Description:
This book is about the stories of teacher educators committed to pursuing social justice in teacher education. It draws on the struggles of those who have taught about issues of social justice within universities, their accumulated knowledge and their practices in classrooms. The purpose of the book is to provide a space where teacher educators can deconstruct their own pedagogies, empower individuals to develop critical consciousness, and inspire a future generation of teachers to engage in social justice activism. To this end, the book provides some insights into the daily realities of critical teaching in conservative times (Brookfield, 2005; Kincheloe, Slattery, & Steinberg, 2000; Shor, 1992).
Description:
By whatever indicators we choose to use, the bold neoliberal experiment embarked upon by developed Western countries has been an unqualified disaster for young people. Far from them being ‘included’ as the shrill policy rhetoric argues, increasing numbers of young people, especially those who are pushed into the increasing social gradient that labels them as being ‘disadvantaged’, are finding schools to be inhospitable places that do not connect with their communities, lives or aspirations for rewarding futures. This particular social group are rejecting the institution of schooling in unprecedented numbers, and are switching off emotionally, relationally and intellectually.
Description:
In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of marginalised students who face fragile, uncertain and unpredictable futures. This paper draws on a number of research projects in Australia to investigate the lived reality of students who are struggling to make sense of school and their transition to 'getting a job'. The research is neither impartial nor neutral. It draws on the tradition of critical policy ethnography to identify, describe and map the kinds of conditions that both constrain and enable the aspirations, dreams and hopes of young people for productive and rewarding lives. The intent is to unsettle commonsense and deficit understandings of school life that serve to oppress and marginalise the least advantaged students.
Description:
In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of marginalised students who face fragile, uncertain and unpredictable futures. This paper draws on a number of research projects in Australia to investigate the lived reality of students who are struggling to make sense of school and their transition to 'getting a job'. The research is neither impartial nor neutral. It draws on the tradition of critical policy ethnography to identify, describe and map the kinds of conditions that both constrain and enable the aspirations, dreams and hopes of young people for productive and rewarding lives. The intent is to unsettle commonsense and deficit understandings of school life that serve to oppress and marginalise the least advantaged students.
Description:
This paper describes three student engagement initiatives that have been successfully implemented in Australia and Canada, where social justice educators are struggling with issues resulting from reforms that marginalize visible minority and low-income students. The projects envision student engagement in critical democratic ways. Using different strategies, they are informed by approaches that: respect students, educators and teaching/learning processes; connect on emotional as well as cognitive levels; and shift away from narrow notions of schooling to broader visions of education for marginalized students. Transferable to other locations, these programmes provide insights into what is possible when student engagement is enacted in equitable, socially just, and transformative environments.
Description:
This chapter explores theoretically and practically the rationale, approaches, possibilities, and cffecL or engaging with students in schools in ways that challenge injustices and that regard education as beingforsocialjustice. Examples and illustrations arc drawn from research by the author in Australia from over 2!'i critical cthnographics of disadvantaged schools conducted over the past two decades. The central framing themes and ideas for the chapter focus on: • student voice • the relational school • the pedagogically engaged school • community organizing for activist reform • community-voiced approaches lo schooling • "speaking the unpleasant" about poverty, education, and class • beyond commodification, prescription, and consumption The chapter presents a number of ethnographic slices or portraits of students and schools that have created ways of "working against the grain" in the sense of foregrounding notions of social justice and challenging dominant, deforming, and damaging approaches to education and supplanting them with alternatives. The chapter explores what is possible when teachers, students, parents, and communities take seriously the opportunity to embrace a socially critical view of student engagement.
Description:
It may seem something of a paradox that in a globalised age where notions of interdependence, interconnectedness and common destinies abound, the 'local', with its diversity of cultures, languages, histories and geographies, continues to exercise a powerful grip on the human imagination. The ties that bind us have global connections but are anchored in a strong sense of locality. This paper explores the theoretical foundations of place-based education (PBE) and considers the merits and limitations of current approaches with particular reference to Australian studies. The authors argue that there is a place for PBE in schools but contend that it must be informed by a far more critical reading of the notions of 'place', 'identity' and 'community'. The implications of pursuing a critical pedagogy of place-based education are discussed with reference to curriculum, pedagogy and teacher education.
Description:
An incisive analysis of how Critical Pedagogy can be a force for positive change in schools around the world, helping the most disadvantaged students.
Description:
I will start at the beginning—even though I am sorely tempted to start from where I am at the moment and work backwards. There is a bit of history that is important to understanding my story.
Description:
Synopsis - This book brings a unique, innovative and refreshing perspective to one of the most protracted issues affecting young lives - disengagement from schooling. Rather than continuing to blame young people, as most educational policies do, this book examines disengagement from the vantage point of the lives, experiences, interests and aspirations of the communities from which young people come, and within which they are embedded. It uses a narrative and representational approach that gives detailed insights into the wider context of poverty, class, power, relationships and identity. A major and defining hallmark of the book is the emphasis it places upon a number of 'doings', - including community voice, identity formation, critical work education and education policy - all of which provide a very different set of scripts with which to reinvent the institution of high school.