Improv theater has expanded beyond a popular American form of entertainment into an educational experience for students and teachers. It may be difficult to imagine that an interactive, joyful, and collaborative improv workshop might be harmful, but our own experiences as professional improvisers led us to observe that even well-intentioned,…

Background/Context: Almost 100 years ago, John Dewey advocated for a democratic U.S. educational system, one that echoed the tenets of the U.S. Constitution and achieved an ethical ideal by inviting participation of all students. Yet the U.S. educational system continues to stop short of this goal insofar as students of Color--especially those in…

A large and growing body of literature has attempted to devise discussion frameworks for school education. However, conceptualizing deliberation able to appreciate the expression of socially disadvantaged people has received relatively little attention. Since the voices of culturally and linguistically depreciated populations would disappear in…

Concepts in science education such as "science identity" and "science capital" are informed by dominant epistemological and ontological positions, which translate into assumptions about what counts as science and whose science counts. In this theoretical paper we draw on decolonial and antiracist perspectives to examine these…

This article presents a new tool called Critical Evaluation Capital (CEC) designed to address issues of equity and social justice in program evaluation. CEC is grounded in the tenants of critical race theory and inspired by Yosso's work on community cultural wealth which raises critical issues of positionality and access. CEC is a system for…

With increasing threats to democracy, we call for communication educators to renew and re-examine their commitment to advancing civic engagement in the basic course. Given recent scholarly criticism that civic engagement pedagogies falsely present democratic practice as neutral or apolitical and reinforce the status quo, we set an agenda for basic…

Previous research has contributed to the literature on what constitutes school leaders' and teachers' democratic practices in both high- and low-stakes accountability contexts, but less is known about how they interpret, legitimize, and translate the democratic purpose of education in a low-stakes, 'soft-regulation' system. The current study used…

Purpose: This paper conceptualizes a just leadership learning ecology through an analysis of one nontraditional site of leadership preparation: the Highlander Research and Education Center (originally founded as the Highlander Folk School). Methodology: Drawing on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and institutional theory (IT), we examine…

The focus of the article is on how knowledge is created, who creates knowledge, how knowledge is co-constructed, whose knowledge is excluded and how knowledge is being used to challenge inequalities and strengthen social movement capacity. This article grew from a fascinating conversation that the three of us had in Montreal in September of 2019.…

This study examined social studies teachers' conceptions of human rights education (HRE), with a focus on the connection between HRE and global citizenship education (GCE). These conceptions were studied through a Critical Race Theory framework. This study took place in a small city in North Dakota and utilized a collective case study approach.…

Classroom management is sometimes dismissed as behaviorist or even oppressive. However, as scholars concerned with issues of equity, we cannot afford to avoid the complexity of authority relationships in urban schools. Doing so undermines our ability to effectively combat the influx of authoritarian disciplinary approaches into these schools and…

This paper discusses the concept of democratic professionalism and argues that it offers a way to frame teacher education so that it can contribute to more productively managing long standing tensions between public schools, minoritized communities, and teacher preparation programs, and to more closely realizing the democratic potential of public…

The concept of masculinities has traditionally been defined in terms of crises associated with boys' underachievement, the violence of homophobia, the under-representation of males in caring occupations, the rituals and discourses of laddism, and perceptions of disaffected and unrealised talent. Whereas the topic of masculinities has long been…

The United States' social and economic inequities stood in high relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, spotlighting the glaringly disproportionate systemic injustices related to public health and the economic impact on minoritized communities. Realities of structural and institutionalized racism and classism were exposed to greater degrees as we…

Playing host to many leaders of South Africa's transition to democracy, the historic schools continue to contribute to the education of learners in disadvantaged rural communities. Within the leadership narratives of these schools are the lived daily experiences of female educational leaders whose voice has been largely absent from main stream…