Leveraging critical literacies for social change: questioning the culture of compliance at an ‘F’ school

This article traces the experiences of two veteran elementary school teachers in the urban Southwest, who are positioned by district and state policy ‘texts’ as insubordinate and failing, and who employ critical literacy practices to reconstruct and redesign these texts as they seek to create more equitable and humane conditions in schools. Stemming from a larger phenomenological study, this article explores how teachers in a ‘failing’ elementary school in the Southwestern US understand and negotiate district, state, and federal policies and examines how these policies shape and inform their identities as professionals. This research has important implications concerning the potential of critical literacy as a mode of resistance, the promise inherent in school/university partnerships for promoting change, and the ways in which the practice of deconstructing/reconstructing dehumanizing texts can foster a re-professionalization of teaching.     

Infant-toddler teachers can successfully employ authentic assessment: The Learning Through Relating system

This study documents the reliability and validity of a new infant-toddler authentic assessment, the Learning Through Relating Child Assets Record (LTR-CAR), and its feasibility of use by infant-toddler caregivers in an Early Head Start program. In a sample of 136 children, results indicated a strong internal structure of the LTR-CAR as evidenced by high internal consistency within age bands, expected performance in terms of the order of difficulty of items, and expected performance relative to the chronological ages of children. Moreover, the LTR-CAR accounted for a statistically significant amount of unique variance (between 6 and 26%), over and above age and gender, in six out of eight regressions predicting criterion measures. Given the increasing numbers of infants and toddlers in non-parental care, the need for authentic assessment as a tool to plan meaningful learning opportunities, as well as the lack of evidence-based authentic assessment options at the infant-toddler level, the LTR-CAR may provide a viable option for the field.     

Supporting minority students through a reflexive approach to empowerment

Referring to the experiences of three Muslim refugee girls recently settled in Australia, this paper examines issues of schooling and empowerment. The paper draws on teacher and student interview data from a study that investigated inclusive approaches to addressing issues of cultural diversity in a secondary state high school in Queensland. The paper foregrounds the girls’ highly positive views of their experiences at the school; views that reflect the girls’ access to spaces of empowerment but belie the complexity and tensions involved in how empowerment was understood and approached by educators at the school. Theorising empowerment through poststructural understandings of agency, the paper examines conditions and ways of understanding that make possible spaces of empowerment for the girls. In particular, the paper argues for a reflexive approach to empowerment that is informed by an understanding of the framing discourses shaping minority student identity and a critical reflection on educator and school positionality.     

Supporting minority women and girls: Key frames of reference and understanding for educators

Recent high‐profile rape cases in Australia involving Muslim and Indigenous minority groups have heightened contention around issues of culture, gender and justice. The article critically examines the culturalising of rape as an ethnic minority issue in the public and legal discourse associated with these cases. This examination problematises the western‐driven narratives about minority women that undergird and make possible this culturalising and foregrounds Muslim and Indigenous feminist priorities concerning issues of gender equity and justice. Against this backdrop, the article draws parallels between the inferiorising of ethnic minority culture in dominant legal and public discourse and the reductionism of culture in education discourse. Towards realising the equity mandates of national schooling policy, the article outlines key frames of reference and understanding about culture, gender and justice necessary for enhancing educators’ support for ethnic minority women and girls.     

Gender Gaps in Collegiate Teaching Style: Variations by Course Characteristics

Using data from over 9,000 faculty members that participated in the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), this study examined the moderating role a range of course characteristics played on the effects of gender on the percentage of class time spent on various activities, a measure of teaching style. Results revealed gender differences, but that the gaps between men and women in lecturing and active classroom practices varied by disciplinary area, course level, and the number of times a course had been taught by the same instructor. The results confirm that gender effects depend on context, which implies that efforts to improve teaching and learning must also adapt to the instructional context.     

Perceptions of artificial intelligence: A survey of academic librarians in Canada and the United States

This study aims to evaluate the perceptions of librarians with regard to artificial intelligence in academic libraries. An online survey of 24 questions was distributed through library distribution lists in Canada and the United States at the end of the summer in 2019. Findings suggest that librarians do not agree on a definition of artificial intelligence which is in keeping with this emerging field. The survey responses highlight the fact that academic librarians require more training with regard to artificial intelligence and its potential applications in libraries. Other important implications include a recognition that library patrons are interested in AI and that little to no programming about it has been offered in academic libraries. Very few studies have focused on academic librarians' perceptions of AI. This article highlights some useful practical implications for AI technologies in libraries and how AI could help improve library services and workflows.     

Adult Role Models: Feasibility,Acceptability, and Initial Outcomes for Sex Education

The authors present the feasibility and acceptability of a parent sexuality education program led by peer educators in community settings. They also report the results of an outcome evaluation with 71 parents who were randomized to the intervention or a control group and surveyed one month prior to and six months after the four-week intervention. The program was highly feasible and acceptable to participants, and the curriculum was implemented with a high level of fidelity and facilitator quality. Pilot data show promising outcomes for increasing parental knowledge, communication, and monitoring of their adolescent children.