Showing papers in "Harvard Educational Review in 2014"
TL;DR: In this paper, Ladson-Billings reflects on the history of her theory of culturally relevant pedagogy and the ways it has been used and misused since its inception.
Abstract: In this article, Ladson-Billings reflects on the history of her theory of culturally relevant pedagogy and the ways it has been used and misused since its inception. She argues for the importance o...
1,383 citations
TL;DR: Paris and Alim as discussed by the authors argue that CSP seeks to perpetuate and foster linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling and as a needed response to demographic and social change.
Abstract: In this article, Django Paris and H. Samy Alim use the emergence of Paris's concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) as the foundation for a respectful and productive critique of previous formulations of asset pedagogies. Paying particular attention to asset pedagogy's failures to remain dynamic and critical in a constantly evolving global world, they offer a vision that builds on the crucial work of the past toward a CSP that keeps pace with the changing lives and practices of youth of color. The authors argue that CSP seeks to perpetuate and foster linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling and as a needed response to demographic and social change. Building from their critique, Paris and Alim suggest that CSP's two most important tenets are a focus on the plural and evolving nature of youth identity and cultural practices and a commitment to embracing youth culture's counterhegemonic potential while maintaining a clear-eyed critique of the ways in ...
1,064 citations
TL;DR: Halverson and Sheridan as mentioned in this paper provide the context for research on the maker movement as they consider the emerging role of making in education and present points of tension between making and formal education practices as they come into contact with one another.
Abstract: In this essay, Erica Halverson and Kimberly Sheridan provide the context for research on the maker movement as they consider the emerging role of making in education. The authors describe the theoretical roots of the movement and draw connections to related research on formal and informal education. They present points of tension between making and formal education practices as they come into contact with one another, exploring whether the newness attributed to the maker movement is really all that new and reflecting on its potential pedagogical impacts on teaching and learning.
746 citations
TL;DR: Sheridan et al. as discussed by the authors explore how makerspaces may function as learning environments and describe features of three makerspaces and how participants learn and develop through complex design and making practices.
Abstract: Through a comparative case study, Sheridan and colleagues explore how makerspaces may function as learning environments. Drawing on field observations, interviews, and analysis of artifacts, videos, and other documents, the authors describe features of three makerspaces and how participants learn and develop through complex design and making practices. They describe how the makerspaces help individuals identify problems, build models, learn and apply skills, revise ideas, and share new knowledge with others. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of their findings for this emergent field.
507 citations
TL;DR: McCarty and Lee as mentioned in this paper argue that given the current linguistic, cultural, and educational realities of Native American communities, CSP in these settings must also be understood as culturally revitalizing pedagogy.
Abstract: In this article, Teresa L. McCarty and Tiffany S. Lee present critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy as a necessary concept to understand and guide educational practices for Native American learners. Premising their discussion on the fundamental role of tribal sovereignty in Native American schooling, the authors underscore and extend lessons from Indigenous culturally based, culturally relevant, and culturally responsive schooling. Drawing on Paris's (2012) and Paris and Alim's (2014) notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP), McCarty and Lee argue that given the current linguistic, cultural, and educational realities of Native American communities, CSP in these settings must also be understood as culturally revitalizing pedagogy. Using two ethnographic cases as their foundation, they explore what culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) looks like in these settings and consider its possibilities, tensions, and constraints. They highlight the ways in which implementing CSRP n...
358 citations
TL;DR: This article examined high school students' experiences making e-textile designs across three workshops that took place over the course of a school year and discuss individual students' experience making etextiles in the context of broader findings regarding themes of transparency, aesthetics and gender.
Abstract: Electronic textiles are a part of the increasingly popular maker movement that champions existing do-it-yourself activities. As making activities broaden from Maker Faires and fabrication spaces in children's museums, science centers, and community organizations to school classrooms, they provide new opportunities for learning while challenging many current conventions of schooling. In this article, authors Yasmin Kafai, Deborah Fields, and Kristin Searle consider one disruptive area of making: electronic textiles. The authors examine high school students’ experiences making e-textile designs across three workshops that took place over the course of a school year and discuss individual students’ experiences making e-textiles in the context of broader findings regarding themes of transparency, aesthetics, and gender. They also examine the role of e-textiles as both an opportunity for, and challenge in, breaking down traditional barriers to computing.
226 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for a design process in the development of educative curriculum materials that is theoretically and empirically driven, using a design-based research approach, and argue that the design process can be used to improve the quality of curriculum materials.
Abstract: In this article, the authors argue for a design process in the development of educative curriculum materials that is theoretically and empirically driven. Using a designbased research approach, the...
