Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

Taking the position that “critical pedagogy” and “place-based education” are mutually supportive educational traditions, this author argues for a conscious synthesis that blends the two discourses into a critical pedagogy of place. An analysis of critical pedagogy is presented that emphasizes the spatial aspects of social experience. This examination also asserts the general absence of ecological thinking demonstrated in critical social analysis concerned exclusively with human relationships. Next, a discussion of ecological place-based education is offered. Finally, a critical pedagogy of place is defined. This pedagogy seeks the twin objectives of decolonization and “reinhabitation” through synthesizing critical and place-based approaches. A critical pedagogy of place challenges all educators to reflect on the relationship between the kind of education they pursue and the kind of places we inhabit and leave behind for future generations.

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The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place:

The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.

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Democracy and Its Critics

This study examined the level and impact of five types of parent involvement on elementary school children’s academic achievement by race/ethnicity, poverty, and parent educational attainment. The sample comprised 415 third through fifth graders who completed the Elementary School Success Profile. Hypotheses from Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital were assessed with t tests, chi-square statistics, and hierarchical regressions. Consistent with the theory, parents with different demographic characteristics exhibited different types of involvement, and the types of involvement exhibited by parents from dominant groups had the strongest association with achievement. However, contrary to theoretical expectations, members of dominant and nondominant groups benefited similarly from certain types of involvement and differently from others. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

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Parent Involvement, Cultural Capital, and the Achievement Gap Among Elementary School Children

A decade ago, Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler offered a model of the parental involvement process that focused on understanding why parents become involved in their children’s education and how their involvement influences student outcomes. Since then, we and others have conducted conceptual and empirical work to enhance understanding of processes examined in the model. In this article (companion to Walker and colleagues’ article about scale development on the model in this issue), we review recent work on constructs central to the model’s initial question: Why do parents become involved in children’s education? Based on this review, we offer suggestions for (1) research that may deepen understanding of parents’ motivations for involvement and (2) school and family practices that may strengthen the incidence and effectiveness of parental involvement across varied school communities.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/499194

Why Do Parents Become Involved? Research Findings and Implications

Migrants are one of the most academically vulnerable groups in the United States, constantly faced with economic, health, and work-related problems that translate into lower academic achievement and higher dropout rates. These hardships make it difficult for schools to effectively negotiate the parental involvement terrain and promote academic success for this group. Because of the paucity of literature on effective parental involvement practices for migrants, we sought to fill this gap in the literature. Using a qualitative approach, interviews and observations were conducted in four effective migrant-impacted school districts throughout a 5-month period. Findings suggest these schools were successful at involving parents because they aimed to meet parental needs above all other involvement considerations. In other words, schools were successful not because they subscribed to a particular definition of involvement, but because they held themselves accountable to meet the multiple needs of migrant parents...

Redefining Parental Involvement: Lessons From High-Performing Migrant-Impacted Schools

Lessons from High-Performing Hispanic Schools: Creating Learning Communities. Critical Issues in Educational Leadership Series.

“It's all Political” Inquiry into the Micropolitics of Education

The authors place the evolution of politics in education and the politics of education field in historical context and introduce a framework for understanding how three theoretical streams-micropolitics, political culture, and neoinstitutionalism-emerged as the behavioralist movement receded. They argue that although there may appear to be a messy center lacking a single disciplinary paradigm, the field has been advancing by means of integrative and aggregative drives that are, indeed, complementary as well as competitive and result in a healthy and productive state of the field.

Emergence of the Politics of Education Field: Making Sense of the Messy Center.

High-Performing Schools Serving Mexican American Students: What They Can Teach Us. ERIC Digest.........................................2 STUDYING HIGH-PERFORMING SCHOOLS SERVING MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS................................................. 2 COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARENTS AND COMMUNITIES............................................................3 COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP................ 4 STUDENT-CENTERED CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENTS..............5 ADVOCACY-ORIENTED ASSESSMENT PRACTICES................. 6 SUMMARY....................................................................... 7 REFERENCES.................................................................. 7

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Jay D. Scribner

Papers

Redefining Parental Involvement: Lessons From High-Performing Migrant-Impacted Schools

Lessons from High-Performing Hispanic Schools: Creating Learning Communities. Critical Issues in Educational Leadership Series.

“It's all Political” Inquiry into the Micropolitics of Education

Emergence of the Politics of Education Field: Making Sense of the Messy Center.

High-Performing Schools Serving Mexican American Students: What They Can Teach Us. ERIC Digest.