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US college and university administrators are reluctant to regulate racialized assaultive speech by members of their campus communities, even when the effect and objective of such speech is to demean, degrade, ostracize, and threaten Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. My critical race theory analysis reveals how two US Supreme Court cases commonly used to defend assaultive speech in campus communities, have been misapplied. Both cases were about students expressing political speech—a different legal realm from hate speech that has no educational value and, in my view, merits regulation because of its harmful effect. In this theoretical article, I urge institutional leaders and researchers who are committed to equity in education to challenge the white legal logic that for too long has protected assaultive speech in educational settings at the expense of marginalized communities. I recommend that institutions of higher education establish robust, unapologetic standards and policies for incidents of assaultive speech to compellingly affirm the dignity and inclusion of all campus members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present DisCrit-informed person-centered strategies to reframe inclusive education in Italy through an equity lens. Our aim is to provide teachers in mainstream primary schools with practices that inform the design and implementation of Individualized Education Programs and Piano Didattico Personalizzato (Personalized Didactic Plans) through nondeficit, intersectional, and culturally relevant approaches. Drawing on an initial pilot case study carried out in a school in Rome, Italy, we analyze the challenges that teachers face in including students at the intersections of race, ability, language, and citizenship. In doing so, we intend to advance critical thinking about the use of inclusive tools, and the importance of reframing them through the DisCrit framework. Finally, we suggest that some of the existing inclusive practices exacerbate the exclusion of migrant students with and without disabilities, despite promises of equality for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Too often, Black families' educational agency has been marginalized in discourse on racial and spatial divides in US education. Indeed, Black families have persistently employed a range of tactics to access and create the educational resources their children deserve. Drawing from scholarship on spatial imaginaries, in this article, I track how Black families have developed democratic and communal outlooks on place-based resources such as public schools. I identify what I term democratization of educational care, or how some Black families' educational advocacy for their own children broadly benefit all students. To demonstrate these dynamics, I share how Black families' educational advocacy in a demographically changing suburb of Detroit, Michigan, uplifted the needs of their children, while also seeking to address larger systemic inequities. Implications suggest how school leaders can learn from the positioned knowledge and advocacy of Black families to foster educational equity and care in demographically changing school systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, co-authors Eagle Shield, Munson, and San Pedro connect with and extend the new vision and direction as guided by Equity & Excellence in Education's new editorial leadership. They do so by first historically framing the distinct differences between assimilative schooling systems and community-based educational resurgence efforts, and then centering Indigenous Knowledges in their stories of resistance and vitalizing efforts with their communities. Relying on collaborative storying whereby conversations are dialogic and reciprocal, the co-authors emphasize personal experiences of the ways educational movements are enacted in their everyday circumstances. Particular emphasis is placed on the way broad movements such as Black Lives Matter and Water is Life are connected to local community-based reforms. Eagle Shield emphasizes the lessons she learned while opening and directing the Mní Wičhóni Nakíčižiŋ Owáyawa (Defenders of the Water School) during the Standing Rock Movement and how those lessons and dreams are continuing to be realized beyond the movement space. Munson details the ways she has been guided by tribal leadership to expand a teacher education program that emphasizes both language vitalization and the centering of tribal knowledges. Listening closely and carefully, San Pedro shares the ways their lessons connect to, extend, and support pedagogical theories and scholarship that forward BIPOC-centered and justice-driven movements. Their stories address the article's central question: What does education look like when it is supported and directed by the dreams, hopes, and aspirations of community leadership? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education elders must engage next generation Black thinkers and doers in addressing the complex global and spiritual issues in education today. Deep listening to the young is absolutely essential to imagining a future that is worthy of Black engagement and brilliance. In this article, I bear witness and honor the righteous version of endarkened feminisms being created by young sister artists and thought leaders. As an Elder in education, I believe that is an important and relevant role in Black struggle, excellence, and education that connects our past to our today and our possible futures. In this article, I put my own recent theorizing of (re)membering into conversation with Beyoncé's film, Black is King. My goal is to illuminate and articulate what Beyoncé helps us understand about the meanings of equity and excellence in Black education when placed within the historical and contemporary Black creative and cultural spaces of Africa and the Black African diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article insists on a reframe of mourning, away from a period of sadness or weeping alone, to