While theories and recommendations continue to proliferate in the educational research literature on what it means to teach towards social justice and to prepare teachers for such teaching, so do concerns that these theories and recommendations fail to account for the ways that the contexts of teaching--cultural contexts, national contexts,…

This paper examines the contributions of Deborah Partridge Wolfe, a previously overlooked female African-American educator, to social education. Throughout her career, Wolfe consistently drew attention to issues of democracy, diversity, and equity through her teaching, curriculum development, scholarly writings, speeches, government service, and…

Helen Keller was someone who worked throughout her long life to achieve social change; she was an integral part of many important social movements in the 20th century. Her life story could serve as a fascinating example for children, but most picture books about Keller are silent about her life's work. In this article, the author examines the…

This essay examines the pedagogical practices of the poet, civil rights activist, and teacher Melvin B. Tolson who taught at Wiley College from 1923 to 1947. Tolson's complex classroom style, which mixed elements of classical, African American, and current-traditional rhetoric, produced a pedagogy that was at once conservative, progressive, and…