Showing papers in "Harvard Educational Review in 2012"
TL;DR: Weis and Fine as discussed by the authors introduce critical bifocality as a way to render visible the relations between groups to structures of power, to social policies, to history, and to history.
Abstract: In this article, Lois Weis and Michelle Fine introduce critical bifocality as a way to render visible the relations between groups to structures of power, to social policies, to history, and to lar...
217 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate how the Texas social studies standards address race, racism, and communities of color using the lens of critical race theory, uncovering the sometimes subtle ways that the standards can appear to adequately address race while at the same time marginalizing it.
Abstract: In this article, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Keffrelyn Brown, and Anthony Brown offer findings from a close textual analysis of how the Texas social studies standards address race, racism, and communities of color. Using the lens of critical race theory, the authors uncover the sometimes subtle ways that the standards can appear to adequately address race while at the same time marginalizing it—the “illusion of inclusion.” Their study offers insight into the mechanisms of marginalization in standards and a model of how to closely analyze such standards, which, the authors argue, is increasingly important as the standards and accountability movements continue to grow in influence.
160 citations
TL;DR: Papay argues that teacher evaluation tools should be assessed not only on their ability to measure teacher performance accurately, but also on how well they inform and support ongoing teacher development.
Abstract: In this article, John Papay argues that teacher evaluation tools should be assessed not only on their ability to measure teacher performance accurately, but also on how well they inform and support ongoing teacher development. He looks at two major approaches to teacher evaluation reform: value-added measures and standards-based evaluations. Papay analyzes these two approaches both as measurement tools and as professional development tools, illuminating the advantages, drawbacks, and untapped potential of each. In the process, attention is refocused towards a broader conception of the purpose of teacher evaluation.
158 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine how education scholars have taken up the call for (re)articulating Chicana feminist epistemological perspectives in their research and speak back to Dolores Delgado Bernal's 1998 Harvard Educational Review article, using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research.
Abstract: this article, the authors simultaneously examine how education scholars have taken up the call for (re)articulating Chicana feminist epistemological perspectives in their research and speak back to Dolores Delgado Bernal's 1998 Harvard Educational Review article, “Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research.” They address the ways in which Chicana scholars draw on their ways of knowing to unsettle dominant modes of analysis, create decolonizing methodologies, and build upon what it means to utilize Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. Moreover, they demonstrate how such work provides new narratives that embody alternative paradigms in education research. These alternative paradigms are aligned with the scholarship of Gloria Anzaldua, especially her theoretical concepts of nepantla, El Mundo Zurdo, and Coyolxauhqui. Finally, the authors offer researcher reflections that further explore the tensions and possibilities inherent in employing Chicana feminist epistemologies i...
133 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Hermes, Bang, and Marin consider the role of education for Indigenous languages and frame specific questions of Ojibwe revitalization as part of the wider understanding of the context of community, language, and Indigenous knowledge production.
Abstract: Endangered Indigenous languages have received little attention within the American educational research community. However, within Native American communities, language revitalization is pushing education beyond former iterations of culturally relevant curriculum and has the potential to radically alter how we understand culture and language in education. Situated within this gap, Mary Hermes, Megan Bang, and Ananda Marin consider the role of education for Indigenous languages and frame specific questions of Ojibwe revitalization as a part of the wider understanding of the context of community, language, and Indigenous knowledge production. Through a retrospective analysis of an interactive multimedia materials project, the authors present ways in which design research, retooled to fit the need of communities, may inform language revitalization efforts and assist with the evolution of community-based research design. Broadly aimed at educators, the praxis described in this article draws on community colla...
109 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Awokoya explores how three major contexts (family, school, and peer groups) affect the ways in which African immigrant youth construct and negotiate their racial and ethnic identities.
Abstract: Past scholarship on immigrant racial and ethnic identity construction tends to ignore the processes by which social context influences identity at the individual level. In this qualitative study, Janet T. Awokoya presents a complex understanding of 1.5- and second-generation African immigrant youths’ identities. Awokoya explores how three major contexts—family, school, and peer groups—affect the ways in which African immigrant youth construct and negotiate their racial and ethnic identities. Further, she contends that the ways in which African immigrant youth are expected to conform to ideals of what it means to be African, Nigerian, African American, and Black, which dramatically shift across contexts, significantly confound the racial and ethnic identity constructions and negotiations for these youth. The article concludes with a discussion of practical and theoretical implications for identity development among Black immigrant youth.
