This article offers the concept of critical professional praxis as a framework for naming and addressing difference-neutral practices in education (an approach that does not consider the effects of power and privilege associated with social differences in teachers' beliefs, ideas, and actions). Critical professional praxis is using both formal and…

This paper explores promiscuous black feminism by juxtaposing black feminism, Foucualt's poststructuralism, and my grandmother. The tensions created by these juxtapositions illuminate the ways black feminism and poststructuralism are resources and challenges to each other, and how both offer understandings of the relations at play that shape…

Many critics hailed the new film, "Four Lions," by director Chris Morris as "provocative, incendiary, audacious, and shocking" and "one of the funniest and boldest comedies of the year." As a satirist, Morris already established his wit signature with the production of the mockumentary series, "Brass Eye." Using the same absurdist approach, he…

Conflictual relations between the owners of Foxwoods Casino and Resort, who are American Indians, and the white residents of Ledyard and nearby Preston and North Stonington townships in southeastern Connecticut are long-standing. They have flared up on numerous occasions and especially since 1982 when the Mashantucket Pequots considered building a…

This paper interrogates the relationship between the social distance men have from children, fear, and the social expectation that men will be capable of managing student (mis)behaviours. Briefly, the central argument is that the social distance men, as a group, have from children, and child protection concerns of men working with children can…

The Carlisle Indian School, founded by Richard Henry Pratt in 1879 to educate American Indian youth as an assist to having those youth success in mainstream America, is featured in two recently published books, "The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation," by Sally Jenkins (Doubleday, 2007), and "Carlisle vs. Army:…

In this article, Eric Freedman examines the extent to which critical pedagogy can be considered a democratic form of education. Comparing Paulo Freire's notion of dialogue to Jurgen Habermas's "ideal speech situation," Freedman argues that such dialogue cannot realistically occur in educational situations where the teacher remains in an…

Comments on "Psychotherapy, classism, and the poor: Conspicuous by their absence" by Laura Smith (see record 2005-11834-002). Smith is to be commended for identifying a critical missing area in applied psychology: the inclusion of people who are poor into training, education, research, and practice. But in advocating for psychology to be…

While sitting on a bench outside the university's museum grappling with his own emotional numbness and inability to comprehend the traumatic events of 9-11, John Wittman watched a group of 4 students circling one of the main buildings on campus with an American flag on the back of the roll bar of a truck. Having thought about the flag-waving…

Contrary to David Olson's claim that authority is conveyed by textbook language, it is mainly the school context of textbooks that establishes their authority--and that of teachers--in students' minds. The curriculum is not in the text but in the social rules reflected by school organization and teachers' authority. (JW)

Although Luke, de Castell, and Luke rightly notice the role of social structure in the authority of the textbook, the pattern of social authority outside the school is primarily reflected in the text itself. The task for writers, then, is to clarify the grounds for their authoritative claims. (JM)

Maughn Rollins Gregory's essay raises questions about power and authority that are at the heart of the teaching enterprise. Each of Gregory's four episodes illuminates this essential conundrum from a different angle: the disempowerment of a teacher by an administrator responding to student homophobia; the effort to normalize difference through…

Explores several factors central to crying among adult professional women including: origins of conflict between women's experience of emotional expression and "public" tears; gender-related differences in crying and responses to crying; role of reference groups in conflicting attitudes toward crying; and power in the workplace as…

States that Paulo Freire distinguished between authoritarianism and the legitimate exercise of authority, aligning legitimate authority with the assurance of freedom. He also linked freedom with the process of struggle, indicating a strong relationship between freedom and social justice. (NB)

This paper examines the ways in which high school Canadian history textbooks authorized from 1945 to the present have represented national participation in wars and peace-making/keeping operations. I explore how national mythologies of Canada as a kinder, more tolerant, or less violent national body permeate the narratives of national history…