This book overturns the typical conception of standards, empowering educators by providing concrete examples of how top-down models of assessment can be embraced and used in ways that are consistent with critical pedagogies. Although standards, as broad frameworks for setting learning targets, are not necessarily problematic, when they are…

Though traditionally viewed as value-free, mathematics is actually one of the most powerful, yet underutilized, venues for working towards the goals of critical pedagogy--social, political and economic justice for all. This emerging awareness is due to how critical mathematics educators such as Frankenstein, Skovsmose and Gutstein have applied the…

Current literature on public school superintendents of color emphasize how these leaders leverage personal characteristics of resiliency, networking, and a commitment to equity to overcome obstacles to entry and retention in the superintendency. However, this literature fails to address with detail the nature of the resistance these administrators…

Background/Context: School desegregation has been variably conceptualized as a remedy for racial injustice, a means toward urban (economic) revitalization, an opportunity to celebrate human diversity, and an attempt to more equally distribute educational resources. At the center of the debate over the years is the extent to which school…

Nowadays mass media shape the perception of social values and roles. Thus, aspects of media education that deal with various kinds of inequalities influence general sensitivity to diversity and its consequences. In this respect media and intercultural competences interrelate. Not only minorities' rights have to be secured, but also majorities…

This inquiry highlights a research study with secondary teacher candidates (grades 9-12) in a teacher credentialing program in southern California that has been recognized for its effectiveness in preparing candidates to teach English learners. Within the frame of creating critical leaders, data collected in this inquiry show that teacher…

Four teachers share their lessons for drawing students into a critical examination of race, class, gender, and sexual identity. They strive to heighten students' awareness of ways literature "and gendered patterns in the world foreground or silence groups of people or issues," and they offer students and teachers tools for change. (Contains 1…

In this qualitative investigation, racial and ethnic minority teachers (N = 6) used personal stories to elucidate their experiences with social injustices that have impacted their teaching in rural schools. These counter-stories serve to disrupt orthodox conceptions of teachers of color, to resituate their work in their cultural positions, and to…

America's sense of community is broken down; its sense of connectedness and the collective is "collapsing." That these senses ever existed is a matter for considerable debate. But, as the new millennium gains momentum and neoliberalism seeks expansion, the author argues that a focus on rekindling these concepts of community,…

Curriculum and policy documents in many states and countries around the world, but more specifically in Queensland, Australia, are underpinned by an emancipatory agenda, in particular the principles of social justice. Educators are called upon to achieve this through a pedagogy which is immersed in the language of critical theory. This article…

This important, timely, and thought-provoking reader is a collection of original chapters by authors from five different countries, each of whom explores a facet of transformative leadership. Transformative leadership is fundamentally a critical approach to leadership that goes well beyond the tenets of most current leadership theories to focus on…

Background/Context: The issue of how to achieve a racially diverse student population has become increasingly challenging since a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court split decision endorsed the importance of creating diverse schools, while simultaneously limiting the assignment to public schools based on an individual student's race or ethnicity. The article…

The authors support role changes for educational practitioners who work with children and youth with disabilities as they make important transitions. Principles from critical pedagogy and disability studies are summarized to provide a new theoretical framework to support role changes. Rather than needs-based services that focus on helping those…

This dissertation reports on a qualitative investigation of two research questions: What experiences lead secondary social studies teachers to become passionate and committed to teaching toward social justice? How do these teachers conceptualize and practice teaching toward social justice in the social studies? The study, which employed a life…

This article examines the complex social production of white racial identity. Specifically, the author theorizes white people's fear of people of color and make a case for conceiving of white racial identities as profoundly ambivalent. Drawing from a larger ethnographic interview study conducted in a small, rural, white community in the Midwest of…