81 citations
TL;DR: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as mentioned in this paper provides an ideal vantage point to understand generations and power in the digital age, characterized by authoritarian regimes, surging youth populations, and escalating rates of both youth connectivity and unemployment.
Abstract: Youth are coming of age in a digital era and learning and exercising citizenship in fundamentally different ways compared to previous generations. Around the globe, a monumental generational rupture is taking place that is being facilitated—not driven in some inevitable and teleological process—by new media and communication technologies. The bulk of research and theorizing on generations in the digital age has come out of North America and Europe; but to fully understand the rise of an active generation requires a more inclusive global lens, one that reaches to societies where high proportions of educated youth live under conditions of political repression and economic exclusion. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), characterized by authoritarian regimes, surging youth populations, and escalating rates of both youth connectivity and unemployment, provides an ideal vantage point to understand generations and power in the digital age. Building toward this larger perspective, this article probes how Egy...
80 citations
TL;DR: Thomas as mentioned in this paper argues that education research repeatedly makes a mistake first noted by Dewey: it misunderstands our science This misunderstanding has led to attempts to import various putatively scientific precepts into education inquiry, which is fluid and plural: science flexes to any angle to answer the questions that are posed in any field.
Abstract: In this essay, Gary Thomas argues that education research repeatedly makes a mistake first noted by Dewey: it misunderstands our science This misunderstanding has led to attempts to import various putatively scientific precepts into education inquiry But in reality, he argues, those “scientific” precepts do not characterize scientific endeavor, which is fluid and plural: science flexes to any angle to answer the questions that are posed in any field Questions in education concern worlds of practice and social relations where change and corrigibility draw the parameters for inquiry Education research becomes valuable only when it takes account of the reality of the educational endeavor Thomas urges us to strive to forge a new science of education based on singular and shared understandings of such practice
72 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that focusing on the effectiveness of individuals while ignoring how their schools are organized limits our capacity to support teachers' work and, thus, to improve the outcomes for our nation's neediest students.
Abstract: In this article, Susan Moore Johnson calls for a balanced approach to improving teaching and learning, one that focuses on both teachers and the contexts in which they work. Drawing on over a decade of research on the experiences of new teachers, Johnson argues that focusing on the effectiveness of individuals while ignoring how their schools are organized limits our capacity to support teachers’ work and, thus, to improve the outcomes for our nation’s neediest students.
67 citations
TL;DR: Anthony Bryk, Heather Harding, and Sharon Greenberg report on a roundtable jointly sponsored by Teach For America and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as discussed by the authors, which brought together a group of scholars and practitioners with a broad range of perspectives and asked them to explore several questions related to the emerging national narrative on effective teachers.
Abstract: In this article, Anthony Bryk, Heather Harding, and Sharon Greenberg report on a roundtable jointly sponsored by Teach For America and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The authors brought together a group of scholars and practitioners with a broad range of perspectives and asked them to explore several questions related to the emerging national narrative on effective teachers: What is an effective teacher? How do we leverage this moment of enormous energy in producing more effective teaching to advance meaningful improvements at scale? Where are the current sites of success? What can we learn from what is working? The article is organized around the edited transcript of the roundtable discussion and is supplemented by author commentaries. The authors seek to illuminate and reimagine the current “nonsystem” in order to accelerate progress toward a wholly new approach to developing the teaching force our nation and our children need.
48 citations
TL;DR: The history of Mexican American school segregation is complex, often misunderstood, and currently unresolved as mentioned in this paper, however, the same literature suggests that Mexican Americans experienced de facto segregation because school officials implemented various policies that had the intended effect of segregating Mexican Americans.
Abstract: The history of Mexican American school segregation is complex, often misunderstood, and currently unresolved. The literature suggests that Mexican Americans experienced de facto segregation because it was local custom and never sanctioned at the state level in the American Southwest. However, the same literature suggests that Mexican Americans experienced de jure segregation because school officials implemented various policies that had the intended effect of segregating Mexican Americans. Ruben Donato and Jarrod S. Hanson argue in this article that although Mexican Americans were legally categorized as “White,” the American public did not recognize the category and treated Mexican Americans as socially “colored” in their schools and communities. Second, although there were no state statutes that sanctioned the segregation of Mexican Americans, it was a widespread trend in the American Southwest. Finally, policies and practices historically implemented by school officials and boards of education should re...
