On May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine were wounded when National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protestors at Kent State University. This case study explores the tragedy and the experiences of student affairs professionals at KSU leading up to and after the shootings. Although the field of crisis management did not exist in 1970,…

Activists use populist language when proposing school reforms. Are they appealing to a public ideology as coherent as conservatism or liberalism? A national probability sample of U. S. adults is asked to self-identify as liberals or conservatives, respond to statements about government trustworthiness and responsiveness to the people, and give…

The U.S. Supreme Court, on June 29, 2023, issued a ruling in the case of STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. The decision was anxiously interpreted as an end to race-based Affirmative Action. However, insufficient attention has been given to their discussions, holding that race was an underinclusive…

Despite the much-touted 'sexual revolution', during the 1960s-70s, at the time most Western education systems avoided sex education. This article identifies contradictory discourses about sex as manifested in two distinct cultural expressions that co-occurred in those years in the UK. The first represented mainstream social conservatism - in the…

This paper analyses the Solidarity movement narratives, focusing on church representatives, religious issues, and symbols in the Polish history textbooks for upper secondary schools between 1991 and 2018. The analysed textbooks prove to reinforce Poland's national and religious identities, with John Paul II and the priest Popieluszko being the…

This article examines the Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project through the lens of Language Policy and Planning (LPP) and considers the situation of heritage language learning within the policy on language education. We present our project as grassroots policymaking in practice and demonstrate how, through deep and…

Two movies about events in 1963 and 1972 are discussed. They are Rustin and Shirley. The movies concern the actions of Bayard Rustin in organizing the March on Washington for Peace and Jobs and the actions of Shirley Chisholm in organizing her campaign for the Presidency of the United States. The events took place more than half a century ago.…

Institutions of higher education are presented as vital pathways to economic mobility, particularly for working class, first generation, and students of color. Yet the inequitable outcomes produced by post-secondary institutions suggest structures and systems of exclusion and enclosure. In this critical mixed methods case study, we explore the…

A recent surge in textbooks studies has revealed a closer link with neoliberalism and the way they construct neoliberal subjects. This paper uses Foucauldian governmentality as the conceptual lens to analyze the neoliberal discourses in EFL textbooks used in English Access Microscholarship (EAM)--one of the US-aided global ELT programs in…

Racism impacts various facets of the lives of people of color (POC) in the United States, spanning across historical and contemporary contexts. Chinese Americans, as an ethnic group historically excluded from entering the United States and denied naturalized citizenship, have endured distinctive and enduring forms of racism that are…

Drawing on data from students, higher education staff and policymakers from six European countries, this article argues that it remains a relatively common assumption that students should be politically engaged. However, while students articulated a strong interest in a wide range of political issues, those working in higher education and…

This article argues that it is necessary to fight for a radical and immediate restructuring of our educational systems. Young people are currently being prepared for a future that does not exist, and we are lying to them and to ourselves by pretending that we can address the climate and ecological emergency from within existing educational and…

Within the past several years, parents, teachers, students, and community members have vociferously debated the value and importance of opting out of standardized testing. The debate has been sparked by an increasing number of parents, dubbed "opt-out activists," who refuse to have their children participate in federally mandated…

The state of the world keeps me up at night, questioning my role as a social justice educator. I think with, through, and around what social change means. Reflecting on my practice, I have followed Western/colonial research and educational methodologies, knowing that they need to be challenged but often being unable to do so. I make present this…

In response to ongoing expansion of neoliberal ideology in democratic education, this essay details a classroom experiment that attempts to "redo," or "recraft" democracy. Recrafting democracy, in this context, takes shape in active efforts to compose an agonistic public sphere through a specific kind of "lettering a…