This article provides an overview of a unit plan that integrates nonfiction and issues surrounding social justice. The author's goal for the article is first and foremost about practice, highlighting a unit they taught using nonfiction that centered on how reading and writing can be used to address issues of social justice and change. The author…

In this article, I argue that resolving the Black-White academic achievement gap is incompatible with the emerging issues of global climate change. That is, solutions (equitable funding of schools and resources, school integration movements, and after-school and mentoring programs) for closing the gap in order so that Blacks in America and…

As the U.S. Supreme Court prepared to rehear for the second time the case of "Brown v. Board of Education" in 1953, the 83rd Congress passed House Concurrent Resolution 108 and Public Law 280--policies that would terminate federal treaty and trust responsibilities to Native Americans. Even as post-"Brown" desegregation went…

By the end of the nineteenth century, the momentum for the idea of a more practical education better suited to life in a modern, technological world brought the first educational reform movements in the nation. Concurrent reform efforts at the state and national levels influenced both the historical development of Earth science education and the…

The 1954 rulings in the United States Supreme Court cases of "Brown v Board of Education" was a landmark event in civil rights history. As momentous as the rulings were, they were not embraced by many Southern politicians. This was especially true in Virginia where Harry F. Byrd, Sr., U. S. Senator from Virginia, embarked on a campaign…

Former President Barack Obama has touched hearts by sharing his inspiring book, "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters," with the children of the world. Together, with the breathtaking illustrations of Loren Long, Obama presents 13 historical figures that have each had a profound impact on America. In a very different book,…

In this article I ask a seemingly simple question--How can a Muslim be a liberal citizen? In order to explore this question I define who and what was indexed by the term "Muslim" at various points in United States history. I argue that the figure of the Muslim has existed as an existential other upon which otherness, violence, and…

This essay provides the first account and examination of caste education in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois. In so doing, I argue that caste education plays a central role in realizing the political and social goals of racial capitalist society for Du Bois. Using Du Bois's caste analytic, I take up and articulate three biopolitical governing strategies…

Although the popularity and use of graphic novels in literacy instruction has increased in the last decade, few sustained analyses have examined adolescents' reading processes with informational texts in social studies classrooms. Recent research that has foregrounded visual, emotional, and embodied textual responses situates this qualitative…

This article examines the story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree, as it appears in school readers. The author discusses the ideological influences that guided authors in molding and shifting the story through the decades. At the end, the author returns to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) revival of Washington, which demonstrates…

Focusing only on education exchanges between the United States and other countries, existing scholarship fails to illuminate how American-sponsored student migrations between other countries helped expand U.S. hegemony. This article attempts to rectify this limitation by looking at Taiwan's policies on overseas Chinese students (qiaosheng) in the…

Until the 20th century, the spiritual nurture of children was not a high priority for the Christian church. In fact, for most of Christian history, reflection on the nature of children and their faith formation was often considered "beneath" the work of theologians. Two 19th-century American Christian writers, however, stand in sharp…

The Civics Education Initiative is a project of the Joe Foss Institute, an organization dedicated to shaping "young Americans for civic engagement as voters and informed members of their community." The initiative, which launched in 2015, has three goals: (1) To ensure students graduate with the tools they need to become informed and…

The authors used vocabulary activities, photographs, group work, and writing with tenth-grade students to unpack a commission report on violence associated with housing desegregation in 1950s Chicago to deepen students' engagement with Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun."

Set amidst an increasingly tense discourse about immigration and substantial pressures on educators, this study examines a three-week fourth-grade social studies unit as taught to a class with a large number of English learners located in a low-income school in the Pacific Northwest. Using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives, we provide…