Many teacher education programs provide teachers with opportunities to read, write, and discuss critical pedagogy, with the hope that such work will allow them to develop more equitable and just teaching practices. Yet, there often remains a gap between the theoretical discussions of teaching and learning in teacher education classrooms and the…

This article is inspired by my experience of aiming to teach against oppression on my return to an elementary school classroom after completing doctoral studies in education. The tensions that surfaced as I attempted to disrupt oppressive school knowledge in my second and third grade classrooms motivated me to engage in self-study. Locating my…

Regardless of the school community or type of school in the United States, Black students are disproportionately excluded from school at a higher rate than any other student group. These discipline practices are a matter of race that negatively impact educational outcomes for Black students and have a direct correlation with their involvement in…

In an attempt to confront monolithic perceptions of achievement and an educational narrative that defines communities of Color by their supposed deficits, the current study presents asset mapping as an example of culturally relevant pedagogy in action. Asset mapping is a pedagogical tool for students to visually represent personalized stories of…

A phenomenological case study by Counsell (2007) explored and investigated the phenomenon of what happened as Florida's A+ Plan intersected with the life histories of one beginning African American female third grade teacher and one veteran White female third grade teacher at demographically different school communities in one Florida school…