One of the hallmarks of a quality liberal arts education is providing undergraduates the opportunity to wrestle with controversial issues. Yet many teachers feel ill-equipped when it comes to broaching disagreeable topics, managing the resulting heated debates, or helping students to separate their personal feelings from scientific evidence. This…

This commentary focuses on the shortcomings of LGBT-inclusivity by concentrating on the problem of heteronormativity and the promise of intersectionality. The authors do so with a deliberate focus on adolescents and adults engaging in literacy practices, construed broadly, in both in-school and out-of-school contexts.

Grounded in activism--fighting the implementation of Department of Defense-run schools in a public schools system; organizing to fight the largest national teacher education accreditation agency's removal of sexual orientation and social justice from its accreditation standards; and protesting a state's decision to hold a public meeting for…

Eighteen scholarly papers and fifteen abstracts comprise the content of the seventeenth annual Brick and Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship.…

Learn how to engage and advocate for undocumented children and youth with this new resource written by and for teachers. "Teachers as Allies" provides educators with the information and tools they need to involve immigrant students and their American-born siblings and peers in inclusive and transformative classroom experiences. The…

This paper examines the ways that one group of US pre-service teachers, enrolled in an alternate route teacher education class, expressed and challenged each other's contradictory discourses about teaching for social justice. Particularly significant are the many ways that this group of students enacted subject positions around race and sexuality…

In this rejoinder, the authors begin by addressing some of the questions raised about the Values Statement. They then focus on next steps, first briefly summarizing a few excellent suggestions made by the authors of the reaction papers and then zeroing in on the tension-wrought issue of when values regarding sexual orientation and religion…

Today, more than ever before, college educators are being asked to address diversity issues and to teach in ways that foster self-reflexivity and social consciousness. As the world becomes increasingly diverse at the intersections of age, gender, sexual orientation, class, region, religion, race, ethnicity, ability, and nationality, students need…

Children from very young ages internalize messages about power and privilege with regard to gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and language, which they perpetuate through their play and talk. While families are a critical piece in shaping children's values on such matters, classroom practices communicate and reinforce strong,…

In this article, the authors explore issues of identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, educational leadership and leadership preparation. We discuss professional norms, including attire, and in turn how professional norms might construct panopticons, identity and US public school leadership. We conclude by exploring a consciously queer…

"The Hope for Audacity: Public Identity and Equity Action in Education" calls for audacious action from the president and his administration as they attempt to guide educators, policymakers, as well as the general public in thinking critically about education. This book also discusses the role of education faculties in becoming more active agents…

The purpose of this critical ethnographic study is to provide an account from within a public school of some of the ways that heterosexist discourses and silences are reproduced and challenged. As a classroom teacher and critical ethnographer, I conducted this research with straight-identified high school students as they came to understand,…

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth are at risk for engaging in negative health behaviors and for experiencing at-school victimization. Specific benefits of attending a high school with a gay-straight alliance (GSA), including lower levels of suicidality, have been published; however, it is unclear whether GSAs are related to…

As a teacher of art teachers, this author values and promotes an education through the arts that loves freedom, an education through art connected to powerful social ideas and movements, connected to social justice. This is not a kind of education common today in public schools, but it has a rich lineage. Drawing inspiration from Maxine Greene,…

Applebaum acknowledges the importance of the questions that Jackson raises and also clarifies some claims that Jackson mistakenly attributes to her. Applebaum queries Jackson's identification of "unreasonableness" with ignorance and cautions that a concern for students becoming "reasonable" must not preclude the possible costs to those who must…