I discuss White American students' experiences of reading racism-themed young adult literature (YAL), addressing the issue of police brutality, and using the concept of intersectionality to promote social justice awareness. Based on analysis of their written reflections and classroom discussions, I argue reading racism-themed YAL with an…

The term "freethinking" originated in the 17th century to describe inquiry into beliefs which were accepted unquestioningly. Feminists such as Mary Wolstonecraft, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, and novelists such as Mark Twain and Zora Neal Hurston are among the many who dared to simultaneously challenge religious dogma,…

The relationship between practice-based teacher education (PBTE) and teacher education oriented toward social justice (SJTE) has been debated by teacher educators and researchers for some time, and still today the contention persists. Many teacher educators have a goal of supporting preservice teachers (PSTs) enact instructional practices that are…

With increasing threats to democracy, we call for communication educators to renew and re-examine their commitment to advancing civic engagement in the basic course. Given recent scholarly criticism that civic engagement pedagogies falsely present democratic practice as neutral or apolitical and reinforce the status quo, we set an agenda for basic…

It has been more than 50 years since Clay (1966) first introduced the concepts about print (CAP). Emergent readers, aged 4-5, must acquire an understanding of basic and hierarchical concepts of letters, words, and sentences; they must also learn basic knowledge about texts and books; they must develop an awareness of book orientation,…

Voice has become a common goal of educational research and pedagogical practices aimed at equity and social justice. That is, bringing marginalized groups "to" voice, allowing diverse students to "have" a voice, and setting up classrooms that privilege silenced voices are frequent goals in educational research and practice. In…

This article examines how Zen Buddhism conceives of human suffering, the causes of suffering, and the method by which human suffering can be alleviated and compares these with similar notions within critical social theory and its educational manifestation in the critical pedagogy movement. While both Zen Buddhist and critical theories/discourses…

Recent critics have suggested that character education (either in and of itself or certain instantiations of it) is overly individualised and, as a result, fails to engage adequately with the political. In this paper, I offer an account of character education which takes issue with such criticisms, and seeks to make clear connections between the…

For educators committed to promoting social equity, the question of how to address dialect hegemony is increasingly important. While linguists have long accepted the concept of dialect equality, educators have struggled with the issue, sparking a history of controversy and debate underscoring larger social issues of diversity and equity. For…

This article deploys critical sociology to examine institutions of higher learning, worldwide, within a context of a more utopian set of possibilities. The article contests the idea of universities as marketplaces -- competition, commercialisation and vocationalisation; the synthetic values of docility, conformity, and image/impression management;…

Manifest in research, national policy, and instructional standards, the United States has a long-documented interest in teachers as 'content experts.' Yet, research offers limited empirical examinations of teachers' discipline-specific critical content knowledges--their curricular agility in noticing and disrupting power and oppression, and…

Human Rights Education exists as an implementing entity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Scholars such as Andre Keet and others have criticized the dissemination of universal rights through education because it covets Western ideology over local ethical and epistemological constructs. Using Tibbitts' revised typologies of Human Rights…

On 20 September 2019 in Cape Town, as part of the global protests on inaction on climate change, the African Climate Alliance submitted a memorandum of demands to South African government representatives, one of which was 'the creation of a mandatory climate-education curriculum for South Africa'. This raises the question of how this imperative…

While the literature acknowledges the central role of academics in internationalization of the curriculum (IoC), little has been published regarding training of academic developers themselves to support IoC initiatives. However, higher education institutions around the globe are responding to strategic demands for IoC that prepare students as…

The present review article is intended to bring the significant issue of teachers' reflective practice into the limelight by overviewing how this concept evolved through time and what it promises for successful teaching. The concept of "teacher reflection," defined as teachers' beliefs about their teaching practice, has been subjected to…