In this article, I present the construct of scared leadership as a theoretical explanation for the gradual decrease in courageous behavior as educators move from the classroom to campus and district level leadership. Scared leadership is a construct that can be used in future work to better understand and articulate the relationship between fear…

The article addresses diversity issues related to language, gender, and culture. Topics include fundamental areas of research essential to the discussion on language diversity in the context of education with respect to equity, poverty, stereotype threat, Pygmalion Effect, non-sexist language, and Matthews Effect. The discussion on diversity and…

School attendance and completion are significant indicators of health and positive psychosocial development in children and adolescents. School attendance and completion rates remain particularly stifled, however, for students of color, students in poverty, and students with disabilities, among other vulnerable groups. Researchers and educational…

The article identifies three narratives about mathematics education. The first claims that mathematics is a wonderful subject, which provides a true foundation for human knowledge and progress. The second presents mathematics as a suspicious subject, which serves functions of oppression. The third highlights that mathematics has critical…

This paper engages Bourdieu's theories of social and cultural reproduction, namely that of habitus, symbolic power, and symbolic violence, with the work of queer theorists, to interrogate the theory and practice of heteronormativity. The paper centrally argues that issues of inequalities experienced by sexual minorities are rooted on a received…

As migration and displacement continue to increase around the world, guidelines are needed clarifying how school counselors can use their power and privilege in working with refugee students and their families across K-12 education, more so in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. We introduce the Refugee Well-Being Project intervention to school…

Young learners often are enchanted with the world, fascinated by the ordinary, and absorbed in the present moment. We explore interconnected ideas about how young children's natural proclivity toward being curious and noticing differences among people should be harnessed toward socially just ends. We consider ways in which joyfulness in learning…

Grounded in a partnership among researchers, a racial justice organization, and K-12 schools, this study uncovers the challenges of pursuing racial justice work in a polarized sociopolitical climate. Specifically, we illustrate these tensions across three dimensions of our work: (a) establishing critical commitments with K-12 partners; (b)…

The DAPP (Difference & Dissonance, Assumptions, Power, and Patterns) Tool is intended to help educators, leaders, teams, schools, districts, education agencies, and other organizations to engage in the type of critical reflection necessary to build critical consciousness, and undertake more equitable and just actions, toward learning,…

Since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, more organizations have recognized a need to create more inclusive and antiracist environments. While anti-racism continues to be a highly contested value, for some, it has become an en vogue purpose. How do equity-focused school leaders, who are truly committed to constructing more justice-oriented…

This conceptual and theoretical paper seeks to analyze the dynamics and consequences of psychologization and therapization, key mechanisms of the therapeutic turn in education. In particular, it focuses, on how the pathologization of social problems occasions individualization and the production of self-reliant and inward-looking subjects trained…

Historically, graduate students across academic disciplines have been expected to teach courses in their field, at the college level, without sufficient guidance. This is known as a stressful and difficult experience, but for some graduate students this can be compounded by their positionality, both in the hierarchy in academia as well as their…

Racial bias in research impacts a study's relevancy, validity and reliability, though presently this aspect is not addressed in critical appraisal tools, and consequently appraisers may not take racial bias into account when assessing a paper's quality. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) tenets that racism is ubiquitous and race a social…

In-class participation is a common component of many university students' course grade, yet there has been some debate over whether it is fair to grade participation, given that some students are " naturally" introverted. In this paper, we problematize the central assumption that the arguments against grading participation rest upon:…

Music teacher educators are not alone when grappling with the challenge of preparing students to navigate diversity and confront inequity and injustice. Educators and researchers from multiple disciplines face similar challenges and have responded with various approaches related to cultural multiplicity. The concept of "cultural…