This position paper identifies the complexity of the special education teacher (SET) shortage and the social injustices of the already marginalized population of students with disabilities (SWD). Nationally, policy reforms and teacher certification initiatives may have unknowingly perpetuated the shortage of SET in an attempt to increase the…

This article explores the paradox of "race" and U.S. education reform in the 21st century. I consider how the invisible ontology of race and its entangled relationship with class divert our attention from economic inequality and undermine policies intended to redress racial inequality in schools. I conclude that the education research…

U.S. educational policymakers and equity advocates often frame the negative ramifications of racial inequality in schools in terms of worries about the nation's future global economic competitiveness. This article draws on frame theory (Snow & Benford, 1988) and education organizing theory (Warren & Mapp, 2011) to argue that educational…

This essay is a critical humanist discussion of curriculum; a departure from the technicist view of education [education meant to support a global capitalist economy] and an analysis of curriculum considering critical humanism, political economy and critical race theory among other modes of critical analysis and inquiry. Our discussion supports a…

This paper analyses how high-stakes, standardised testing became the policy tool in the U.S. that it is today and discusses its role in advancing an ideology of meritocracy that fundamentally masks structural inequalities related to race and economic class. This paper first traces the early history of high-stakes testing within the U.S. context,…

The coupling of literacy and race emphasizes their historic and contemporaneous intersection in literacy research. In this article, I draw on my scholarship and use three counternarratives to articulate how literacy and race significantly influence access, equity, and freedom. First, I examine access within the sociohistoric context of African…

Individuals are living, learning, and teaching by questioning how to address race in a society that consistently prefers to see itself as colorblind, a society claiming to seek a "post-racial" existence. This edited volume offers evidence of the evolving significance of race from a diverse group of male and female contributors…