Critical consciousness (CC) is the ability to understand, critique, and act against oppressive social structures and systemic forces. To assist educators in understanding and enacting strategies that foster CC, the authors identified examples of CC in third through fifth grade virtual classes of a 2020 "Children's Defense Fund's" Freedom…

"Transformative Science Teaching" reveals Daniel Morales-Doyle's vision for science education that supports meaningful learning in the sciences. In this sensible and sensitive assessment of science instruction in the United States, Morales-Doyle outlines both what science education is and what it could be. He suggests that a judicious…

There is a growing emphasis on social justice pedagogy as a predominantly White teacher labor force infiltrates classrooms in urban schools. Using "critical race theory" (CRT)--and the construct of interest convergence--this study examines how White teachers working in an urban school apply and enact teaching for social justice during…

Early adolescence is a dynamic stage for the development of critical consciousness, yet there are few resources focused on social justice education (SJE) in the middle grades. This article shares the findings from a study that investigated the experiences of three social justice educators as they engaged in SJE with young adolescents (YAs). We…

The work of teacher education in a 2020's context is challenging and filled with opportunity. With a diversifying P-12 student body (Love, 2020; Pitts, 2019) and the confluence of social, political, and educational factors (Nieto & Bode, 2018), the complexities of teacher education are vast and fluid. In a historical moment that has included…

Much of the extant literature regarding middle grades teachers centers on interventions to improve the quality or effectiveness of their teaching: studies that identify a particular instructional strategy, curricular support, or disposition, and conclude with recommendations that teachers improve their practice by adopting said thing. In contrast,…

An essential understanding of the uses and practices of algebra remain out of reach for many students. In this book, award-winning researcher Dr. Nicole Fonger addresses the issue of how to support all learners to experience algebra as meaningful. In a highly visual approach, the book details four research-based lenses with examples from 9th-grade…

Using their experience of working with the students as an example, the authors of this article aim to illustrate five student actions to which teachers can attend when implementing a social justice-oriented mathematical task. The example described is based on the work of 24 African American students in grades 6-8 who attended the authors'…

The purpose of this study is to determine the strategies teachers use in teaching social tolerance to elementary school students. Social tolerance is an attitude where a person accepts a difference in terms of religion, race, culture, ethnicity, nation, and others. In the context of social tolerance, students can understand others who are from…

This article models the integration of social studies and language arts commonly used in elementary classrooms by using a text that incorporates straightforward social studies content in the context of the daily experiences of a Chinese family in the U.S. The authors illustrate how to use the award-winning novel, Front Desk by Kelly Yang, with…

The purpose of this article is to show how instruction that supports both mathematical learning (ML) and social and emotional learning (SEL) creates opportunities for equity. In fall 2020, the first author observed the co-authors, Ms. Wong and Mrs. Silverstein, providing instruction that supports ML and SEL in their hybrid ninth-grade algebra 1…

Traditional science instruction typically follows an initiation- response-evaluation format and privileges curriculum reflective of Western, male, white, middle-class values, and knowledge which sometimes tends to exclude Black and Latinx students. This qualitative instrumental case study explored how a White male seventh-grade science teacher in…

This research sought to examine the various types of social justice knowledge that 10 practicing teachers possessed and how this knowledge can be categorized and further nuanced. Drawing from the theoretical framework of social justice pedagogical and content knowledge, researchers inductively and deductively coded a corpus of interviews to…

In the field of education concerning cultural diversity it has been recognized as vital to address justice in social structures. Although justifications for religious education in non-confessional contexts are heavily based on religious diversity, their advocates have paid little attention to justice and power relations. In this article, I analyse…

This study investigates the hopes of a group of Finnish of ninth-graders and how hopeful they are. This study also explores how to teach in a way that promotes hope. The theoretical framework of this study combines two different theories of hope, C. R. Snyder's psychological hope theory and Paulo Freire's philosophy of hope. This study holds that…