Globally, young people are asking questions about social responsibility. California addresses this in the second draft of its updated mathematics framework, still unreleased as this article goes to press. It defines these questions as authentic, suggesting that classrooms "include, at times . . . contexts students can engage with as a way to…

School bullying is a pervasive global issue with profound implications for students' well-being and academic performance. While extensive research has examined the role of bystanders--individuals who witness bullying--in mitigating such behavior, the specific influence of classroom climate on the emergence of positive bystander behavior,…

As people with power in schools, teachers and administrators make instructional decisions that shape opportunities in classrooms for students to learn. Educators' words and actions, especially related to the treatment of students and their ideas, are foundational for creating equitable learning communities in our classrooms and schools. David…

This study aimed to evaluate the value of justice, one of the 10 core values in the mathematics course curriculum, in the context of an exemplary activity in classroom practice and student interviews, where it was integrated into mathematics learning goals. The case study model was employed. The sample of the study included eight 7th-grade…

Although several prior studies portray integration in Jewish high schools, this study presents a unique example from a Jewish middle school, where a team of 7th-grade teachers met over two years to integrate their disciplines. Investigating factors that facilitated and hindered integration, I found that the following factors helped drive…

Teaching critically about politically charged topics in an affluent, suburban middle school requires a careful approach. Grounded in critical pedagogy theory and historical literacy pedagogy, the inquiry-based project described in this article is an attempt to help seventh-grade students analyze and understand the historic and modern conflict…

This qualitative study examined the building of a beloved community in a seventh grade life science classroom while teaching and learning in a constricting institutional context (U.S. public school). Guided by a Critical Race Praxis for Educational Research lens (CRP-Ed), the findings demonstrated how building a beloved community while situated…

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 article examines and critiques gap-based education policies that are based on statistical and reductive conceptualisations of success for First Nations students in Australia. The policy desire to achieve social justice underpinned by parity of outcomes across a range of life indicators (including standardised English literacy) between First…

South African democracy was born in 1994 after years of oppression and dehumanisation. Through the implementation of Child Safeguarding Policies from 2012, deep unhappiness in schools was uncovered and the use of corporal punishment which was abolished in 1996 became apparent. Teachers were adamant that corporal punishment was the only means of…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine two teachers' beliefs and practices on teaching writing at an urban, high-performing middle school to determine: What discourses of writing are being taught in an urban, high-performing US public middle school? What factors prevent or enable particular discourses? Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on case…

One of the objectives of comparative education research is to compare within a certain period of time educational systems that have developed in similar or different environments and processes. The aim of this qualitative study is to compare the value education in Turkish and Iranian seventh-grade social studies textbooks. Data were collected…

This paper reports on initial findings from the Visible Maths Pedagogy research project, a collaboration between an academic researcher and two teacher researchers (the paper's authors). The aim of the project was to explore the effects of making pedagogy more visible on students' success in school mathematics. We adopted a Participatory Action…

This paper draws on Bakhtin's (1981) notions of discourse and ideological becoming to investigate how adolescents' experiences with young adult literature and other texts might inform their thinking around issues of social justice. We engaged in a number of activities with the young adolescent participants: thought maps, illustrations of poignant…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to challenge pre-service teachers' (PSTs) assumptions about youth readers, the researcher in this study invited a group of three seventh-grade students to attend a multicultural young adult (YA) literature class designed for PSTs at a large mid-western university. Design/methodology/approach: Using…