a vision of its merits for discovering and unlocking possibility in Black Education. For example, mourning might be understood as involuntarily surrendered time necessary to properly grieve, concede, and embrace Black people's subject position in the US sociopolitical context. Turning towards mourning, the dark moments that urge it and the dark(er) moments that it may produce, is argued as a launch pad to more fully understanding the depth and reach of Black people's possibility. To make such an argument the author contemplates how mourning, and subsequent meditations on possibility, might have informed the activism of leaders in the Black radical tradition who urgently insisted that Black people's human dignity be recognized and properly acknowledged. The article concludes with discussion of the significance of possibility to advance equity and excellence in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many teachers enter teacher education programs expecting to develop tools and ways of thinking necessary to cultivate educational equity in their classrooms. Trends for teacher learning and development show that, while equity gets addressed, there is less evidence of frameworks, tools, and practices that center equity for teacher learning and practice. There also is the added challenge of competing demands on teachers' time and restrictive environments that impede their practice. Our work enters here, with attention to these early years of teaching that are ripe with possibilities for new teacher thinking and practice related to equity. In this conceptual article, we present a framework that draws upon conceptions of noticing for equity. The focus is the micro-moments within fleeting classroom discourse when equity themes and issues arise and warrant redress. In addition, we contribute a multi-lensed framework to surface and map the nuances and complexities of this equity-focused work in real moments of classroom practice. We describe ways we have worked with our teacher partners on this process. Finally, we offer teachers, education leaders, and teacher educators activities to guide equity-informed noticing, reflecting, and action—particularly in the realities of competing priorities of classroom and school life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Critical Race Theory, the authors explore how K-12 Ethnic Studies attempts to dismantle curriculum as the property of Whiteness by replacing it with a social justice education curriculum that centers the lived experiences and epistemologies of people of color. The authors assert that when Ethnic Studies programs cultivate a dual focus on developing critical consciousness and academic skills, these programs can de-center Whiteness and better serve the educational needs of students of color. Using Harris' four property functions of Whiteness, the authors explain how class assignments that include both critical consciousness and academic skills displace Whiteness as the center of the curriculum. The authors contend that, in the age of Ethnic Studies expansion, targeted and aligned curriculum, which supports the social and academic needs of students of color, is necessary to contest curriculum as the property of Whiteness and to forward the racial justice project, increasing access and equity in education for students of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial disproportionality in special education is an ongoing injustice in schools in the United States. In this article, we investigate the key relationships among education policy, context, and racial disproportionality in special education. We examine this nexus by analyzing one U.S. school district's response to federal citations for disproportionality in both the over-identification of students of color in special education and over-representation of students of color with disabilities being disciplined. Our findings demonstrate the important role of historical legacies of inequality and the limitations of technical approaches to equity oriented education policies. We end by offering a critical disability education policy approach that accounts for complex sociocultural contexts, attending to disability and its intersections, in an effort to move toward more just and equitable education policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing critical Multiracial theory, this study explores how Multiracial campus professionals' experiences with racial authenticity influence their work in postsecondary contexts. Three themes were generated from 24 Multiracial campus professionals' narratives, including encountering racial authenticity tests, navigating the authenticity trap, and Black Lives Matter and professionals' internalization of racial authenticity tests. This study explores how Multiracial professionals' experiences with racial authenticity often constrain their ability to foster inclusion and educational equity on campus and mediates their connections with students and colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is for you Teaching Many of us Dig, deeper To be wiser This is for you Noticing Our hearts seeking Truths, thereafter To love, harder Families Life priorities Balancing, knowing Experiencing context Mattering Homeplace After school Cooling out Calling in, one time I Isang bagsak i Ethnic studies Restorative justice Circles of life Are you listening? Youth here-and-now The writing Faces at the bottom CRT pedagogy Study Struggle Witnessing Undoing Reimagining All things steady What ought to be Speculation Aspiration A search for futures Engendering (a)new This generation This is for you Pushing Limits, beyond Who we need To become This is for you Agitating Radically educating Freedom dreamers Anthem warriors - Part tribute, this poem draws on the relational elements of the contents in this issue. Korina M. Jocson University of Massachusetts, Amherst Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, University of Pennsylvania with Joel Ariel Arce Alisha Smith Jean-Denis Thomas Albright University of Massachusetts, Amherst. [Extracted from the article]

