This book illustrates the relationship between politics and the ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) issues are taught in schools. This book examines relationships between society, schools, and LGBTQ inclusion in order to understand perennial issues related to critical democratic education, and how schools are responding to generational shifts in ideology. By conducting a case study comparison of California and Utah, Camicia provides an in-depth view of the politically and culturally different landscapes that shape LGBTQ curriculum in schools. This book will synthesize and extend theoretical frameworks to describe, analyze, and interpret the shifting landscapes in public education as they relate to LGBTQ issues in schools. Through queer theory and democratic education theory, Camicia offers recommendations to public schools and teacher educators about socially just ways to create inclusive LGBTQ curriculum.
Political and social expectations are often stymied and distorted by individual and communal identities—creating vastly incongruent and unrelated lived experiences, often within the same context. Democratic Education as Inclusion explores how the existence and enactments of diversity continue to present ubiquitous epicenters of misreading, misrecognition, and missed opportunities for peaceful co-existence—whether in established, or nascent democracies. Nuraan Davids and Yusef Waghid study how the public sphere has never held the same meaning to all individuals or groups. As such, there are deep implications for differentiated experiences of citizenship, between those who are included in the center of the sphere, and those who are excluded on the margins. This book explains the dyadic relationship between inclusion and exclusion and how it is not limited to the public sphere, or to broader conceptions of democratic citizenship. It is as apparent in educational settings, presenting under-explored complexities not only for teaching and learning, but for the life experiences of participants in teaching-learning. Often the foundational norms put into place during educational initiations become the primary determinants of how young people conceive of themselves as citizens, and how they conceive of themselves in relation to others.
This volume has its origin in the Francis T. Villemain Memorial lectures at San Jose State University – a lecture series established in 1992 to honor the memory of 1 Dean Francis T. Villemain. All the essays in this volume, with the exception of those by Gert Biesta, Susan Verducci, and Michael Katz, were developed from l- tures given as part of the series. The general rubric of the lectures was “democracy, education, and the moral life” – a title reflecting Villemain’s lifelong love of the work of John Dewey whose preface to his famous work in 1916, Democracy and Education, suggested that the purpose of education was to develop democratic ci- zens, citizens infused with the spirit of democracy and the capacity to think and act intelligently within democratic settings. Of course, for Dewey, democracy was not to be conceived of as merely a political form of government, but as a shared form of social life, one that was inclusive rather than exclusive and one that was capable of adapting to the changing features of contemporary social and political reality. Francis T. Villemain’s appreciation for the intersections of the values of dem- racy, education, and the moral life was heightened by his doctoral work at Teachers College, Columbia University in the 1950s – where Dewey’s legacy remained a powerful one. But it also continued during his career at Southern Illinois University where he collaborated in compiling and editing the collected works of John Dewey.
. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.
Offering a cross-cultural perspective, this book contains papers from internationally renowned scholars who provide fresh insights into the goals and ambitions for inclusion, participation and democracy and how these might be realized today. The 'insider' accounts highlight the complex political and cultural changes required to achieve success with the inclusion project. This book is for researchers studying inclusion, teacher educators and teachers.
Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.
Changing Citizenship supports educators in understanding the links between global change and the everyday realities of teachers and learners. It explores the role that schools can play in creating a new vision of citizenship for multicultural democracies.
This book offers provocations for what’s now and what’s next in educational leadership, simultaneously bringing the field both back to its basics—of equity, democracy, humanity, and education for all—and forward to productive, innovative, and necessary possibilities. Written during the pandemic reality of 2020, this collection shares the global voices and expertise of prominent and emerging leaders, scholars, and practitioners in education from the UK, the United States, South America, Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. The authors engage with the complexities and uncertainties of leading in education. They examine research, reflections, and real stories from which school leaders, education system leaders, policymakers, and researchers in the field of educational leadership, can learn, and in which they will find honesty, authority, and inspiration to guide the future of the field. The new perspectives and hopeful alternatives presented in this outstanding book are essential to researchers, school leaders, and policymakers, and are key to advancing education into positive and democratic futures.
The Mission Hill School, founded by MacArthur Award winner Deborah Meier and colleagues in 1997, is a small public school that has rethought almost everything about the process of teaching and learning. Beyond richly describing and evaluating this high-achieving school, the author argues that democratic education is increasingly difficult in this era of testing and standardization and that a school such as Mission Hill must be continually thoughtful, innovative, and courageous in counteracting systemic inequality. This in-depth examination is essential reading for anyone interested in how to better understand seemingly intractable problems related to urban public education in the United States. Book Features: An exemplary model of democratic education that shows the inner workings of a largely teacher-governed school.A rare example of an urban school implementing Dewey-influenced progressive pedagogy.In-depth descriptions of an anti-racist and culturally relevant pedagogy and curriculum.A close examination of successful practices, including shared decision making, intensive problem solving, and looking at student work. Matthew Knoester is a National Board Certified Teacher and former teacher at the Mission Hill School in Boston. He received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Evansville. “Matthew Knoester has done us an enormous favor by showing us, in detail, what could be—one example of how schools can be the building blocks for democracy, recreating community for all to taste, feel, hear, and see.” —From the Foreword by Deborah W. Meier “This is exactly the kind of book that is so necessary at this time. Schools can be respectful, responsive, and caring places. Matthew Knoester gives us a detailed picture of such a school. If more people would read books such as this, the national debate on education would be all the better for it.” —Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Knoester’s account of the Mission Hill School captures the ‘habits of mind’ needed if public schools are to be truly democratic in spirit and in practice, centered on the children, and, as Deborah Meier so powerfully advocates, protected from those policies and social forces that accept and perpetuate disengagement and inequality in our children's education.” —Linda McSpadden McNeil, Professor of Education, Rice University; author of Contradictions of School Reform “To those who have never seen the Mission Hill School in Boston, it may sound like a magical place. The good news is that it is real and Knoester shows us through his compelling narrative how and why they have been able to achieve so much. For educators, students, and parents this book will be a source of inspiration. At a time when our policymakers and many so-called reformers are actively undermining support for public education, this important book will serve as a reminder that we can do a much better job at educating all children.” —Pedro Noguera, Executive Director,Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University
