Rurality is rarely considered or oftentimes completely neglected in conversations about culturally relevant pedagogy. Yet, without a relevant curriculum, students both in and out of rural communities are left with dominant and deficiently positioned narratives about rural people. School librarians must provide counter and critical narratives for…

As a volatile educative space, musical education must be interwoven with other concerns and other more encompassing constructs if it is to build robust, meaningful, and complex learning outcomes. This paper attempts to do this by placing music education and a complex understanding of policy side by side, and outlining what people can learn from…

This article articulates the experience of three professors from different disciplines, teaching at three levels of University Studies, Portland State University's general education program, for whom the toggling between personal/professional critical practices and use of reflective practices in the classroom has led to transformative learning…

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms…

As science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continue to grow in economic and social importance, it is critical that citizenry are prepared to be STEM literate. Furthermore, the workforce demands on STEM necessitate students seeking STEM degrees and pursuing STEM careers. Primary and secondary (K-12) teachers play an important role…

"This country has been the basis of my being. And when it's no longer there, you know, it's unthinkable." Ueantabo Mackenzie's haunting words in the PBS NOW documentary "Paradise Lost" shook the author. He knew he wanted to teach a unit on global warming, especially after participating in the Portland-area Rethinking Schools…

Current research provides a limited understanding of the life long influence of nonformal place-based environmental and science education programs on past participants. This study looks to address this gap, exploring the ways in which these learning environments have contributed to environmental identity and stewardship. Using Dorothy Holland's…

Classroom readiness and the attendant theory-practice disjunction remains a key concern of policy makers, stakeholders and graduate teachers themselves. Links between the theoretical knowledge that preservice teachers gain during initial teacher education (ITE) courses and the practical learning of their school placements need to be strengthened…

This paper addresses the potential for engaged learning among final-year undergraduate Education Studies students at a new, post-1992. It discusses a case study analysis of a "Directed Experiential Learning" (DEL) intervention in the final year of an education studies degree designed to engage and motivate students and emphasise the…

This article reports one of the case studies in a 3-year longitudinal study in environmental science education. This case explores the process of teaching about ecosystems through co-teaching and co-generative dialogue in a Year-9 science classroom in Western Australia. Combining with co-teaching and co-generative dialogue aimed at transforming…

This case study was conducted within the context of a place-based education project that was implemented with primary school students in the USA. The authors and participating teachers created a performance assessment of standards-aligned tasks to examine 6-10-year-old students' graph interpretation skills as part of an exploratory research…

Personal and professional experiences influence teachers' perceptions of their ability to implement environmental science curricula and to positively impact students' learning. The purpose of this study was twofold: to determine what influence, if any, an intensive field-based life science course and service learning had on preservice teachers'…

The present paper explores the idea that learning, both in and out of school, is a cultural act, and that school and its cultural-heritage environment stamp their own characteristics on pupils. This implies that pupils gradually, with the help of teachers and other relevant adults from their close social environment, develop and adjust their…

Place-based environmental education is a pedagogy that infuses environmental education across disciplines in a way that is relevant and meaningful to students. One collaborative approach to place-based environmental education--community mapping--explores and represents local knowledge, visions held by community members, and relationships between…

The ecological realities of many communities are desperate but not determined. As teachers inevitably encounter these realities in their communities, they can respond by activating students' imaginations to conceive of better alternatives. Greene (1995) outlined how the imagination has the power to envision alternative realities and better…