Recent discussions of making have focused on developing out-of-school makerspaces and activities to provide more equitable and enriching learning opportunities for youth. Yet school classrooms present a unique opportunity to help broaden access, diversify representation, and deepen participation in making. In turning to classrooms, we want to understand the crucial practices that teachers employ in broadening and deepening access to making. In this article, we investigate two high school teachers' approaches in implementing a novel eight-week, electronic textiles unit within the Exploring Computer Science curriculum, where students designed wearable electronic textile projects with microcontrollers, sensors, and LEDs. We share teachers' emergent practices in transforming their classrooms into makerspaces, including valuing student expertise and promoting connections in personalized work. We discuss the ways these practices succeeded in broadening access to making while deepening participation in computing and establishing home-school connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their potential, maker activities do not always support equitable engagement. The authors report on a design research study where they worked to support equitable engagement of youth repertoires of practice in a high school makerspace. Their orientation toward equity is grounded in the construct of repertoires of practice, and they focus on the question of what counts as making, and who has authority to decide. The authors consider two cases across two years and analyze moments of student resistance and agency as opportunities to expand the valued practices in the makerspace to more equitably support engagement. They report on the particular pedagogical strategies that emerged through the work, including exploration and helping, as well as their process of iterative analysis and design work that led to the embrace of these strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School leaders can ally with other educational stakeholders to encourage undocumented student persistence in Pk-12 schools. We explore (1) how school leaders create systems of support for undocumented and newly arrived immigrant students, and (2) how school leaders interpret and implement policies or school structures that affect student educational access. Border crossing theory guides our examination of how school leaders traverse and transgress borders that can impede students' education. This embedded case study included interviews with nine administrators working on the US-México border. The study finds that leaders expected to make a difference in students' lives by focusing on relationships and programming, committing to equity, and resisting deficit thinking about students and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical ethnic studies in education is a way to extend or push notions of equity and justice in education. It is necessary given the deleterious impact of neoliberal policies and practices that support an ahistorical, apolitical, and non-materialist understanding of history. The four articles in this symposium offer a critical comparative studies in education and provide a basis of analysis around themes like genocide, colonialism, and imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a grassroots parent organizing effort in a large, high-poverty, urban school district. Drawing from ethnographic field research at a community-based popular education organization, the study describes how parent organizers worked to educate and mobilize Latina/o immigrant parents on issues of educational justice and equity. It identifies three pillars of their approach—a social theory, a theory of change, and a theory of knowledge— and argues that these were not reducible to a set of practices or methods; rather, they constituted a coherent paradigm of educational justice. This paradigm differs in significant ways from the neoliberal justice paradigm that currently dominates education reform and policy. By examining points of tension between these two competing paradigms, this article seeks to accomplish two aims. First, it aims to deepen our understanding of how underlying paradigms of educational justice shape the work of educating, organizing, and reforming schools. Second, it aims to expose the cultural specificity, or non-universality, of the neoliberal paradigm in order to challenge its hegemonic status in education reform and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of our study is to investigate reform policy, specifically a proposed third grade reading retention policy within the Borderlands. Under this policy, students not performing proficiently on the third grade reading standardized exam will be automatically retained in the third grade. The research methods and approach used in this study include an equity analysis formed by combining two steps across a Borderland county in New Mexico. The first step is a regression analysis to answer if access to early childhood education and access to highly qualified teachers inform differences in third grade reading scores, and the second step uses a LatCrit informed Spatial Analysis to create an equity index, to see how equity varies across the spaces of elementary schools. This allows us to essentially map Third Grade Reading Retention Reform Policy in the Borderlands. The setting of the study is in the U.S. Southwest Borderlands, specifically Doña Ana County, which borders Texas and Mexico, in southern New Mexico. Up to a quarter of the population is under the age of 18, two thirds (66.6%) of the population is Latino, and half of the population speaks a language other than English at home. Implications from this study include, for policy makers, policy considerations that come from a non-deficit thinking perspective and focus on systemic considerations to improving educational equity. Given that the setting demographically mirrors much of the state of New Mexico, as well as demographic shifts across communities throughout the U.S., this study provides further considerations for key systemic changes to improving academic measures like reading scores. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Equity & Excellence in Education, 54 (2), 103 - 111. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2021.1972595 3 Player, G. D., Coles, J. A., & González Ybarra, M., & The Fugitive Literacies Collective. Barnard Center for Research on Women. https://bcrw.barnard.edu/videos/tina-campt-black-feminist-futures-and-the-practice-of-fugitivity/ 2 Coles, J. A., Ohito, E. O., Green, K. L., & Lyiscott, J. (2021). People of Color continually cultivate community, lit up by love, care, and radical hope. [Extracted from the article]

