This case describes initial conflicts experienced by a new superintendent that involve faculty resistance and diminished academic expectations at the high school, compared with the district's other schools. Compounding the situation is the fact that the Board of Education was bitterly divided when reaching their superintendent hiring decision,…

Foucault's "technologies of the self" provides a frame through which to review the way in which different drama conventions work to govern the knowledge of the self that can be represented through the drama. The "Learning Partnerships" workshops provide the field site for the study. These workshops position high school drama students as coaches…

Teaching in a democracy is challenging and filled with dilemmas that have no easy answers. For example, how do educators meet their responsibilities of teaching civic norms and dispositions while remaining nonpartisan? "Democratic Discord in Schools" features eight normative cases of complex dilemmas drawn from real events designed to…

This document presents the proceedings of the 21st Annual Research Forum held June 30, 2016, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following 11 action research papers: The Use of Mexican Folk Art to Develop Oral and Written Language Ability and Cultural Awareness in the Secondary Spanish Classroom (Antonio…

Emerging research suggests that teachers' perceptions of fairness with respect to interactions with school administrators, decision-making processes, and decision outcomes can contribute greatly to understanding effective schools. This study of Virginia public high schools used correlational analysis to measure the strength of the relationships…

This yearlong ethnographic study explored the work of two Latino teachers who identified themselves as critical literacy teachers and who taught ninth-grade Latino students whose scores on standardized reading tests fell in the bottom 20th percentile. Framed in critical pedagogy and multimodality, this study sought to answer the following…

We explore the efficacy of one increasingly familiar strategic intervention designed to disrupt antigay school environments--Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). Despite the increasing popularity of GSAs, there has been little research on the ways in which they do--and do not--impact school climate. The ubiquity of antigay and homophobic attitudes…

This practical handbook will introduce readers to social justice education, providing tools for developing "critical social justice literacy" and for taking action towards a more just society. Accessible to students from high school through graduate school, this book offers a collection of detailed and engaging explanations of key…

Using socio-political theory as a framework, this study will focus on developing students as agents of change in their schools and community. Watts, Williams, And Jagers (2003) describe socio-political theory as the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, analytical skills, emotional faculties, and the capacity for action in political…

This article chronicles how a group of university researchers initiated a research and professional development project called Culture of Care at a large high school in the Denver Metropolitan area. After implementation, Latino/Hispanic students and their parents maintained the project. It was the charge of Latino/Hispanic parents to dismantle the…

This article draws attention to the growing evidence of a mismatch between sociological categorization and actors' worlds of meaning as expressed in the classroom. The mismatch is especially blatant in cases where students from disadvantaged groups are introduced to what educators and theorists presume to be the liberating discourse of…

Creating a learning environment where all students can thrive academically requires an understanding of the complexities of classroom management. The notions of "discipline," "conformity" and "obedience" that have littered discussions of classroom management in the past are no longer sufficient to describe the diverse…

In this discursive and wide-ranging paper I want to do two things: first, to interrogate the conditions that led to, and continue to wreak havoc as a result of, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), and that underpin current policy approaches to teacher education in Australia and other western countries; and second, to move in the direction of…

This case involves a high school principal dealing with increasing numbers of students with “invisible disabilities” in his school while faced with ever-present budgetary cuts, perennially substandard academic performance, and low teacher morale. This case seeks to investigate how a principal, faced with an unsupportive Board interested only in…

In this article, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Keffrelyn Brown, and Anthony Brown offer findings from a close textual analysis of how the Texas social studies standards address race, racism, and communities of color. Using the lens of critical race theory, the authors uncover the sometimes subtle ways that the standards can appear to adequately address…