This paper inquires into a practical logic of what can be called socially just education in late modern societies, based on a reexamination of critical pedagogy, and clarifies the boundary-crossing nature of this education and the dilemmas that it inevitably entails. The discussion first addresses and reexamines certain oppositional arguments made…

We tend to view education primarily as a way to teach students skills and knowledge that they will draw upon as they move into their adult lives. However, schools do more than educate students -- they also place students into categories, such as kindergartner, English language learner, or honor roll student. In "Schooled and Sorted,"…

This article examines the current construction of dancer wellness and argues that the focus on intrapersonal aspects of safety, health, and wellness should be balanced with a stronger consideration of interpersonal, institutional, and systemic aspects. The author explores how infusing dancer wellness with equity literacy can support individual and…

In this essay, I explore some of the insights provided in a set of three manuscripts that focus on centering equity in peer review, authored by Bancroft, Ryoo and Miles, Nkrumah and Mutegi, and Marshall and Salter. I consider various aspects of their arguments, highlighting implications for the procedures and norms of journals and funding…

My contribution to this special issue engages with Michael Sandel's "The Tyranny of Meritocracy" and its significance to the academic conversation about meritocracy and its discontents. Specifically, I highlight Sandel's diagnosis of the rise of populism and his proposed remedy for the 'tyranny of merit'. First, building on Menno ter…

Civil engineering students in the United States rarely receive instruction about how their work affects social inequities. Indeed, research reveals that most engineering students lack critical consciousness and fail to recognize and analyze real social inequity challenges as they arise in engineering contexts. As history demonstrates, this can…

Using Ahmed's (2012) scholarship on diversity work and institutional life as a conceptual framework, we examine how LGBTQ+ social justice educational intervention (SJEI) facilitators described the challenges of their role. We found LGBTQ+ SJEI facilitators descriptions of their role revealed institutional dynamics that undermine purported support…

This paper argues for a postcritical praxis in global citizenship education (GCE) and peace education (PE). The paper begins by critiquing the interlocking fields of GCE and PE as problematically framed around the three key pillars of liberal peace. Then, drawing on postabyssal thinking the paper illustrates that the Western-centricity of liberal…

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an overarching methodology taken up across various disciplines. Rather than a specific approach, CBPR encompasses varied action-based methodologies. While many disciplines use CBPR methodologies in their work, Fat Studies has yet to broadly create research that uses CBPR methodologies. Fat Studies…

Critical events in Leonard Matlovich's life depict a reluctant activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/gender diverse, and queer+ (LGBTQ+) equality. He served in the US military and subsequently came to personify the broad social challenges to the military's homophobic culture and recruitment practices. Matlovich's experience of a series…

This article discusses the ways that labeling students can contribute to epistemic injustices. The harms of labeling are discussed, and Patricia Carini's practice of descriptive review, along with her general philosophical approach to teaching and education, are offered as ways of mitigating against these harms. The main goals of this article are…

The last few years have witnessed a resurgence of interest among both scholars and public intellectuals over issues associated with distributive justice and its gravitational orbit of concepts, including the idea of merit and the adjacent vision of a meritocratic society. Nevertheless, despite its centrality for conceptions of equality of…

The US student body is rapidly diversifying, but remains unmatched by the teachers who serve in their classrooms. There is a growing understanding that teachers, particularly White teachers, must explicitly and thoughtfully engage in anti-bias and anti-racist practices in their classrooms. Our nation, and correspondingly our schools, have…

Epistemicide occurs when one knowledge is exalted at the expense of local or indigenous knowledge systems leading to the demise of such knowledge systems. In this article, I focus on how some conceptions and ways of incorporating indigenous knowledge systems seem to be entangled in the same misnomer to which they owe their existence (i.e. a…

Using Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed (1985) playmaking structures, students in an undergraduate education course, Educating for Social Justice, developed forum plays--brief improvisational scenes designed to provoke discussions of power imbalances. The plays focused on "gay rights," a topic the participants self-selected through…