The purpose of this study was to better understand how an Islamic school leader's critical spirituality informed and shaped leadership practice. This qualitative case study explored the role of critical spirituality as it relates to social justice, gender justice, and pluralism in a progressive American Islamic school. Data were collected via…

Social Justice Humanitas Academy (SJ Humanitas)--a public high school located in Southern California's San Fernando Valley--was designed and founded by teachers as a community school in 2011. Their vision, which they actualized with partners through the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Pilot School initiative, was to create a school…

This paper presents the voices of thirteen pre- and in-service teachers to showcase their perspectives of culturally relevant pedagogy as a teaching framework. Positionality, critical consciousness, and cultural assets are used as foundations to explore social justice pedagogy. These new teachers discuss the challenges they face in making the…

As the population of Latinx students grows in U.S. public schools and our nation seeks to address systemic inequities, racism, and xenophobia, this counternarrative provides inspiration to those wishing to reinvigorate schools and build a more caring and just world. "Authentic Cariño" documents the innovative practices, successes, and…

While recent literature advocates a translingual approach to pedagogy, the implications of such an approach for teacher identity development has been little explored. This article presents case studies of two English-dominant California teachers who learned Spanish: a Filipino-American teacher of Spanish, and an Anglo-American teacher of ESL. Both…

This article draws from a longitudinal study of 38 in-depth "testimonio" interviews with 10 undocumented Chicanas/Latinas from 2008 to 2014, first as college students and then as professionals. A Chicana feminist theoretical perspective in education was utilized to explore how undocumented Chicana/Latina ways of knowing emerged in the…

The task of guiding the development of scholar-practitioners as leaders for social justice is inherently challenging. The dissertation journey, unlike any other journey practitioner-based doctoral students face in urban school settings, provides a steep learning curve as they transition from practitioner to scholar-practitioner. This journey…

This paper provides a deep dive case study of the California Mini-Corps Program within the context of an Hispanic Serving Institution.

The purpose of this mixed methods, instrumental case study was to investigate the impact of the case--a theoretically informed, curriculum and instruction approach--on the development of cultural competence in teacher-candidates. Denboba (1993) noted that the acquisition of cultural competence is an ongoing, developmental process that requires a…

This case study focuses on a 2008 incident where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vans appeared near a K-5 elementary school. It was the first time school personnel experienced the impact of federal immigration agents policing illegality in their school community, and the event set off a chain of decision-making choices as to how…

Drawing on the concept of transformative expectations--that is, the instructional practices that demonstrate teachers' belief systems for the educational justice and empowerment of Chicanx/Latinx youth--this qualitative study explored the expectancy effects of nine classroom teachers with social justice commitments in a school district in…

The population of California continues to become increasingly diverse, and graduate programs in counselor preparation are dedicating more focus to curriculum and instruction that provide an inclusive space to explore diverse experiences and develop multicultural competence. One specific group contributing to the diversity of the national landscape…

This case study documents a small, urban high school that implements firewalks, innovative rites of passage in which low-income, racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse youth publicly reflect on their personal and academic development. Drawing from anthropological scholarship on rites of passage and scholarship on color-conscious care, I…

This paper presents findings from analysis of two learning sites, a classroom and a community-based youth organizing group for Latino adolescents where adult "educators" attempted to promote both critical and civic development for the participating learners. By examining the two unique learning spaces with similar youth development…

Our self-study has two main purposes: (1) to understand the value of self-study for credential program graduates to confront in transformative ways the pedagogical challenges of urban schools, and (2) to add to an exploration of self-study for non-teacher educators and strengthen our preparation of candidates to enact such inquiry. To answer these…