TL;DR: Rincon-Gallardo and Elmore as mentioned in this paper explored the question of how and under what conditions a countercultural educational practice can be brought to scale as a reform initiative, highlighting the evolution of the Learning Community Project (LCP) in Mexico.
Abstract: This article by Santiago Rincon-Gallardo and Richard F. Elmore explores the question of how and under what conditions a countercultural educational practice can be brought to scale as a reform initiative. Highlighting the evolution of the Learning Community Project (LCP) in Mexico, the authors present a practice that runs counter to the traditional culture and power relations of schooling. The authors examine how the LCP succeeded in expanding to hundreds of schools and was recently adopted as part of a national strategy to transform teaching and learning in nine thousand schools across Mexico. The authors connect knowledge on bringing instructional improvement to scale with social movement theory to advance the idea of educational change as a social movement. Rincon-Gallardo and Elmore explore the implications of the work of the LCP for theory, practice, and policy—calling for an alternative approach that challenges the traditional top-down view of educational practice and policy, and instead conceptuali...
TL;DR: Weinstein and West as discussed by the authors identify specific dynamics that challenge young poets as they participate in YSW-related activities and argue that risks and tensions are intrinsic to the nature of a deeply social youth arts context but that the field's long-term sustenance depends on all participants' willingness to have honest, ongoing discussions about such challenges.
Abstract: In this article, Susan Weinstein and Anna West embark on a critical analysis of the maturing field of youth spoken word poetry (YSW). Through a blend of firsthand experience, analysis of YSW-related films and television, and interview data from six years of research, the authors identify specific dynamics that challenge young poets as they participate in YSW-related activities. Participants discuss the risks of being overly identified with the subject matter of the poems they perform, the tendency of some YSW communities to create a “star” system among youth poets, and the implications of the intensified public gaze trained on youth poets by growing media attention to YSW. Weinstein and West argue that risks and tensions are intrinsic to the nature of a deeply social youth arts context but that the field's long-term sustenance depends on all participants' willingness to have honest, ongoing discussions about such challenges.
TL;DR: In this paper, two assistant professors of color, Richard J (Rich) Reddick and Victor B Saenz, utilize scholarly personal narrative to reflect on their trajectory from undergraduates at a predominantly white institution to faculty members at that same institution Employing the concept of (in)visibility to discuss their alternating feelings of exclusion and acceptance in the university community, they describe how they endeavor to maintain their senses of self through the support of family, mentors, and their home communities.
Abstract: In this article, Richard J (Rich) Reddick and Victor B Saenz, two assistant professors of color, utilize scholarly personal narrative to reflect on their trajectory from undergraduates at a predominantly White institution—one prominently mired in a legacy of discrimination and exclusion toward people of color—to faculty members at that same institution Employing the concept of (in)visibility to discuss their alternating feelings of exclusion and acceptance in the university community, Reddick and Saenz describe how they endeavor to maintain their senses of self through the support of family, mentors, and their home communities The institution's efforts to reconcile its difficult history through community outreach and structural changes provide what appears to be a safe space for these hermanos academicos (academic brothers), though the two scholars continue to struggle with multiple and sometimes competing responsibilities: navigating the institution, retaining their cultural integrity, and meeting th
TL;DR: Castillo-Montoya and Torres-Guzman as mentioned in this paper used testimonios as a method for sharing funds of knowledge that may support and encourage emerging scholars' efforts to critique, create, and expand on current educational theories, methods, and pedagogies.
Abstract: In this article, Milagros Castillo-Montoya and Maria Torres-Guzman, two intergenerational Puerto Rican female scholars, use testimonios as a method for sharing funds of knowledge that may support and encourage emerging scholars’ efforts to critique, create, and expand on current educational theories, methods, and pedagogies. They draw on Chicana feminist epistemology to analyze their six-month charlas, informal conversations. They view their own Puerto Rican experiences from this lens and, in an effort to develop a Latina Epistemology Framework, expand the existing framework through a new dimension they refer to as lucha. They also put forth a model of research that furthers the use of testimonios as a mode of inquiry and as a process that may lead to mentorship in the academy for first-generation scholars.
TL;DR: Diazgranados Ferrans et al. as mentioned in this paper explored the decision-making processes by which early adolescents choose a strategy to upstand, bystand, or join the perpetrators when they witness situations of physical and relational bullying in their schools.