101 citations
TL;DR: Ishimaru et al. as discussed by the authors examined how a collaboration emerged and evolved between a low-income Latino parent organizing group and the leadership of a rapidly changing school district and found that parents, families, and community members can contribute critical resources to enable districts and schools to educate all students more equitably.
Abstract: In this ethnographic case study, Ann M. Ishimaru examines how a collaboration emerged and evolved between a low-income Latino parent organizing group and the leadership of a rapidly changing school district. Using civic capacity and community organizing theories, Ishimaru seeks to understand the role of parents, goals, strategies, and change processes that characterize a school district’s collaboration with a community-based organization. Her findings suggest an emergent model of collabo ration that engages parents as educational leaders, focuses on shared systemic goals, strategically builds capacity and relationships, and addresses educational change as political process. This emergent model stands in contrast to traditional partnerships between communities and school or district leadership that often reflect deficit concep tions of marginalized parents and families. By rewriting the rules of engagement, parents, families, and community members can contribute critical resources to enable districts and schools to educate all students more equitably.
100 citations
TL;DR: The concept of early childhood education aimed at expanding children's capabilities stands in contrast to the currently prevalent emphasis on preparing children for the knowledge and skills tested in elementary grades as mentioned in this paper, and through her classroom-based examples of student agency and her call to bring cultural and varied perspectives into the discussion, Adair hopes to encourage dynamic, agentic learning experiences for all children.
Abstract: In this essay, Jennifer Keys Adair aims to clarify the concept of agency as a tool for improving the educational experiences of young children in the early grades. She conceptualizes agency in the context of schooling as the ability to influence what and how something is learned in order to expand capabilities, drawing on economic theories of human development, agency, and capability as they might be applied to early learning in schools. An understanding of early childhood education aimed at expanding children's capabilities stands in contrast to the currently prevalent emphasis on preparing children for the knowledge and skills tested in elementary grades. Through her classroom-based examples of student agency and her call to bring cultural and varied perspectives into the discussion, Adair hopes to encourage dynamic, agentic learning experiences for all children, not just those of privilege.
85 citations
TL;DR: Espinoza and Vossoughi as mentioned in this paper argue that educational rights are "produced, affirmed, and negated" not only through legislative and legal channels but also through an evolving spectrum of educational activities embedded in everyday life.
Abstract: What are the origins of educational rights? In this essay, Espinoza and Vossoughi assert that educational rights are “produced,” “affirmed,” and “negated” not only through legislative and legal channels but also through an evolving spectrum of educational activities embedded in everyday life Thus, they argue that the “heart” of educational rights—the very idea that positive educative experiences resulting in learning are a human entitlement irrespective of social or legal status—has come to inhere in the educational experiences of persons subjected to social degradation and humiliation After examining key moments in the African American educational rights experience as composite historical products, the authors determine that learning is “dignity-conferring” and “rights-generative” They revisit African slave narratives, testimony from landmark desegregation cases, and foundational texts in the history of African American education where they find luminous first-person accounts of intellectual activity
70 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Myosha McAfee presented findings from her grounded theory and micro-ethnographical study of math instruction in a racially and socioeconomically diverse public school.
Abstract: In this research article, Myosha McAfee presents findings from her grounded theory and microethnographical study of math instruction in a racially and socioeconomically diverse public school. Her analysis puts forth a new theory—the kinesiology of race—which conceptualizes race as a verb rather than a noun. It centrally considers how racial patterns and hierarchies emerge through the accumulation of ordinary, everyday interactions. Rather than focus on the relationship between individuals’ beliefs and actions, McAfee identifies three racial kinetics occurring in the classroom—sifting, gridlocking, and advantaging—and maintains that, over time, these processes inform the racial stratification of students’ learning experiences and academic outcomes. The kinesiology of race theory differs from pre-existing frameworks of race as a category, identity, or outcome (i.e., racism) and can reframe thinking about how race works.
TL;DR: Diazgranados Ferrans et al. as discussed by the authorserrans and Selman used an emergent framework to explore how the rules of the school culture at different perceived school climates affect early adolescents' decisions to upstand, bystand, or join the perpetrators when they witness peer aggression and bullying.
Abstract: The authors of this article, Silvia Diazgranados Ferrans and Robert Selman, use an emergent framework to explore how the rules of the school culture at different perceived school climates affect early adolescents’ decisions to upstand, bystand, or join the perpetrators when they witness peer aggression and bullying. Through a grounded theory approach, they revisit interview data from twenty-three eighth graders in four middle schools, with the aim of building on previous research and refining their theoretical framework to guide future research on bullying. The authors identify four school-level indicators that are salient in students’ perceptions of their school climate—safety, order, care, and empowerment—and examine how these indicators combine to configure three types of perceived school climates—negligent, authoritarian, and cohesive. They explore how these perceived school climates influence adolescents’ choice of strategy when they witness bullying in school and document a set of student recommenda...
