In this article, the authors share what they learned from considering a collection of narrative reflections written by six high school educators, all co-authors, who have integrated youth participatory action research (YPAR) into their instructional practice. Taken together, the written reflections shed light on teachers' reasons not only for…

Inspired by Freire's principle of dialogue, in this article we present a series of dialogues and critical syntheses between a science teacher-researcher with 35 years of experience and an early-career science teacher-researcher. We explore being in-between academic research in science education and high school teaching. Following Anzaldúa's…

This paper is a theoretical discussion of "The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study" (Harney & Moten, 2013) as a contribution to critical education in public schools. The undercommons serves here as an epistemic device, or a way of seeing and knowing, in relation to public education. The function of this device is to…

Bullying is increasingly considered to be an important moral, political, and social issue within modern society. Academic research on this issue has mostly been examined through a psychological lens, often using questionnaire data to examine and explain the prevalence of different types of bullying. In this position statement, we apply a…

This article examines why liberation theology needs to be a core resource in religious education settings, especially in Catholic secondary schools. It will first touch on key tenets of liberation theology and the reasons why it was silenced and underused. It will then analyse poverty in the Jewish tradition as an interfaith resource and…

When talking with New York City educators about the circumstances of teaching during the upheavals wrought by COVID-19, common terms get repeated: "brutal," "chaotic," "confusing," "traumatic," "disorienting," "sad," and "lonely." While art education often includes digital tools…

In this reflective essay, Alan McCullough Jr., Felton Morrell Jr., Bernard Thomas III, Vincente Waugh, and Nicholas Shubert with their teacher, Amy Donofrio, share the youth self-authorship methods that empowered them to transform their labels from "at-risk youth" to "at-hope youth leaders" in Jacksonville, Florida. After…

Author Jane Anna Gordon begins this commentary by saying that early in her academic career she was struck by the dual character of schools as places that can damage and waste the human potential of some on one hand, and that can and should be put in the service of liberation on the other. She writes that this point was driven home to her through…

In local, diverse learning communities in Ontario, educators may have to look closely at how engagement can be established in meaningful and authentic ways that encourage and foster student agency and democracy. As students are critically engaged and grasp the relevance of their learning within the context of their daily lives, learning in a…

This article argues that comprehensive reorganisation was not a one-off policy reform but a complex, bottom-up campaign for equity and fairness in education, with varied consequences and outcomes. Recent battles over student fees, free schools and academies show that the quest for democratic education does not lead to a permanent achievement but…

In this essay, we embrace a vision of the future of academic libraries where librarians confront and creatively address the lack of racial and ethnic diversity within our profession and actively pursue a social justice agenda within our libraries and in the communities we serve. This future requires that we acknowledge that many of our current…

Black and brown people are being murdered by police officers at an alarming rate, and nothing is being done about it.

In this article, the author discusses social justice as a "pedagogy of edge." She argues that educators hold the privilege to begin reframing the dialogue on social justice as a relation of all subjects and to dredge from within the meanings drawn and practices made in honor of justice. This may require a shift away from social justice as a…

How do democratic practices relate to social justice in our classrooms? What risks to social justice might democratic classroom discussions pose? In this article, I respond to these questions by drawing upon educational scholarship and data from a qualitative study in four U.S. secondary classrooms on the meanings and implications of teaching for…

The 19 individuals who gathered at Elmhurst College in the summer of 2009 to work on moving social justice theory into policy in English education had a singular goal--to codify a working framework for social justice in English education that could disrupt inequitable educational practices and empower all students to reach their potential…