When she began teaching college geology and paleontology, the author anticipated some resistance from those who believed in a 6000 year-old earth, from creationists and those who advocate intelligent design, or possibly from students who simply wished to be consistent with the family religion and still take a course involving evolution and the Big…

When a federal court in 2005 rejected an attempt by the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board to introduce intelligent design as an alternative to evolution to explain the development of life on Earth, it sparked a renaissance in involvement among scientists in K-12 science instruction. Now, some of those teaching programs, studies, and research…

Darwin's Theory of Evolution has stirred controversy since its inception. Public schools in the United States, pressed by special interest groups on both sides of the controversy, have struggled with how best to teach the theory, if at all. Court cases have dealt with whether states can ban the teaching of evolutionary theory, whether Creationism…

To respond to calls for more research on culturally relevant science teaching, we present findings from one middle school science teacher's practices in an effort to contribute to this research. We describe how a discussion lab centered on Derrick Bell's (1992) short story "The Space Traders" was purposively included in a lesson on scientific bias…

In this article, the author argues that whiteness remains an overwhelmingly absent dimension in literacy teaching that addresses systems of power from a critical perspective. One way literacy teachers may bring this dimension more explicitly into the classroom is by facilitating critical conversations on whiteness with young adult literature. As…

This article investigates how affluent students made sense of social justice issues that were embedded in mathematics learning activities. I present 2 case studies of such activities at the intermediate and secondary levels in 2 different schools. The analysis draws on video records and classroom artifacts and applies the theoretical framework of…

In post-conflict and divided societies, global citizenship education has been described as a central element of peacebuilding education, whereby critical pedagogy is seen as a tool to advance students' thinking, transform their views and promote democratic behaviours. The present study investigates understandings of and attitudes to global…

Background/Context: Over the past two decades, more than 200 studies have been published on the effects of community service learning on university students. However, the majority of these studies have focused on the effects of such programming on White and affluent college students, and few have considered whether there are differential effects…

This paper reports on a study exploring ways in which five experienced teachers interpreted and responded to a curricular initiative in Alberta calling for teachers to help students see social studies through multiple perspective lenses representing Aboriginal (and Francophone) communities. Over the course of the study, which focused primarily on…

Augmented reality (AR) technologies are identified as one of key emerging technologies for education in the next 5 years. AR takes advantage of virtual objects or information overlaying physical objects or environments, resulting in a mixed reality in which virtual objects and real environments coexist in a meaningful way to augment learning…

This practitioner action research using qualitative techniques of gathering data looks at the experiences of students in a mostly white, upper-middle class suburb who enrolled in a class that integrated mathematics with social justice issues. The researcher designed the curriculum and co-taught the one semester course. The data were collected from…

This study addresses how my freshman world history students come to understand controversial issues as provocative within the secondary social studies classroom, and in what ways does their engagement with provocative issues influence their understanding of the content and the world around them. In addition, this research study seeks to discover…

When a gay male student began distributing letters at his high school alerting students and teachers to the antigay language in the school and teachers' lack of intervention, the letter was quickly confiscated. McGarry, an administrator in the central office, learned of the incident and of other incidents in which LGBT students and teachers were…

In the past, nativists opposed immigration, period. The sharp distinction between "legal" and "illegal" immigrants emerged fairly recently, according to immigration historian David Reimers, a professor of history at New York University. "Basically, by the mid-90s 'legal' immigration was no longer an issue," he says.…

Questions and issues related to ethnic diversity are part of the everyday experiences in Canadian classrooms. Most scholars and educators in the field assume a progression from knowledge of diversity, through to acceptance, respect, and justice. Knowledge about difference is not enough, but it is the starting point for both respect and justice.…