This article explores prevalent stories about "Gen Z" students that unintentionally undercut both their success and learner-centered pedagogies. The authors consider how those beliefs might be reframed to serve all learners more effectively. We also explore how the racial reckoning, health pandemics, social unrest, and additional…

With the 2015 passage of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), the oversight of language policy in U.S. schools shifted from federal to state governance. Although the education of students officially designated as English learners (ELs) has historically been grounded in federal law, we argue that ELs' educational experiences are also…

Middle- and high school-based programs that affirm diverse sexual orientations and gender identities are related to lower rates of bullying and better mental health for LGBTQ students, yet little is known about how to implement affirming programs for elementary-aged children. This study is among the first to examine how an arts-based curriculum…

Drawing on a multispecies ethnographic encounter with a physically disabled feral kitten, Whiskey, I take an intersectional theoretical approach to place disability studies in conversation with ecofeminist perspectives. In so doing I ask: How does a culture that produces disabled and unwanted humans render animals deserving of the same label? And…

For the most part, students entering social work programs want to serve poor and oppressed populations. They see themselves as well-meaning and politically liberal, and view racism, sexism, and heterosexism as intolerable. They are highly offended by assertions that they may suffer from these "isms." However, to ready social work…

Highlighting a hero is a common response to including the history of marginalized people in the curriculum. Harvey Milk is becoming that hero as social studies curriculum responds to calls for including LGBTQ people. By studying Milk, what might young people learn about LGBTQ people, issues, and movements? What opportunities and limitations exist…

This study explores the experiences of male college students who participated in a theatre-based, peer-education, sexual assault prevention presentation. The program was established through the use of Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theatre of the Oppressed, as well as multicultural feminist theory and approaches. These models emphasize subverting…

This study examines civic identity (i.e., civic values and responsibility to community and to people) in middle childhood, a previously unexplored developmental period in the civic engagement literature, and how adults and socialization processes in the home and school contexts are associated with children's civic outcomes. Middle childhood is a…

In response to an increasingly interdependent world, educators are demonstrating a growing interest in educating for global citizenship. Many definitions of the "good global citizen" value empathy as an especially important disposition for understanding others across national borders and cultural divides. Yet it may be difficult for…

Student opposition in school is traditionally cast in terms of individual dispositions, whereby particular students or groups of students are said to "resist" or "oppose" school structures and identities aligned with the dominant cultural group. The author examined instead how the teacher and students in a low-track mathematics…

Interpretive methodology is used to study the experiences of gay and lesbian K-12 Caucasian educators in California who consider themselves "out" within the classrooms in which they teach. Three main research questions framed this study: What are the lived experiences of out gay and lesbian K-12 educators? What are the interconnections…

Drawing from a multi-year ethnography of a Latino/a immigrant Pentecostal church and from high school observations and interviews of three focal students, this article compares the language and literacy experiences of an immigrant Mexican Pentecostal adolescent in church and school contexts. I document how the youth's Sunday school class fostered…

In Los Angeles, racial demographics have changed radically in the past 30 years resulting in inevitable tensions in the school. This paper reports on a classroom simulation of ethnicity/race and class relations. Students adopted the roles of three polarized and rigid "color groupings": (1) Greens--ruling class, wealthy since birth; (2)…

This article demonstrates how literacy practices in an 11th grade, urban, English classroom in the United States worked to delineate and patrol gender borders between acceptable masculine and feminine social practices. Drawing upon Blackburn's (2005) and Thorne's (1993) studies of the gendered boundaries that are created and questioned in literacy…