Academic tracking has been shown to limit the quality of student instructional opportunities, decrease students’ perceptions of their abilities, and negatively influence student achievement. These factors associated with academic tracking also may influence students in lower tracks to learn less and ultimately to drop out of high school. Few studies, however, have investigated academic tracking as a collective school-level phenomenon and an individual student-level predictor of school dropout. To date, no study has examined this issue using a nationally representative sample. In this study, multilevel analytic models of the first two waves of the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) of 2002 indicate that, while controlling for student- and school-level differences, students in the lower academic tracks are roughly 60% more likely to drop out of high school. Academic tracking appears to disadvantage students who are Latinos, have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), or have lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Schools with a more positive academic climate, high morale, and a focus on learning, however, show a slight decrease in the likelihood of students dropping out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the role of autoethnographic research as the methodological tool of choice for a Chicana who positions herself along the liminal perspective. I posit that testimonios, autobiographical educational experiences, must be used as valid ethnographic research to contribute to existing knowledge around issues of educational equity. Producing autoethnographic research acknowledges and validates my Chicana presence as well as draws attention to my marginal position inside dominant structures of education. Autoethnography and critical race theory are the manners in which I think about the world and the ways I have chosen to engage in educational research. My work is derived from personal experience in Los Angeles urban schools and later in elite institutions of higher education. These distinct locations present a unique opportunity to problematize the internalized forms of class and racial structures that permeate educational institutions. Grounded in my own educational biography, testimonios frame my research perspective to interrogate the role that educational institutions play in the creation of particular ideologies in working-class students of color. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2003, the Japanese Ministry of Education accredited the high school diplomas of most “ethnic high schools,” which are schools by and for specific ethnic minority populations, such as Korean, Brazilian, or Chinese students in Japan. Prior to this policy, diplomas from most ethnic high schools were not recognized by the Japanese government as valid, and if graduates wanted to apply to universities or colleges, specifically national universities, they were required to take a high school equivalency exam. This article examines the policy's evolution toward championing equity for equal treatment, a concept that ensures that individuals with similar levels of schooling have access to similar levels of status. Through heated debate and resistance, the policy furthered equity for some ethnic minority students while maintaining inequitable circumstances for others, specifically students in ethnic high schools that serve North Korean communities. The analysis reveals four important features of the policy's development that furthered equity: (1) protesting by non-governmental actors, (2) taking advantage of a policy window, (3) using strategic value-laden language, and (4) facilitating incremental change. Often, Japanese education policies rightfully are critiqued as assimilative and discriminatory. However, this article reveals some potential to move the conversation beyond these critiques and offers suggestions to promote and iteratively come closer to educational equity for ethnic minority students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a case study of one high performing high poverty campus serving students of color in South Central Texas. The researchers utilized the criteria for 90/90/90 schools established by Douglas Reeves (2004). In order to meet these criteria, schools had to have the following characteristics: 90% or more of the student body had to be non-Anglo, 90% or more of the students had to qualify for free or reduced lunch, and achievement testing was mastered at rates of 90% or greater. Researchers conducted an initial examination of every public school within a 16,631 square mile area utilizing these criteria. The results yielded 15 schools that met this standard at least once between the years 2006–2010. Only one school met the criteria in each of these years. Panel interviews, focus groups, site visits, and individual follow up interviews were conducted to glean information on the characteristics of this high performing campus, the results of which are presented herein. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Given persisting patterns of racial, ethnic, and class re-segregation, this study considers opportunities that high school-aged youth have to cross these divides. What critical learning might occur? What can educators learn from student reflections toward providing opportunities, experiences, or structures to challenge the status quo? In considering these important questions, we review research literature on youth experience, learning, and reflection through structured opportunities to engage in education and critical thinking across social locations. Program examples, pedagogy, accompanying research, and evaluation are summarized to frame a sustained university-high school collaboration. This collaborative project extends dialogic pedagogy practiced in higher education contexts to engagement with and across urban and suburban schools. We describe a