This portraiture-informed study by Taeyeon Kim challenges the dominant discourse of accountability, which often focuses on high-stakes policies at the expense of relational aspects of accountability in schools. Building on working theories of accountability, humanizing leadership, and paradox theory, Kim theorizes the "human side of…

This study aims to explore reimagined accountability through collective efforts initiated by school leaders and to challenge the fixed notion of accountability prescribed by policy scripts. Drawing on studies highlighting humanizing leadership and the metaphors of "agora" and "bazaar," I investigate how school leaders…

I grew up on free school meals and now work as a school improvement adviser. In this article, I address discontinuities within my 'support and challenge' role, a role that can be constrained by educational policy enacted within a performative and panoptic culture of fear. Successive governments have concerned themselves with promoting equity…

With an urgency to leverage existing and emerging policy reforms to improve student outcomes by centering educational equity, this manuscript explores the critical role of policy implementation in higher education--specifically in community colleges. In doing so, we explore historical and contemporary approaches to higher education, highlighting…

This paper examines how school leaders working within schools serving immigrant English Learners negotiate teacher evaluation policies, including how they influence compliance with mandated policies, communicate those policies to teachers, and guide implementation within their professional communities. We explore how a leader in a school with…

More than merely policy, neoliberalism shapes how teachers relate to their students and classrooms. This article seeks to make visible how neoliberalism functions to form and deform teacher's subjectivities (and in turn their pedagogical practices) through an analysis of the experiences of two teachers within an accountability-constrained…

In this article, the author argues that living literacies--relational, embodied forms of literacy engagement--are an integral component of literacy engagement and hold the potential to disrupt and reconfigure the power structures embedded within schooled literacy. Drawing on affect theory and rhizomatic theory, the author analyzes youths' literacy…

Too often joy and radical love are brushed off to the side while addressing intersectional forms of supremacies within teacher education does not get addressed. While it is important to name systematic and intergenerational trauma and violence, building interdependence joy and radical love must be done alongside. We cannot dismantle and build if…

This paper critically examines the impact of neoliberalism on Quality Assurance (QA) in Higher Education (HE), employing an integrated approach that combines Foucauldian deconstruction and Freirean reconstruction. It explores the pervasive issues of accountability, standardization, and control that have increasingly dominated the field,…

Authors explore recent education policies that ban the teaching of critical race theory, restrict teaching race-related topics, prohibit conversations about divisive concepts, and problematize their impact in further silencing (and potentially erasing) complex issues about race and racism and other forms of oppression in historical and…

Attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion threaten to undo much of the work of creating and maintaining diverse learning and working environments for students, faculty, and staff. In honor of ACPA's 100th anniversary, we reflect on the current threats to the campus racial climate, highlight research that informs our scholarship and practice, and…

This qualitative case study examines the implementation of humanizing pedagogies in 18 English language arts classrooms. Using semi-structured interviews and observations, we investigated how ELA teachers navigated policy mandates and a compliance culture while enacting reflexive, responsive, and student-centered instruction. As a problem of…

Revolt is a vital and transformative process of evolution and re-negotiation, Kristeva says, and, in the face of global/local, political, worldly and ecological crises, it is critical. This paper utilises the notion of revolt as an ongoing imperative to re-imagine activism through a human-posthuman framing. It conceptualises the university as a…

Policy, mandating early screening for dyslexia and use of specific interventions, is increasing throughout the United States. The authors designed a descriptive case study to learn what impact policies have on practice and how literacy specialists, trained in both comprehensive and structured literacy approaches, provide support for students. Data…

In the last two years, the United States has been greatly impacted by the global health pandemic of COVID-19 and a renewed national recognition of racial injustice catalyzed by the murder of George Floyd. These crises have created extensive pressures for school leaders to revamp their policies and procedures to ensure physiological safety and…