Grassroots efforts and other advocacy have led to the vast majority of states adopting policies designed to improve the reading outcomes of all children, including those who struggle to read. Whereas these policies consider various aspects of reading, much of their emphasis has been on developing word reading accuracy and fluency through explicit…

This study explores the conditions that provide new opportunities for youth of color to develop civic agency, paving the way to enact change in their schools and communities. This article shares findings from a qualitative study of an after-school program designed and implemented by the authors, in which 15 middle school-aged youth--including a…

Disasters reveal injustice in society; disasters create new injustices. These two intertwined ideas were the inspiration for an action research project, the first Disaster Haggyo, held across multiple locations in South Korea in the summer of 2022. The Disaster Haggyo--"haggyo" translates to "school" in Korean--was also an…

This article examines the activism of student protesters in a rural Rust Belt community's Black Lives Matter protest, challenging prevailing stereotypes about civic engagement, literacies, and youth involvement in rural settings. Utilizing critical ethnography and nexus analysis to examine disruptions of discourses in place and interview student…

The continued state-sanctioned violence towards marginalized communities and a reactionary political landscape have exacerbated the need for youth of color activists to prioritize holistic wellness. Healing is necessary because although engagement in activism may address root causes of harm, it also takes an immense toll on the bodymindspirit…

This study was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the role of emotions within protest experiences among college students. The study sample consisted of 18 undergraduate students aged 18 to 25 who participated in the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement protests. Within the sample, the majority of the participants identified as female (61.11%,…

Newark, New Jersey has been at the forefront of school reform from the civil rights era through more recent efforts to resist neoliberal school reform approaches during the 2010s. Drawing on interviews with activists, policymakers, and school reformers, this paper documents the history of community organizing as a strategy to improve conditions in…

Ted Hughes is one of the most important poets in English literature of the last century and his huge volume of work (including his poetry, prose, plays, translations, letters and critical essays) has received a great deal of critical attention. Hughes was, of course, much more than just a writer. Throughout his life he was deeply engaged with…

In this paper, we place the issue of university activism in the context of constituent and constituted power. By this we mean the ever-present danger that activists' demands will be co-opted and concurrently deactivated. To mitigate this risk, we develop a set of conceptual tools that enables thinking about the activist university in terms of…

Background/context: One of the most prominent educational social movements in the United States during the past two decades has been the opt-out movement, in which parents and caregivers refuse to have their school-aged children sit for federally mandated tests. Although early responses by government officials framed the movement in terms of race,…

In this written version of the 2019 Radford Lecture, I address the challenges of teaching and learning about ourselves and others--human and more-than-human others--at this moment of global precarity. In Part 1, I analyse emotions in the Anthropocene through the lens of carnivalesque "placestories." I conclude that we need to shift to a…

Background/Context: Digital life raises dilemmas that elude straightforward courses of action. These dilemmas are consequential to civic life, where participatory practices intersect with digital affordances to lend new power, stakes, and public consequences (Kahne et al., 2015). It is essential that students be able to recognize digital dilemmas…

This article discusses the relationship between the contemporary teacher movement and the social, political, and labor movements of the past. Using interviews with Philadelphia teacher-organizers, this investigation highlights specific past movements that shaped, informed, and inspired their work in the city. More specifically, the significance of…

Attending to the affect of minoritized students now appears crucial to promoting just and dignity-affirming science education. Yet, elevating affect as an objective of science learning has a history that predates equity reforms. This study explores the politics of scientific uptakes of affect that have long served to mark hierarchical differences…

This article explores ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) through a Freirean lens of critical consciousness, dialogue, and transformation. The purpose is to draw from where there have been processes of engagement of sociopolitical action in science and how these spaces can become meaningful entry points to take toward making a…