Social Justice and Resilience for African American Male Counselor Educators: A Phenomenological Study

In this phenomenological study, the authors interviewed 4 African American male counselor educators about their social justice efforts. Resulting themes were lifelong commitment to social justice, reaction to resistance, professional and personal support, and the meaning of social justice work. Findings suggest that social justice work can increase professional resilience for African American male counselor educators.     

A Nonviolent Approach to Social Justice Education

This article advocates a nonviolent approach to social justice education. First, social justice education literature is reviewed, and two contrasting and influential approaches—critical theory and poststructural theory—are the focus of critical analysis. A nonviolent approach is proposed as an alternative. Second, the notion of social justice is reexamined to reveal its tie with the notion of the individual, and the concept of nonviolence in its emphasis on relationality is discussed. Three facets of nonviolence are further elaborated: relational dynamics, inner peace, and nonviolent means. Third, these facets are translated into important aspects of a pedagogy of nonviolence: Integrating the inner and the outer work; shifting the struggles of opposites to the interdependence of differences; using and improvising nonviolent teaching strategies. To enrich theoretical understandings and inspire practical insights, this article also interweaves international wisdom traditions (including African ubuntu, Buddist nonduality, and Taoist dynamics), my teaching experiences, and the formulation of a nonviolent social justice pedagogy in teacher education.     

A Family Strengths Approach to Early Language and Literacy Development

Language and literacy skills are an essential element of young children’s development and allow them to interact meaningfully with other people and to develop knowledge in all subject areas. Despite the importance of language and literacy development, however, more than one-third of children in the United States enter school with significant differences in language, early literacy skills, and motivation to learn that place them at considerable risk for developing long-term reading difficulties. The quantity and quality of language interactions children have with their parents and exposure to print in their home environment prior to entering school have an important impact on these individual differences. This paper provides teachers with guidelines and tools for helping families identify and create language and literacy opportunities in their home environment that reflect their unique strengths and routines.     

A Critical Social Literacy Project: Newfoundlanders Challenge The Shipping News

In this paper we challenge traditional classroom reading and writing practices by presenting a critique of a critical literacy project that used hypermedia as the vehicle for textual engagement and resistance. We begin with remarks that locate critical literacy within a postmodern world, explain why we invited our students in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland to read The Shipping News (1993), and continue with an analysis of their constructed World Wide Web texts. In addition to the Web pages, our data consist of students' commentaries on the course assignments, emails to the instructors, and the Internet audience's responses to the site. Literacy emerges and expands well beyond its earlier restrictive text-based practices. It assumes a plurality of constructions and meanings that are situated within social engagements with the world in which the students live.     

Steering Legacies: Pedagogy,Literacy, and Social Justice in Schools

This article builds upon more than 6 years of critical research in urban schools in northern California to offer a particular perspective on teaching for social justice. Concerned with prevailing issues in adolescent literacy, this article examines instantiations of literacy instruction in the shadow of the late activist poet June Jordan and with the support of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker. It focuses on culturally responsive pedagogy to understand not only their work but also the work of teachers and other educators. Central to the discussion are two kinds of pedagogical innovations, one based on a school-community partnership and the other a district-wide sponsored writing contest. Implications for classroom practice and key lessons useful for teachers interested in similar work are also discussed.

Ironies and Limitations of Educational Leadership for Social Justice: A Call to Social Justice Educators

In this article that reviews this special issue, we identify 5 ironies and limitations of educational leadership for social justice: (a) the meaning of inclusive practice, (b) the intersection of identity and difference, (c) the emphasis given to student achievement, (d) the lack of policy and practice coherence, and (e) the separation of superheroes from critical collaborative leadership. Although we discuss each issue separately, these conceptions are interrelated and intersecting. We conclude with a call to educators for social justice to change their work in several fundamental ways.     

