This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This…

Current conservative assaults on Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education contend that elementary and secondary teachers and teacher education faculty are not only 'teaching CRT', but also hatred of white people and of 'America'. This article is based on a study that used CRT analytical tools and narrative inquiry to examine pre- and in-service…

Educational institutions have an important role in the achievement of the United Nations' sixteenth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies. In Scotland, all teachers must meet Professional Standards, at the heart of which is a set of goods that include sustainability, democracy, equality, human rights,…

Twenty-five years ago, American sociologist Robert Neelly Bellah (Bellah, et al., 1986: 303) critiqued the growing isolation of intellectuals within universities and called for a return to "social science as public philosophy." Little seems to have changed. My thirty-seven year experience at the University of Alberta suggests that…

Educational researchers are accustomed to institutional review board (IRB) requirements (e.g., protecting participants) with students often identified as the only "vulnerable population" for IRB purposes. However, as practitioner research has gained more prominence, the vulnerability of teacher-researchers themselves has begun to…

Anti-intellectualism and negative public attitudes about the professoriate are traced to four sources: (1) unquestioned supremacy of economic over cultural capital in the United States; (2) lack of organizational vehicles for faculty to contribute to social change and public debate; (3) unfair competition from policy institutes and foundations;…

This paper discusses how elitism and anti-intellectualism have affected the teaching of intellectually gifted students. It examines methods of identifying the intellectually gifted child. It traces trends in education of the gifted through history and discusses the issues of equity, elitism, and anti-intellectualism which have resulted in…

Presents a humorous speech given to high school English teachers on two serious subjects: externally imposed standards and standardized testing, and anti-intellectualism in the classroom and in the culture. Argues that English teachers themselves are responsible for some of the anti-intellectualism they encounter by teaching literature in an…

If schools were strongholds of intellect, the most academically able would be stars. Gifted kids often have trouble with school; academically uninterested kids enjoy cult-hero status; and the humanities are undervalued. Schools' purpose has been to train future employees and consumers, not create intellectual citizens. (MLH)