This ethnographic study documents how a space for critical literacy practices emerged as one teacher attempted to make literacy learning authentic. The school lunch program in an urban elementary district provided the theme for an authentic and focused literacy unit. Throughout this focus unit, the students not only met state standards but also…

Through an analysis of gay protest music (1975) and an educational kit for students (1978), both sponsored by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the UK, this paper brings into focus a history of gay rights activists' efforts to marshal popular culture in the development of informal sex education for young people in the second half of the…

What promotes action competence for sustainability? This question is phenomenologically explored through researching in depth the life stories of three Swedish young adults who for several years have limited their own ecological footprints, led environmental initiatives of activist character, engaged in ecosystem protection, and participated in…

Utilising an in-depth case study of a student occupation at Newcastle University as its focus, this article makes a critical appraisal of Beck, Giddens and Inglehart's ideas about youth and political agency in late modernity. In short, we argue that when considering the case of the 2010 UK student occupation movement, dominant theoretical thinking…

In this paper, we share an example of how community service learning (CSL) has been taken up within the framework of critical pedagogy in order to assist educators thinking about moving toward a more critical CSL. We draw from theoretical perspectives on critical pedagogy, data from a research study, and instructor and student experiences to…

This article provides a thematic overview of the ways in which black educators, through their professional associations, advocated to create equality of schooling for black children in the pre-"Brown" era. In the struggle for socially just education, Black educators are historically depicted as reluctant participants or employees worried…

In the context of an arts-integration course in an elementary education program, preservice teachers used tableaux (i.e. frozen scenes) to portray field experience moments in two ways: (1) as remembered events, and (2) as projected possibilities. Using video and photographs of the tableaux, we traced the students' enactment of activist stances and…

By nearly all accounts, the staff and students at Sandy Hook Elementary School did everything right on Dec. 14--and with the security measures they took before that day--when a young man armed with powerful weapons blasted his way into the school. But the deadliest K-12 school shooting in American history, a day that President Barack Obama has…

This longitudinal case study follows a new science teacher throughout his first 5 years of teaching in a publicly funded alternative high school. It explores the ways in which he reconciled learning to accommodate his professional and personal responsibilities with his ambition to be an activist science teacher. Framed as a form of professional…

This study focuses on the capacity of colleges and universities to minimize educational inequalities experienced by undocumented students. It analyzes the role of student activism in prompting institutional accountability and successful practices used by institutional allies, such as faculty and administrators, in order to create a model for…

Internet users worldwide turn to Wikipedia, the web-based, open-content encyclopedia, for basic information on all subjects. There is much to concern an academic audience in the encyclopedia's prominence: bases for evidence are different from those used by scholars; no expertise is required to edit an article; the site is a target for…

In this article, the author illustrates the blurring lines of youth cultural production and participatory politics from the perspective of new media literacies. Drawing on design-based action research, the author discusses pedagogical considerations in the conceptualization of new media literacies in a semester-long course that culminated in…

Successful school library programs occur through careful planning and reflection. This reflective process is improved when it is applied in a systematic way through action research. The action research described in this paper enabled school librarians to reflect based on evidence, using data they had collected. This study presents examples of the…

This article focuses on feminist activist academics who were instrumental in creating the UK Gender & Education Association at the turn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on my own intellectual biography (David, M. E. 2003. "Personal and Political: Feminisms, Sociology and Family Lives" Stoke-on-Trent. Trentham Books.) linked to…

We present findings from the first wave of a longitudinal study of civic and political engagement among undergraduate students at a mid-sized university in the Midwestern United States. We find that high school experiences of civic learning are a significant predictor of three of our four measures of civic and political engagement, namely, the…