partnership between an Intergroup Dialogue Program at a Northeastern university and two local high schools; one school located in a city school district serving a majority student of color population and the other school located within an outlying suburban district serving a predominantly white student population. This article describes pedagogy and student work from the institute with evaluation focused on students’ written responses to open-ended surveys. Three important themes emerged: students’ growing awareness of inequalities, reflections on agency, and interest in further engagement. These themes connected with reflections from the high school teachers and university dialogue facilitators who worked with and learned from these youth through the institute. The discussion calls for further research on youth voices and higher education-high school collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explores college students’ reactions to engaging in experiences with diverse others that students found uncomfortable, interactions that disrupted students’ current beliefs or values. Our examination of these experiences was grounded in theory and research on intergroup contact and anxiety and developmental models of self-authorship leading to intercultural maturity. We found three types of reactions to these experiences: Some students were “stuck,” unsure of how to respond; some were prone to continue exploring; and some reframed their perspectives to reflect capacities associated with advanced intercultural maturity. We offer recommendations for managing intergroup anxiety and scaffolding learning to support reframing one's perspectives to maximize learning from engaging in difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educating English language learners (ELLs) presents a challenge for teachers and policy makers; the population of ELLs increases, yet their achievement trails that of their native English-speaking peers. In November 2002, Massachusetts voters supported a law that mandated Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) as the primary means of instruction for ELLs, effectively ending transitional bilingual education. This report examines key considerations in educating ELLs, and in implementing SEI in Massachusetts schools. It also presents case studies of three schools making significant strides with ELLs through innovative programming built around SEI methods yet maintaining important bilingual education practices that promote educational equity. Cross-case analysis identified themes about strategic data use, staff recruitment, and supports for students and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the legal classification of Mexican Americans as "other white" as argued in a number of critical court cases that beginning in the 1930s up to the 1970s attempted to desegregate public schools in Texas. Since the Texas constitution declared school segregation as being only for "colored children," Mexican Americans in their fight against de facto segregation sought to claim their legal classification as white. My objective is to further analyze these cases as presented in the literature in order to examine what the relationship between Mexican American whiteness as a legal category versus their "otherness" as a social category says about the vital role of public schools in reproducing, as well as creating, social, political, and economic marginalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pedagogy of assignments in social justice teacher education programs. Employing a programmatic view, this study aims to understand the collective representation of social justice provided by assignments across multiple courses. Findings come from a qualitative case study of two social justice programs. Drawing on concepts from sociocultural theory and a theory of justice, this study reveals that the conceptions of justice assignments that were emphasized varied from a focus on the individual needs of students to an emphasis on the sociopolitical conditions of schooling. When assignments drew on teachers' field placement experiences, they overwhelmingly stressed an individualistic notion of justice. The diversity among students in teachers' placements substantially shaped teachers' opportunities to engage this notion. When assignments emphasized the sociopolitical conditions of schooling, they focused on general principles for teaching and were disconnected from teachers' field placement experiences. Implications for practice and research in social justice teacher education are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using policy discourse analysis, the author analyzed 21 diversity action plans issued at 20 U.S. land-grant universities over a five-year period to identify images of diversity and the problems and solutions represented in diversity action plans. Discourses of marketplace, excellence, managerialism, and democracy emerged and served to construct images of the diverse individual as a commodity, entrepreneur, and change agent. These findings suggest that the dominance of the marketplace discourse may situate the diverse individual as a resource to be exploited and inspire entrepreneurial endeavors rather than change-making activism. Diversity action plans in their current form may unintentionally undermine the achievement of their equity goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the impact of educational inequality with respect to class. It states that racial wealth reveals an impact by the educational inequality that flow from underfunded schools based on residential segregation and unequal school-tax base. Moreover, it noted that class impacts education in many ways which include academic preparation and curricular content. Further, it stresses that educational inequality starts in life and persists through K-12 education in the form of public schooling that is often separate and unequal.

