The purpose of this manuscript is to illustrate the value and potential of critical approaches to quantitative research. We begin by providing our positionalities as scholars to situate ourselves within this content. Next, we overview quantitative criticalism and explore tensions inherent within this approach. Following, we discuss four…

Analogous to the political use of language itself in determining, even producing, student learning outcomes, the use of politically charged discourse circumscribes (the boundaries of) student learning opportunities. This 'positive' (i.e. productive) understanding of discourse does not only prohibit discussion about race and racism but helps…

In this conceptual paper, we argue that many episodes of the so-called culture wars of the 1990s in the U.S. can be better understood as attacks on Blackness, a contention that critical race theory illuminates. To substantiate this claim, we recast key societal episodes through a Black perspective that unfolded in both formal and informal…

This review of the literature draws on critical race theory to examine the lack of racial diversity among the teaching force in Canada. Several barriers including systemic racism, non-diverse hiring policies, and arduous certification requirements for immigrant teachers inhibit the racial diversity of the teaching force in several provinces.…

Across Canada, school districts have been confronting a backlash to their equity and social justice initiatives. Critics of public education have been arguing that the solution to these controversies is to increase school choice. Using several examples from the United States, this paper argues that the endgame of these strategies is to undermine…

The current anti-truth context, in which discussions of race and racism in K-12 schools are rendered illegal, is just the latest iteration of anti-Black legislation that impacts schools. In this article, we historicize the contemporary moment by using BlackCrit and fugitive pedagogies to discuss how Black teachers have navigated discussions of…

This manuscript describes a white teacher's process of teaching texts authored by writers from historically marginalized cultural groups in a high school classroom. I wrote this self-study as theoretical guidance for teachers who also want to contextualize conversations about race. The scholarship of bell hooks motivated me to adopt the pedagogy…

Within the contemporary anti-union environment fueled by neoliberalism, teachers are organizing and educating each other in order to push back against the corporate reform agenda and envision a public education that supports all students. Using a critical autoethnography methodology, the author narrates her participation in social justice unionism…

Learning loss due to the pandemic has become a significant global concern. The purpose of this paper is to understand the newspaper coverage of the COVID-19 learning loss. Critical discourse analysis is utilized to analyze (N = 38) newspaper articles. Results include: constructions of youth identities, racialized constructions of youth identities,…