Educators continue to struggle with how masculinities are performed and regulated in spaces of learning. In a time of rapid social change, there is a renewed impetus for gender justice reform in schooling, though these approaches themselves remain a shifting picture. Adding a new layer of complexity, we are now witness to educational policy…

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…

In teaching canonical literature, presuming a text's merit and infallibility can inhibit the development of critical thought and may transmit values that are not socially and politically just. The author describes how educators can promote academic literacy and critical consciousness in their students through pedagogy that helps students…

Racism is a systemic issue that works alongside white privilege, a system of unearned benefits, such as obtaining financial breaks and loans, being reflected consistently in classroom curriculum, and being assumed as the "norm." Assumptions about people with light skin include their being honest, responsible, and safe. Thus, white…

"Resisting Divide-and-Conquer Strategies in Education: Pathways and Possibilities" examines the ways in which divide-and-conquer strategies operate in the American public education system. In U.S. education, these mechanisms are endemic and enduring, if not always evident. Coordinated, strategic, well-funded, politically-viable campaigns…

How might cisgender teachers of color who identify as male problematize social norms connected to race and gender? What privileges, limitations, and possibilities may emerge from such a social location? This essay explores these questions by looking at a number of micro-decisions that I make in an introductory-level undergraduate class. By…

Pedagogical practices in schooling bear a potential to impact on student success, achievement and engagement with schooling. This is especially the case for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are deeply dependent on schooling for their educational resources. Central to this paper are pedagogies for social justice and improved engagement…

In this reflective essay, Alan McCullough Jr., Felton Morrell Jr., Bernard Thomas III, Vincente Waugh, and Nicholas Shubert with their teacher, Amy Donofrio, share the youth self-authorship methods that empowered them to transform their labels from "at-risk youth" to "at-hope youth leaders" in Jacksonville, Florida. After…

This paper draws on Judith Butler's concepts of "intelligibility" and "identity as performance" to make sense of enactments of 'subaltern' (that is, subordinated) urban students within secondary school science. Understanding classrooms as constituted by complex power struggles for voice, authenticity and recognition, the paper…

Through "Evangelii Gaudium" (2013) and "Laudato si'" (2015) Pope Francis has approached contemporary culture head-on with a call for Catholics to engage, and not retreat from, the changes and challenges of the 21st century. Traditional expectations and norms of society such as education, occupations, communication, and…

Applying culturally relevant and social justice-oriented notions of teaching and learning and a critical race theory (CRT) analysis of teacher preparation in the United States, this study examines the oral life histories of two Black male teachers recognized for their successful teaching of Black students. These histories provide us with a venue…

While LGBTQ people may no longer need be considered the "invisible minority," LGBTQ books are often taken to be positive or affirmative based on their mere inclusion of gay people as characters. The authors believe the catalog of LGBTQ texts must continue to increase in both quantity and quality and that teachers must explicitly engage students in…

Since the early 1990s, several researchers have found that African American teachers who are successful with African American students hold deep philosophical commitments to the concept of "social justice". While these scholars have convincingly articulated how "social justice" is a central feature of African American teachers' success with…

This article describes a particular endeavor, the Bridge Builders Academic Mentoring Program (BAMP), a partnership between a school of education in a Catholic university in the Northwest and a community-based rites of passage program for adolescent African American males. The partnership exemplifies tenets of Catholic social teaching, in that it…

This paper explores issues of critical literacy, gender justice and masculinity through "Mr A's" story. Mr A is head of English at "Grange College"--an all boys' school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). The paper highlights how the privileging of rationality, control and "the masculine" within Mr A's…