We examine a century of rhetoric on the home/school relation and investigate how current ideas about this relationship and associated parent involvement might inhibit the realization of justice, equity, and excellence in education. The phrase home/school relation refers to the actual and theoretical pattern of prescribed interactions and communication between families and schools, with an emphasis on optimizing children's development and achievement. Parent involvement, in the home and in the school, is defined as a set of behaviors that results from parents' and schools' understanding of the home/school relation. Excerpts from texts written by post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault guide the historical analysis of published rhetoric on the home/school relation. Ultimately, this review serves to refocus attention on the home/school relation and associated parent involvement to expand insight and opportunity for equity in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political rationale of the “model minority” stereotype about Asian Americans and its ramifications on education. Created by white elites in the 1960s as a device of political control, the model minority stereotype continues to serve the larger conservative restoration in American society today. By over-emphasizing Asian American success and misrepresenting it as proof of the perceived equal opportunity in American society, proponents of the stereotype downplay racism and other structural problems Asians and other minority groups continue to suffer. The theory that Asians succeed by merit (strong family, hard work, and high regard for education) is used by power elites to silence the protesting voices of racial minorities and even disadvantaged Whites and to maintain the status quo in race and power relations. In education, the model minority thesis has always supported conservative agendas in school reform. Now it goes hand in hand with the meritocracy myth and promotes educational policy that emphasizes accountability, standards, competition, and individual choice, while trivializing social conditions of schooling and unequal educational opportunities facing different student groups. It is the responsibility of educators to deconstruct the “model minority” stereotype and any other stereotypes or myths prevailing in education discourse, and seriously challenge racism, class division, and other structural problems. Social justice and equality must become a guiding principle for school reform and educational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, The Social Justice Education in Schools (SJES) Project integrates field-based study and existing research to identify five key Principles of Social Justice Education in Schools. An outgrowth of the federally funded Massachusetts Coalition for Teacher Quality and Student Achievement, the SJES Project seeks to positively impact teacher preparation, student achievement, and social justice practice in urban environments. The authors ground their discussion in their partnership with Rodriguez Elementary School, and present specific points of inquiry to facilitate K-12 educators, administrators, and community members' critical reflection on their own school environments. By developing a concrete framework for Social Justice Education in Schools, the authors hope to encourage future empirical research explicitly linking Social Justice Education to student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity among the populations attending urban schools poses a significant challenge to providing quality public education. Similarly, few would dispute that, in order to meet this challenge effectively, teachers must acquire the cultural competency for creating productive and inclusive learning environments, building academic capability among all students, and forging solid relationships with students' families and communities. Though this view has become an “official doctrine” among teacher educators, developing cultural competence in actual contexts consisting of urban schools and classrooms has proven a difficult challenge. This article explains a design for this work called Circles of Co-Practice as a system of practice and inquiry to develop cultural competency in partnership activity. The system design and application to the work of urban school-university-neighborhood collaboratives to improve urban education is illustrated with two case instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most college students tend to view racism as individual bias and prejudice and lack an understanding of the broader systemic nature of the problem. The purpose of this article is to examine how to help undergraduate students move from viewing racism as individual bigotry to recognizing its complex nature as a systemic phenomenon that pervades every aspect of United States society. Seven concepts are presented as necessary ingredients for any college course that seeks to address systemic racism. The seven critical concepts are: race as a social construction; dominant and subordinated groups; levels of racism; white privilege; internalized racism; multiple social group memberships; and historical inequality. The discussion of each concept includes a description, brief historical context, and an example of how the concept can be taught in the college classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how to teach effectively from a clear social justice perspective that empowers, encourages students to think critically, and models social change has been a consistent challenge for progressive educators. This article intends to shed light on this issue by demonstrating how educators can utilize a social justice pedagogical lens to treat their content in ways that meet their commitment to empowering education. Specifically, this article clarifies what social justice education is by introducing readers to five key components useful in teaching from a social justice perspective: tools for content mastery, tools for critical thinking, tools for action and social change, tools for personal reflection, and tools for awareness of multicultural group dynamics. While no pedagogical approach is a panacea, this approach offers readers five specific areas to focus on in their teaching and their efforts at working toward social justice in their classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of queer pedagogy has emerged from broader queer theory as a means to address what queer theory can tell us about teaching and learning. This article is an exploration of queer pedagogy, its basis in queer theory, and its implications for educators. I begin with a brief explanation of queer theory, and a description of the relationship between queer theory and pedagogy. Then I address the question of why we need a queer pedagogy - that is, what does queer pedagogy offer that other pedagogies do not? Finally, I explore the implications of queer pedagogy for educational practice and review some examples of queer pedagogies in action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explore the effects of an alternative, transformative pedagogy that may assist us in responding to the urgent call for changes in the way educational leaders are prepared and developed. Within the contextual loom of preparation programs, the two theoretical perspectives of Transformative Learning Theory and Critical Social Theory are interwoven with the three pedagogical strategies of critical reflection, rational discourse, and policy praxis to increase students' awareness, acknowledgment, and action regarding issues of social justice and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of increasing efforts toward creating multicultural education in the United States, criticism and hostility from white conservatives has created a climate of backlash against the variety of efforts designed to create equity in the classroom. Both Freirean and feminist pedagogies advocate a more just society and personal empowerment by promoting inquiry into individual and collective experiences. As an evolving teaching methodology that is influenced by those who practice it, feminist pedagogy is an essential tool both to deconstruct and to make meaning of the current manifestations of inequality in U.S. society. It provides educators with the means to help students integrate emotional responses to social injustices with cognitive learning. Given the current climate, feminist pedagogy is essential to promoting critical thinking and reflection that leads to transformative learning, student empowerment, and collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though, in theory, black students may have access to equal educational opportunity by occupying the same classroom space as their peers, they do not necessarily enjoy the same quality of experience. This inequality results from the race-related beliefs and norms and white privilege embedded in United States society. This study deconstructed one white teacher's practices with respect to the literature on effective teachers of black students and caring. The idea of culturally relevant caring emerged and was explored in relation to the teacher's actions that enabled black students to access the quality of experience enjoyed by their white counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the creation of a professional development opportunity for teachers who are skilled in and committed to teaching for equity and diversity by the Colorado Partnership for Educational Renewal. Recognition of the shared intelligence; Features of the National Writing Project; Background on CoPER, school-university partnership settings of the National Network for Educational Renewal.

