Critical pedagogues advocate a constructivist approach to learning emphasising the self-directed construction of knowledge from the learners' experiences while also expecting students to develop an explicit critique of the social order. However, the use of a constructivist approach for the pursuit of explicit ideological goals leaves educators…

Using data from a case-study school as a springboard, this article explores how enactments of democratic education might both problematise and illuminate new possibilities for the way we conceptualise social justice in education. Nancy Fraser's tripartite framework of social justice is used to analyse in-depth interviews with students aged 14-16…

This paper makes a significant contribution to contemporary debates over the direction curriculum reforms should take. It challenges claims that progressive pedagogies can exclude disadvantaged learners from gaining access to powerful knowledge and argues that greater attention needs to be given to learner agency and subject didactics. It reports…

Students in high-performing high schools often suffer from a constellation of stressors related to expectations such as good grades, number of Advanced Placement and honors classes, and successful admission to college. Critics have cast this method of educating students as outdated and more akin to a factory model. As a result, some educators have…

In neoliberal contexts, schools are accountable for educational quality, and effectiveness is measured by objective indicators, such as examination scores. Schools tend to become committed to preparing students for examinations rather than all-round and complete personal development, making it difficult for students to identify the meaningful…

Given that exclusive boarding schools in Germany are repeatedly referred to in public and academic discourses as places of elite education, the question arises as to the consequences of boarding school socialisation and how these schools affect the post-school biographies of their alumni. This qualitative study examines the autobiographies of…

Escuela Luz del Mundo (ELM) or "Light of the World School" was a progressive Christian middle school that served a high poverty, Mexican immigrant community in Albuquerque, New Mexico USA for seven years. In this study, the two distinguishing features of ELM are examined: Academic excellence and how Christ's love was revealed at the…

Risinghill School was one of a new type of secondary school, called a 'comprehensive', which opened in Islington, north London, in 1960, under the headship of Michael Duane. He had a cause: a clear view as to the style of school that he wished to create: it was one that was progressive, democratic and inclusive: for him, the true essence of a…

This comparative case study examines the experiences of two Latinx teachers in the Southeastern United States who navigate critical social studies without substantive support in their schools. Their school spaces and experiences are myriad and overlapping, but generally the teachers describe being outside the traditional social studies curriculum,…

This article highlights some of the successes the Humanities Out There (HOT) program at the University of California, Irvine had when partnering with progressive institutions, namely with the Chicano/Latino Studies program at the university and with the arts program in a local high school. The first program engaged students in exploring the…

A close look at segregated African American progressive high schools in the Southeast during the Jim Crow era offers insights into the "courageous willingness" of black educators to examine and modify their practices. This essay is part of the John Dewey Memorial Lecture series sponsored by the Daniel Tanner Foundation.

Case studies of two biology teachers, Cathy and David, from the same minority-majority, urban U.S. high school, provide insights into their instructional practices while they engaged in long-term professional development (PD). Findings suggest why science teachers engaged with PD may, or may not, adopt more adaptive pedagogical approaches in the…

Systemic gender inequality and sexual discrimination continues across a wide spectrum of social, political, and economic fields. Using three key feminist curriculum and pedagogy principles (decentering norms, centering difference, distributing leadership) we employ feminist pedagogy by facilitating curriculum development and implementation that is…

This study attempts to identify the pre-service secondary mathematics teachers' epistemological beliefs towards learning, their educational beliefs, and critical thinking dispositions as well as the relationship between them. A relational survey model was employed and the study group consisted of 152 pre-service teachers. The study used…

Around 1940, the Southern Association Study in Secondary Schools and Colleges and the Secondary School Study of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes implemented cooperative educational experimentation in the American South. This was a progressive education method for improving schools exemplified in the national Eight-Year…