TL;DR: In this paper, Brighouse and Schouten outline four standards for judging whether to support the chartering of a new school within a given jurisdiction, and pose the following questions to a hypothetical school board member: Will the school increase equality of opportunity? Will it benefit the least-advantaged students in the jurisdiction? will it improve the preparation of democratically competent citizens? Will the quality of the daily, lived experience of the students?
Abstract: In this essay, Harry Brighouse and Gina Schouten outline four standards for judging whether to support the chartering of a new school within a given jurisdiction. The authors pose the following questions to a hypothetical school board member: Will the school increase equality of opportunity? Will it benefit the least-advantaged students in the jurisdiction? Will it improve the preparation of democratically competent citizens? Will it improve the quality of the daily, lived experience of the students? Brighouse and Schouten suggest that most of the evidence concerning charter school performance focuses on just the students within the schools, without addressing a charter school's effect on students who do not attend. They argue that a full evaluation requires both kinds of evidence and that these questions are the four standards that should guide both the decision maker and researchers gathering evidence on the effects of charter schools.
TL;DR: This article explored the potential consequences of this misalignment and attempted to conceptualize an alternate reality in which high school classrooms could become places where cognitive rigor and deep engagement function as mutually supportive priorities.
Abstract: In this essay, Sarah M. Fine explores the misalignment between instructional practices in secondary classrooms and the interests and capabilities of adolescent learners. Drawing on a series of ethnographic cases, she explores the potential consequences of this misalignment and attempts to conceptualize an alternate reality in which high school classrooms could become places where cognitive rigor and deep engagement function as mutually supportive priorities. Fine theorizes that a promising path forward would be pursuing instruction that involves intellectual playfulness—a construct that marries open-ended problem solving with opportunities for risk taking and flow. These same cases, however, illustrate that this pursuit would require profound transformations in the policies, practices, and perspectives that currently dominate the field.
TL;DR: Kimball as discussed by the authors examines the prominent narrative asserting that liberal arts colleges have continuously declined in number and status over the past 130 years and identifies problems in this declension narrative and proposes a revision positing that the decline of liberal arts institutions began only after 1970, and concludes that this shift does not ensure that the fraction of enrollment in collegiate liberal arts will continue to remain consistent in the future.
Abstract: This article examines the prominent narrative asserting that liberal arts colleges have continuously declined in number and status over the past 130 years. Bruce A. Kimball identifies problems in this declension narrative and proposes a revision positing that the decline of liberal arts colleges began only after 1970. Further, he maintains that the fraction of the U.S. population enrolling in collegiate liberal arts programs has remained surprisingly consistent over the past two centuries. That same fraction continues after 1970 because universities began to replicate the liberal arts college by establishing honors programs, and student enrollment after 1970 shifted from liberal arts colleges to the new subsidized honors programs in universities. Kimball concludes that this shift does not ensure that the fraction of enrollment in collegiate liberal arts will continue to remain consistent in the future. There is reason to doubt the long-term commitment of universities to supporting honors programs devoted ...
TL;DR: Warnick as discussed by the authors proposes a new type of argument for parental authority based on the sacrificial labor of parenting, that is, on the physical and emotional work associated with caring for children.
Abstract: In this article, Bryan R. Warnick explores parents’ authority to make educational decisions for their children. In philosophical debates, three types of arguments are typically invoked to justify parents' rights: arguments based on the welfare interests of children, arguments based on the expressive interests of parents, and arguments based on the property rights of parents. While each captures something important about parenting, these arguments ultimately fail, on philosophical grounds, to establish a substantial right to educational authority. In light of this failure, the author advances two arguments. First, he proposes a new type of argument for parental authority based on the sacrificial labor of parenting—that is, on the physical and emotional work associated with caring for children. Within the sphere of family life, the unique nature of parental sacrificial labor is honored as parents are given rights to raise their children, including a right to expose their children to their preferred way of l...
TL;DR: Noonan as mentioned in this paper examined how the administrative team and the teachers at a small, urban middle school approach school improvement and illustrated the ways in which the pressures associated with attempting school reform in our current high-accountability environment make it difficult for school personnel to engage in the deep learning that transformative change requires.
Abstract: In this article, James Noonan uses portraiture to examine how the administrative team and the teachers at a small, urban middle school approach school improvement. He illustrates the ways in which the pressures associated with attempting school reform in our current high-accountability environment make it difficult for school personnel to engage in the deep learning that transformative change requires. Noonan finds that at Fields Middle School, district-initiated redesign is built around an expansive view of learning that embraces uncertainty, collaboration, and reflection as catalysts for broad and sustained school improvement. He illuminates school transformation efforts that hinge on adult learning and an understanding of schools as learning organizations, in contrast to reform efforts that adopt linear and hierarchical views of teaching and learning.