Examines the educational equity and excellence issues at inner city school sites situated in geographical space located under the flight path to Los Angeles International Airport in California. Impact of a negative geographical space surrounding school settings on children, school reform and instructional policies; Association of geographical space with student learning.

Focuses on students who have left the public schools in Rockford, Illinois, in their search for educational equity. Implementation of the controlled choice desegregation plan; Mechanics of controlled choice; Dissatisfaction with education quality evident among parents; Reasons for leaving.

Discusses the background, status, and potential for recognition of a basic right to education in the United States and the issues related to equitable opportunities for accessing that right. Importance of establishing a right to education; Possibility of judicial modification for inequities of education.

Comments on the need for developing teachers for leadership roles in educational equity in the United States. Diversity and multiculturalism as a barrier for educational equity; Importance of multicultural education; Design and objectives of Equity Leadership Study Groups; Role of leadership training in preventing social inequity and injustice.

Presents findings on educational equity programs for women and girls in the United States conducted by the Women's Educational Equity Act Equity Resource Center. Level of gender equity in mathematics and science, the school environment, sports and employment; Access of women to post-secondary education; Social barriers associated with gender equity.

Focuses on the development of Gender Equity Expert Panel (GEEP), an organization that promotes gender equity in education in the United States. Foundation of GEEP by Myra Sadker; Promotion of interventions, products and practices on gender equity in education as goal of GEEP; Organizational structure of GEEP.

Focuses on the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA) Resources Center, an organization that promotes educational equality in schools in the United States. Promotion of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 as the goal of WEEA; List of educational equity programs; Impact of the organization on the promotion of women's rights in the educational field; Funding sources of WEEA.

Focuses on Design Technology, a teaching program that develops educational equalization between girls and boys in elementary schools in the United States. Comparative reaction between girls and boys on computer tools, activities and materials; Assessment on learning abilities and problem solving skills of girls; Development of equitable learning environments.

Focuses on the importance of gender equity in education in the United States. Efforts of the Project on Equal Education Rights and American Association of University Gender on promoting gender equity; Promotion of gender equity to reconstruct practices in educational systems; Contribution of feminist scholars in preventing discrimination in education.

Examines attitudes of voters toward diversity in higher education in the United States. Importance of unity among people of diverse backgrounds; View of voters on the purpose of higher education; Impact of diversity education on skills acquisition; Programs for diversity education.