Hip Hop Hermeneutics and Multicultural Education: A Theory of Cross-Cultural Understanding

Cross-cultural understanding stands as one of the great pillars of multicultural education and yet rarely do multiculturalists provide a full account of what it is and how it takes place. This paper will serve as an initial investigation into the complex nature of cross-cultrual understanding. Drawing on the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, I will layout the framework for a theory of understanding and provide a concept of culture that avoids the pitfalls of essentialism and instrumentalism. I will then raise, as the backdrop for my examination, the issue of authenticity in the hip hop world. This will allow me to put these hermeneutic theories to work by illuminating the interpretive process through which a hypothetical middle-aged teacher might go about gaining an apprecitaion for rap music to better understand his suburban students who, for him, embody hip hop culture. This phenomenological account of cross-cultural understanding will in turn raise thought-provoking questions about human agency, translation, and the various implications of cross-cultural understanding in the classroom.     

African American Students at Predominantly White Institutions: A Motivational and Self-Systems Approach to Understanding Retention

Predominantly White institutions have not been as effective as historically Black institutions in retaining and conferring degrees upon African American college students. This review seeks to embed the psychological aspects of the retention process proposed by Bean and Eaton [A psychological model of college student retention. In J. M. Braxton (Ed.), Reworking the student departure puzzle (pp. 48–61). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000] in a culturally-sensitive framework and consider how African American students attending PWIs may experience the processes in retention. We first give a brief overview of Bean and Eaton’s [A psychological model of college student retention. In J. M. Braxton (Ed.), Reworking the student departure puzzle (pp. 48–61). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000] model of retention, then we propose and discuss revisions to Bean and Eaton’s model that we believe would make the model more applicable to African American students attending predominantly White institutions. Specifically, we address students’ attitudes towards their institution, academic self-efficacy, motivation, achievement goals, attributions, and ethnic and bicultural identity development. The discussion concludes with implications and directions for future study.     

Developing Critical Hip Hop Feminist Literacies: Centrality and Subversion of Sexuality in the Lives of Black Girls

The present article explores discourses surrounding the bodies of Black ¹ 1. Throughout the article, I capitalize Black as a proper noun (as in Black American or Black language) to reference political and ethnic designation, on par with African American, which is not lower case. women and girls as they engage the meanings of Black womanhood in (American) society in an afterschool setting. Drawing on Black and hip hop feminisms, African American literacies, and critical discourse perspectives, the author analyzes two young girls' narratives, which reveal competing and controlling discourses of Black female sexuality. Bria's ² 2. All student names are pseudoymns. narrative of being sexually harassed by older boys while riding the bus is favorably assessed by the community of Black female interlocutors because she projects herself as asexual. Thus, the community of Black females bestows compassion upon her. Assata's narrative shares her budding womanhood and sexuality and is evaluated negatively by the group of Black females. Although both 11-year-old girls and the community of Black female interlocutors enact critical literacies amidst dominating racist, sexist, classist, and patriarchal discourses, their resistance strategies also perpetuate the very dominance they seek to oppose. Juxtaposition and critical analyses of the differential discourses invoked by the two narratives provide insight into the lived experiences of Black women and girls in relation to dominating discourses. As Black women and girls' sexual agency, desire, and early sexualization figure prominently in larger economies of power, knowledge, and society, their embodied and societal knowledge around these issues must be mined for the purposes of self-validation and the creation of new knowledge for collective empowerment (Hill Collins, 1991). Implications for critical literacy research, pedagogy, and theory are presented.     

Urban Poetics: Poetry, Social Justice and Critical Pedagogy in Education

Posing an alternate view to high stakes educational models, the thoughts, opinions and practices of four poetry educators are used to provide critical insights as how to infuse creative outlets in the educational process. In gathering the motivations of these poetry educators, a goal of this project is to encapsulate their philosophies through researcher observation and participation. Engaging such work with social justice at the center creates a particular disposition. It can be subjective in the sense that an understanding of improvement requires an explicit commitment to the improvement of the lives of young people in education through a participatory process.David Stovall is an Assistant Professor of Policy Studies.     

