This paper examines how public education can ensure equity and diversity by clarifying the "democratic aspects" that can be captured through school-community collaborative activities in Japan and the U.S. As a result of comparison and analysis, it is indicated that in both Japan and the U.S., these activities are conducted in the context…

While text selection is indeed a crucial choice that transmits explicit and implicit messages to students about what literature is and why it matters, it remains one element that needs to be put into conversation with a broader set of considerations in order for educators to fully grapple with the nature and purpose of rigorous and transformative…

This paper aims to identify elements that will help with the process of thinking through curriculum issues based on the concept of open architecture. We argue that this concept can be an interesting driver of practice and debate concerning curriculum development in different contexts. More generally, we seek for viable public education that is…

Education under neoliberal reform has been targeted as an indispensable source of profit. Market-based reforms have commodified education and are transforming public school into a corporatized industry concerned not with democracy but with the smooth functioning of the capitalist economy. Targeting public schooling as a site in which to accumulate…

The learning demands of college, career, and civic readiness imply that all young people in public schools must have access to deeper learning opportunities that will prepare them to master rigorous academic content, think critically, work collaboratively, and learn to apply classroom learning to real-world contexts. As well, districts are being…