TL;DR: This paper investigated where and when Black and Latino male adolescents engage in self-disclosure with their peers and found that participants who reported disclosing behaviors tended to do so outside of school settings, while those who did not report disclosure discussed how experiences with community violence contributed to their decision not to share their feelings.
Abstract: In this article, David J. Knight investigates where and when Black and Latino male adolescents engage in self-disclosure—sharing their emotions, thoughts, and social perceptions—with their peers. Building from asset-based research and ecological theories of development, Knight analyzes in-depth interviews and finds that these adolescents may consider context in their decisions regarding whether or not to disclose to peers. Participants who reported disclosing behaviors tended to do so outside of school settings, while those who did not report disclosure discussed how experiences with community violence contributed to their decision not to share their feelings. Knight discusses the implications of this work for practitioners who hope to provide safe educational settings for young men of color.
TL;DR: Gretchen Brion-Meisels investigated how adolescents conceptualize support in the context of school and found that adolescents in the sample both draw on and actively resist dominant societal discourses of support as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In this piece, Gretchen Brion-Meisels investigates how adolescents conceptualize support in the context of school. Student support systems have become a permanent structure in most U.S. public schools, responsible for ensuring equal access to support services. Unfortunately, little is known about how adolescents make meaning of school-based support. To answer this question, Brion-Meisels explores how urban adolescents in a northeastern city talk about support, paying close attention to the cultural narratives that underlie their conceptions. Analyzing text from survey, interview, and focus group data, she argues that adolescents in the sample both draw on and actively resist dominant societal discourses of support. Findings suggest that support providers would benefit from better understanding the cultural and contextual narratives underlying youth conceptions of support, as well as the individual perspectives of the youth that they serve. In addition, Brion-Meisels contends that adults must shift their o...
TL;DR: The authors introduce surf maps and concept ladders as potential assignments to guide beginning college students in producing original scholarship in their Cultural Geography course, finding that these tools help novice researchers realize their information-seeking patterns and skills as well as potential gaps in their current practices.
Abstract: Whereas instruction on how to conduct original research can build on beginning college students' tacit information literacies, the explicit articulation of existing processes for information gathering is rarely elicited by instructors prior to students' submission of a final research paper. In this essay, authors Nicholas Bauch and Christina Sheldon introduce surf maps and concept ladders as potential assignments to guide beginning college students in producing original scholarship in their Cultural Geography course. They find that these tools help novice researchers realize their information-seeking patterns and skills as well as potential gaps in their current practices. For students, a key outcome of harnessing their tacit information literacies is that it offers broader disciplinary relevance to their research projects, introducing them to the complexities of making claims and, most generally, the production of knowledge. For educators, identifying students' tacit information-seeking skills and shortc...
TL;DR: Auger as mentioned in this paper describes the dynamics of a learning partnership that exists among teachers and students and between students and offers a glimpse of what happens in one classroom when the teacher focuses on providing students with the appropriate tools, environment, structure, and access to the subject matter; trusts students to enact their own agency as learners.
Abstract: In this essay, Jessie L. Auger reflects on the practice of Buddy Editing in her first-grade classroom as an opportunity for student and teacher learning. By explicitly revealing her pedagogical approach and sharing transcripts of students' engagement with her Buddy Editing protocol, Auger presents the dynamics of a learning partnership that exists among teachers and students and between students. She offers a glimpse of what happens in one classroom when the teacher focuses on providing students with the appropriate tools, environment, structure, and access to the subject matter; trusts students to enact their own agency as learners; and takes a reflective stance on improving her practice based on lessons from student practice.
TL;DR: This article used vignettes from a bilingual kindergarten classroom to explore the dynamic processes by which young children make sense of language, focusing on instances in which they ask their students to compare texts presented in English and Spanish.
Abstract: In this essay Naomi Mulvihill uses vignettes from her bilingual kindergarten classroom to explore the dynamic processes by which young children make sense of language, focusing on instances in which she asks her students to compare texts presented in English and Spanish. Using Piaget's concept of disequilibrium as a guiding framework, Mulvihill details the questions children ask and the ideas they ponder when faced with unexpected language puzzles. By privileging her students’ voices, she illustrates the tensions, confusions, and insights children experience as they navigate the complexity of language acquisition and literacy instruction in two languages. She suggests that it is through the exploration of these tensions that her students—and all learners—come to new understandings about language and the world around them.