The Moral Imperative of Social Justice Leadership: A Critical Component of Effective Practice

This study examined how four principals in urban middle and senior high schools with a social justice orientation responded to hypothetical scenarios involving teacher prejudice. The principals in this study did not reference their leadership preparation programs in describing the evolution of their equity-focused leadership philosophies, nor did they reference theory. Rather, the principals were predisposed to support the goals of equity and fairness because they believed they had a moral obligation to do so. The research suggests that school leaders who enter the position with a predisposition for equity and fighting injustice may be better equipped to handle scenarios involving prejudice in ways that advance the overall goals of social justice.     

Critical Race Theory,Hip Hop,and Huck Finn: Narrative Inquiry in a High School English Classroom

This study explores the impact of reading Huckleberry Finn through the lens of critical race theory for both teacher and students in a racially diverse urban high school environment. The teacher/researcher used narrative inquiry and creative non-fiction to examine student language usage, white privilege (including her own), and student reaction to the novel in a collaborative qualitative study. Major findings include distinct differences between students of color and white students in their level of teacher trust and their views on reclamation.     

The Importance of Principals Supporting Dual Language Education: A Social Justice Leadership Framework

Recent calls for social justice to be a key aspect of principal preparation have been made, but content related to the efficacy of dual language education has been a neglected area of educational leadership research, coursework, and principal preparation standards. We draw on scholarship focused on dual language education, social justice leadership, and the new Professional Standards for Educational Leadership to describe how principals can create dual language programs and lead for social justice and conclude with implications for preparation programs.     

规则公正：实现社会公正的基本途径

社会公正是衡量社会明程度和社会合理性的重要尺度。社会公正的获得有赖于规则公正。章认为要做到规则公正就必须使规则制定民主化，规则实施公开化，规则评价合理化。     

The Impact of Brown on African American Students: A Critical Race Theoretical Perspective

There is no doubt that the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, Supreme Court decision was instrumental in initiating monumental change in the ways public schools have operated. The central question addressed by the Supreme Court in the Brown cases (1954, 1955) was whether segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives minority children of equal educational opportunities even when all else is equal. The author suggests that the problems faced by African American students are complex and convoluted when contextualized in traditional notions of effective schooling. Such is the case because African American students are filtered into lower educational tracks at such a rapid pace and are often the unfortunate victims of mis-education. The author uses critical race theory to deconstruct the historical as well as contemporary resistance offered to the full implementation of the Brown decision. How we have arrived at the present state of affairs can be understood only by studying the forces effective in the development of Negro education since it was systematically undertaken immediately after emancipation. To point out merely the defects as they appear today will be of little benefit to the present and future generations. These things must be viewed in their historical setting. The conditions of today have been determined by what has taken place in the past, and in a careful study of this history we may see more clearly the great theatre of events in which the Negro has played a part. We may understand better what his role has been and how well he has functioned in it. (Woodson 1933, 9).     

Digital Literacies Go to School: A Cross-Case Analysis of the Literacy Practices Used in a Classroom-Based Social Network Site

The authors, working from a new literacies studies perspective, suggest that educators can better teach their students if they develop their own knowledge of the purposes, types, and language conventions students use in their informal out-of-school literacy practices. The purpose of this study was to identify the literacy practices used in a classroom-based social network site and determine how these practices reflect digital literacies. By connecting differences in the literacy practices of three fifth-grade girls to the instructional moves made by classroom teachers, the authors were able to identify and describe how classroom teachers unintentionally marginalized the kinds of digital literacies that are valued in the larger society. Findings point to the importance of creating online identities for establishing relationships in a social networking site and a need for teachers to model ways to shift language use when engaging in different writing contexts.     

Language Awareness and Second Language Learning:A Critical Review

Beginning with the history,definition and levels of Language Awareness,this paper reviewed and analyzed two views:1) Language awareness is one necessary condition in language learning,or 2) Language learning can be achieved without Language Awareness.It pointed out the problems existing in these studies:1) Limitations in sample choice,concerning the adult beginning learners instead of the learners in different learning stages;2) Limitations in methodology,preferring cross-sectional researches to longitudinal case studies;and 3) Limitations in material choice,focusing on word level rather than other levels or aspects of language learning.This paper argued that language awareness is dynamic in the whole process of language learning.