to produce civically engaged students. I review some relevant trends in the field of citizen science, for clarity here referred to as public participation in scientific research (PPSR), and present overlooked styles and outcomes of PPSR. Education efforts should seize the opportunity to emphasize the key and distinct roles students can play in both the science and the values elements that inform decision-making processes.

Citizen(s’) Science. A Response to "The Future of Citizen Science"

Angela M. Calabrese Barton — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:15:47 PDT

Citizen science is fundamentally about participation within and for communities. Attempts to merge citizen science with schooling must call not only for a democratization of schooling and science but also for the democratization of the ways in which science is taken up by, with, and for citizen participants. Using this stance, along with critical studies of place, I build on the criticisms of citizen science outlined in "The Future of Citizen Science" to argue for the centrality of place. Using a case of urban youths working toward transparency and cross-cultural dialogue regarding energy production in their community, I complicate the proposed immersion model to suggest a further reconstruction of citizen science in ways that account for youths' deep and critical connections to the geohistorical and sociocultural dimensions of place.

A Book Review of Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class, and Democracy in the 21st Century

Jennifer A. Tupper Dr. — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:11:04 PDT

A review of the book Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class and Democracy in the 21st Century, by Paul Orlowski (Springer, 2011).

The Oppression of Experience. A Book Review of Beyond Learning by Doing: Theoretical Currents in Experiential Education

Paul A. Michalec — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:11:02 PDT

A review of the book Beyond Learning by Doing: Theoretical Currents in Experiential Education, by Jay W. Roberts (Routledge, 2012).

A Book Review of Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit

Bruce L. Mallory — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:11:00 PDT

A review of the book Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit, by Parker J. Palmer (Jossey-Bass, 2011).