Megan Bang (Ojibwe and Italian descent) is a Professor of the Learning Sciences and Psychology at Northwestern University and is currently serving as the Senior Vice President at the Spencer Foundation. Dr. Bang's research focuses on the complexities of navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing more effective and just…

This article is a response to Anna Danielsonn, Maria Berge, and Malena Lidar's paper, "Knowledge and power in the technology classroom: a framework for studying teachers and students in action," and an appeal to science educators of all epistemological orientations to (re)consider the work of Michel Foucault for research in science…

It is challenging to define who Michel Foucault was, whether he was a theorist, a philosopher, a historian, or a critic. In many of his books, and essays, Foucault denied being a philosopher or a theorist, nor did he want to be called a writer or a prophet. He described himself as an experimenter by saying that his work simply consists of…

This commentary revisits compelling arguments put forth by the contributors to this special issue on the role of race and ethnicity in academic motivation research. First, an overview of how race and motivation have been positioned in prominent theories of motivation is provided and juxtaposed with those offered in culturally responsive…

In this short essay, I explore in a narrative style the following question: do narrative analyses of sport and exercise need to engage more fully with social theory in order to become more forceful in their arguments? More specifically, to have real impact, and to achieve what we are especially trained to do as qualitative social scientists,…

For those engaged in educational "improvement," it is important to pause from time to time to ask the question: what is improving? If Bourdieu's thesis is correct, namely that education is a key site of social reproduction, does school improvement, and/or improvement of mathematics education, also enhance that capacity for the social…

Using auto-ethnography, I write my story as Mexican international student in the role of pre-service teacher in Australia. I focus on exploring my socio-political status and its relationship to assuming a position to respond to education policies about working with students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, and teaching…

The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding and use of the theory of communities of practice. In order to clarify terms, explore applications for education and reflect on various critiques of the theory in the literature, two educational researchers conducted a series of interviews with the theorist Etienne Wenger-Trayner. The…

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…

The term Critical Social Theory is employed in this article following the tradition of the Frankfurt School, and particularly the work of Herbert Marcuse and his interpretation of the political and social philosophy of Hegel and Marx. Discussing the contribution of G.W.F. Hegel to social theory Marcuse argued that: "Hegel's system brings to a…

Badiou's philosophy of the "event" has itself become an event of sorts for contemporary social and political theory. It has broken radically with a set of propositions concerning the operation of power, the status of knowledge, and the possibility of action that were for some time considered nearly unquestionable, in many ways defining what Badiou…

In this article, the authors engage critical performance pedagogy scholarship on whiteness to both question and extend two persistent trends in the literature. Although intersectionality is commonly referenced in the literature, the larger impulse underscoring Crenshaw's (1991) concept is often footnoted, tangentially marked, or given mere surface…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conceptually discuss whether and how feminine voice is muted within e-mails in organizations; the implications of which are substantial and far-reaching for human resource development (HRD) professionals as well as the HRD field as a whole. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing the approach and arguments…

This urban synthesis paper encompasses the works of Drs. Joel Handler, Yeheskel Hasenfeld, Ann Winfield, John Rury, and Jean Anyon. The main purpose of this paper is to synthesize arguments contained within their books relating to the theory of power vs. oppression as it plays out within our society. This synthesizing acknowledges and elucidates…

In this article, the author states that she supports Wayne Bowman's (2006) concern with the impact narratives can have, including their potential to legitimize "existing patterns of privilege and possibility." She argues that "there is nothing inherently emancipatory about narrative." In fact, narrative "may, and often…