Mills College

About: Mills College is a education organization based out in Oakland, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Curriculum & Politics. The organization has 396 authors who have published 899 publications receiving 32304 citations.

What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy

Abstract: Educators and policymakers increasingly pursue programs that aim to strengthen democracy through civic education, service learning, and other pedagogies. Their underlying beliefs, however, differ. This article calls attention to the spectrum of ideas about what good citizenship is and what good citizens do that are embodied in democratic education programs. It offers analyses of a 2-year study of educational programs in the United States that aimed to promote democracy. Drawing on democratic theory and on findings from their study, the authors detail three conceptions of the “good” citizen—personally responsible, participatory, and justice oriented—that underscore political implications of education for democracy. The article demonstrates that the narrow and often ideologically conservative conception of citizenship embedded in many current efforts at teaching for democracy reflects not arbitrary choices but, rather, political choices with political consequences.

The Methodology of Self-Study and Its Theoretical Underpinnings

Abstract: In this chapter I summarize the epistemological, pedagogical, and moral/ethical/political underpinnings of self-study, which serve as the conceptual framework for the field. I then offer a characterization of the methodology of self-study in relationship to those theoretical foundations by encapsulating the predominant pedagogical strategies, research methods, and research representations in the literature to date. I conceptualize self-study as “a methodology for studying professional practice settings” (Pinnegar, 1998) that has the following characteristics: it is self-initiated and focused; it is improvement-aimed; it is interactive; it includes multiple, mainly qualitative, methods; and, it defines validity as a validation process based in trustworthiness (Mishler, 1990). The chapter thus serves as an introduction to this section on the methodology of self-study.

How Should Research Contribute to Instructional Improvement? The Case of Lesson Study

Abstract: Lesson study, a Japanese form of professional development that centers on collaborative study of live classroom lessons, has spread rapidly in the United States since 1999. Drawing on examples of Japanese and U.S. lesson study, we propose that three types of research are needed if lesson study is to avoid the fate of so many other oncepromising reforms that were discarded before being fully understood or well implemented. The proposed research includes development of a descriptive knowledge base; explication of the innovation’s mechanism; and iterative cycles of improvement research. We identify six changes in the structure and norms of educational research that would enhance the field’s capacity to study emerging innovations such as lesson study. These changes include rethinking the routes from educational research to educational improvement and recognizing a “local proof route”; building research methods and norms that will better enable us to learn from innovation practitioners; and increasing our capacity to learn across cultural boundaries.

Toward a mathematical theory of inductive inference

Abstract: Intelligence tests occasionally require the extrapolation of an effective sequence (e.g. 1661, 2552, 3663, …) that is produced by some easily discernible algorithm. In this paper, we investigate the theoretical capabilities and limitations of a computer to infer such sequences. We design Turing machines that in principle are extremely powerful for this purpose and place upper bounds on the capabilities of machines that would do better.