Abstract: This article explores the decision-making processes by which early adolescents choose a strategy to upstand, bystand, or join the perpetrators when they witness situations of physical and relational bullying in their schools. Authors Silvia Diazgranados Ferrans, Robert L. Selman, and Luba Falk Feigenberg analyze data from twenty-three interviews conducted with eighth graders in four middle schools using a grounded theory approach and propose an emerging theoretical framework to guide future research on bullying. Their framework includes a multilevel model that identifies nested sources of influence on students' responses to bullying and a decision-making tree that hypothesizes different choice paths that student witnesses’ decision-making processes might follow in situations of bullying as predicted by the students’ positions along a set of “key social-relational indices.” Finally, the authors connect their findings with current debates in the field of moral decision making and discuss the implications fo...
TL;DR: In this article, Sabina Vaught undertakes the theoretical and analytical project of conceptually integrating Whiteness as property, a key structural framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and melancholia, a framework originally emerging from psychoanalysis.
Abstract: In this article, Sabina Vaught undertakes the theoretical and analytical project of conceptually integrating Whiteness as property, a key structural framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and melancholia, a framework originally emerging from psychoanalysis. Specifically, Vaught engages Whiteness as property as an analytic tool to examine data from a larger ethnographic study of juvenile prison and schooling. She suggests that the psychoanalytic framework of melancholia enriches and complicates this analysis and proposes a theoretical move toward understanding structural affective processes in the scholarly effort to map schooling, race, and power. Throughout, Vaught illustrates the significance and utility of such an approach through multifaceted data-driven analyses.
TL;DR: Garcia et al. as discussed by the authors examined the early twentieth-century origins of a dual schooling system that facilitated the reproduction of a cheap labor force and the marginalization of Mexicans in Oxnard, California.
Abstract: In this article, David G. Garcia, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas examine the early twentieth-century origins of a dual schooling system that facilitated the reproduction of a cheap labor force and the marginalization of Mexicans in Oxnard, California. In their analysis of the 1930s Oxnard Elementary School District board minutes, alongside newspapers, maps, scholarly accounts, and oral history interviews, they argue that school segregation privileged Whites and discriminated against Mexicans as a form of mundane racism. The authors build on previous scholarship documenting the pervasiveness of racism in U.S. society to define mundane racism as the systematic subordination of Mexicans that occurred as a commonplace, ordinary way of conducting business within and beyond schools. Their findings complicate narratives that emphasize complete segregation in “Mexican schools,” while acknowledging the resistance of parents and the resilience of their children.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the history of teacher evaluations in Montgomery County, Maryland and describe how, over the course of three decades, the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) established itself as a strong and powerful professional association and leveraged its power to institutionalize a more collaborative approach to teacher evaluations.
Abstract: In this article, Jeremy Sullivan explores the history of teacher evaluations in Montgomery County, Maryland. He describes how, over the course of three decades, the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) established itself as a strong and powerful professional association and leveraged its power to institutionalize a more collaborative approach to teacher evaluations in the county. Drawing largely on archival data from educational organizations in Montgomery County, Sullivan shows how the MCEA and its member teachers objected to evaluation mechanisms they considered unfair and ineffective. He then outlines the process through which the MCEA worked together with administrators to develop the Peer Assisted Review program. Today this program, jointly run by MCEA and the school system, enjoys widespread support in the county and serves as an example of how teachers and their unions can partner with administrators to work together toward the goal of improving teaching and learning in public schools.
TL;DR: In this article, Rochelle Skogen takes up the subject of university professors diagnosed with severe mental illness and asks why so little is known about these individuals, as an assistant professor who suffers from bipolar disorder, discusses the impact of stigma on a professor's decision to either disclose or conceal her illness.
Abstract: In this article Rochelle Skogen takes up the subject of university professors diagnosed with severe mental illness and asks why so little is known about these individuals. As an assistant professor who suffers from bipolar disorder, Skogen discusses the impact of stigma on a professor's decision to either disclose or conceal her illness. While it appears that most mentally ill academics choose to hide their diagnoses—perhaps believing that concealment will keep them free of stigma—Skogen argues that such thinking is but an illusion of freedom, because it is based on an emancipation that depends on the “goodwill” of would-be emancipators. Skogen depicts her own journey of “coming into presence” as a process of subjectification rooted in Jacques Ranciere's theory of a new logic of emancipation, as interpreted by Bingham and Biesta.