While proving, and more broadly conceived "reasoning and sense-making," have received a great deal of attention in mathematics education research over the past three decades, recently scholars have argued for the importance of justification as a learning and teaching practice. As teachers work toward realizing goals for more equitable…

Over the past decade, makerspaces have increased in popularity all over the globe (Lou & Peek, 2016) and their addition continues to be a popular trend in the K-12 educational space. In the K-12 environment, the decision to implement a makerspace frequently consists of finding, repurposing, or building a suitable space, and outfitting it with…

When working to connect homogeneous curricula with heterogeneous groups of pupils, teachers have to sort pupils according to the categories allowed for in the national school system. In this article, we compare German organizational differentiation, where pupils are divided into stable groups, to Norwegian pedagogical differentiation, where…

This article briefly examines and explains the theory of social ecology and the political theory of "libertarian municipalism" as developed by the late Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) as a possible comprehensive framework for a secondary curriculum centered upon an anarchistic and ecological ethics. The author first offers an investigation…

This article explores an aspect of Karl Marx's concept, praxis. Praxis is meaningful work, through which we fulfil ourselves by fulfilling others. The discussion draws on the author's work with postgraduate student teachers, where both students and author were researching their own practice. Reflecting Marx's conception of praxis as subjective…

Theory is taught to preservice teachers from the moment they enter the education program until they graduate. While theory serves as the foundation in many teacher preparation courses, these future teachers must also understand the relationship it has to practice. The focus of this article is on the journey of one group of preservice secondary…

Fresh from teaching his first full school year the author reflects on his traditional teacher preparation path into the classroom and finds he was instilled with a common sense of ethics, compassion, a demand for reflective practice, and a robust guiding philosophy. As a college student, he learned theory and was able to augment that with…

In this article, we argue for a purposeful re-introduction of philosophical enquiry to the process and pedagogy of citizenship education. We suggest the development of philosophy and critical thinking skills may usefully improve social and political awareness in young people. Moving beyond the boundary of the formal curriculum, we encourage the…

This quantitative study examined the beliefs of middle grades education faculty from universities across the United States about the purpose of education. The results of a survey of 144 respondents who identified themselves as university faculty that taught middle level courses as a specialty will be discussed. The survey included 23 statements,…

In this article, the author presents the results of a multistate study examining how teachers, and specifically secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers, conceptualize and implement teaching for social justice in standards-based contexts. Additional analysis underscores how this practice both reflects and extends earlier equity-oriented…

This book examines the concept of civility and the conditions of civil disagreement in politics and education. Although many assume that civility is merely polite behavior, it functions to aid rational discourse. Building on this basic assumption, the book offers multiple accounts of civility and its contribution to citizenship, deliberative…

The author brings together Paulo Freire and Jurgen Habermas to ask whether dialogue is possible in the classroom or whether, in a culture of rational debate, the classroom becomes more oppressive than democratic? In a voice and style that attempts to invite the skeletons out of the classroom closet, the author asks scholarly readers to lend an…

This article illustrates how elements of praxis within George Spindler's cultural therapy and Paul Willis's cultural production are useful precedents for a praxis-based pedagogy. I argue that combining the praxis elements within cultural therapy and cultural production engenders a third mode of ethnographic praxis that I call "cultural…

Background/Context: The main goal for vocational education at the secondary level has historically been the preparation of youth for the world of work. As a result, research, policy, and practice in this area have mostly focused on how to smooth this transition, address high costs, and ensure that there are positive economic returns to the…

The relationship between the philosophical orientation of a high school citizenship education program and the kinds of competencies that students exhibit on a nationally administered civics knowledge assessment was investigated. The researcher imposed a philosophical paradigm of political perfectionism on the citizenship education curriculum in…