This paper is both a response to the four reviewers in a special symposium on my book Adam Smith's Pluralism and a substantive discussion of philosophy of education. In it, I introduce what I call "the educative critique," a mode of analysis similar to Marxist, feminist, or postcolonial critiques, but focusing on the educative role of a…

Studies on gender discourses in classrooms have specifically examined how students negotiate their individual gender identities while disregarding their lived realities within a historical context. Nevertheless, although it is difficult and uncomfortable for them, students' responses to discussing gender reveal that the discourse positively…

Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" can be a useful text in an undergraduate English class, helping students think through issues of individualism. Rand's own concept of the self, however, ignores its social dimensions. (Contains 7 notes.)

In 2006, a secondary English and feminist studies teacher created a course and designed a study around a reading exchange for eighth-grade girls from two vastly different communities. Girls from a school in a northeastern state read young adult novels and wrote about their reading and related topics with girls from Washington, DC on a wikispace…

This article is framed in two ways. First, by an editorial concern regarding the Americentricity of a special issue for the "Journal of Research on Educational Leadership" on leadership preparation. And second, Jean-Marie, Normore, and Brooks' (2009) desire for a "new social order" for a "multinational dialogue" as…

Women in higher education and the consumer pressures they feel have implications for the quality of an education a woman receives. With college tuition rising, more and more college students are going into deeper financial debt than ever before (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2008). Popular culture influences on the college-going…

This paper begins with the assumption that the interpretive practices people acquire in social worlds often transfer to their stances toward and interpretations of worlds encountered in literature (Beach, Thein, & Parks, 2007). The goal of this paper is to identify the history and logic behind one student's negative, ambivalent, and positive…

This paper reconsiders the relationships between feminist perspectives and the figurational/process-sociological perspective of Norbert Elias for understanding gender, sport and sport-related activities. The main aim of the article is to respond to Colwell's claim that there are differences between feminist and figurational approaches to…

This article describes a study of both textual and reader response analyses of "The Skin I'm In" by Sharon Flake. Because gender and race constitute central themes in the narrative, Black feminist thought and feminism undergirded the textual critique. Critics' reviews, scholarly articles, and published author interviews also supported the textual…

Responds to Patricia Berliner's "Soul Healing: A Model of Feminist Therapy." Describes Berliner's retreat-workshops for women. Concludes that "Soul Healing" is a thought-provoking article that awakens sensitivities to the problems of poor self-image with which many women struggle and introduces numerous germinal ideas about…

Recent studies have shown that under the influence of feminist theory, today one of the most popular areas of academic children's literature criticism is "the rereading of texts for previously unrevealed interpretations" (Paul, 2004: 142). By "rereading," academic feminist children's literature critics look at the ways ideological implications are…

The imperial hubris, insecurities and indifference of our bloody new millennium pose profound challenges to feminist anti-racist and anti-colonial educators. For those of us who turn to literature education to create spaces of sustained moral reflection, there is a particular challenge to think through the kinds of reading practices which might…

Offers feminist response to Alan Bloom's book, "The Closing of the American Mind," proposing that the women's studies model somewhat paradoxically offers remedies for many of the ills Bloom finds plaguing American education. (NB)

Responds to earlier article by Carolyn Zerbe Enns on feminist counseling and psychotherapy. Asserts that Enns presents concise summary and overview but offers little beyond her examination of "themes of change, agreement, and disagreement." Focuses comments on two topics addressed by Enns: the importance of context and interrelationships…

Responds to previous article by Carolyn Zerbe Enns on feminist counseling and psychotherapy. Sees Enns's article as a valuable resource and reacts to Enns's article from the perspective of a radical feminist therapist. Discusses the difficulty involved in trying to effectively integrate radical feminism with psychotherapy. (NB)