Call for Manuscripts: Radical Departures: Ruminations on the Purposes of Higher Education in Prison

Critical Education

Call for Manuscripts: Radical Departures: Ruminations on the Purposes of Higher Education in Prison

Series Editors:
Erin L. Castro, University of Utah
Mary Rachel Gould, Saint Louis University

Higher education in prison is experiencing a moment of increased attention throughout the United States. The Second Chance Pell Program, an Experimental Sites Initiative facilitated by the U.S. Department of Education, has helped to propel access to education inside prisons into mainstream discourse. The commonsense justification provided for increasing access to higher education in prison, a bipartisan language spoken across the political landscape, hinges on a compelling rationale: access to higher education in prison reduces recidivism, lowers cost, and increases safety and security. Departing from conventional logic regarding the rationale for higher education in prison, this special edition considers possibilities and futurities regarding postsecondary educational opportunity made available inside prisons.

The series aims to explore how various educational theories and theorists can inform understandings of and desires for higher education in prison. We invite manuscripts that provide imaginative and theoretically grounded visions for postsecondary education inside prisons that are disentangled from the logics of the carceral state and the afore mentioned commonsense rationales for higher education in prison. Authors are invited to put on hold narrow discourses of recidivism to explore higher education inside prison through conceptual, empirical, theoretical, pedagogical, narrative, and poetic articles that approach this topic from a variety of perspectives, frameworks, and positionalities.

In considering higher education in prison, we especially seek manuscripts authored and/or co-authored by currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, co-written essays among diverse stakeholders, and other creative configurations.

Manuscripts may examine, but are not limited to, the following questions:

What does it mean to teach and/or learn on inside prisons?
How can educational theory inform possibility inside prison classrooms?
What does/should education mean inside prisons during hyperincarceration?
What should be the purposes of higher education in prison?
How can/do various educational theories take root inside prison classrooms?
Which theoretical bodies are useful in (re)imagining and (re)engaging higher education in prison?
How do examples in practice provide potential for re-theorization?

Manuscripts due: May 1, 2017.

For details on manuscript submission see: Critical Education Information for Authors

Additional questions can be directed to Erin L. Castro: erin.castro@utah.edu.

New Issue of Critical Education: IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM AGAINST CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, CAPITALISM, AND TRUMP

Abstract
In this essay I challenge the anticommunism that has dominated critical pedagogy since its emergence in 1980, which coincided with imperialism’s somewhat successful counter-offensive against the global communist movement. It is within the context of the absence of communism and the communist movement that paved the way for the rise of Trump and the far right more generally. The anticommunism central to progressive forms of education, from a non-capitalist perspective, represents nothing less than the crossing of class lines. After outlining the major premises this work is grounded in, situated within a common debate between Marxism and Native studies, I review key responses to anticommunist propaganda. I then provide a brief history of the Soviet Union offering concrete responses to the anticommunism that has infected those of us on the educational left, especially in North America. I then offer a short discussion of the Black Panther Party as another example of the current relevance of the communist legacy in the United States and how this legacy has been systematically under attack. The text concludes with a brief summary of some of the core principles of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) as an example of a contemporary U.S.-based Marxist-Leninist communist party endowed with the necessary analysis and organizational structure to challenge capitalism and imperialism under a Trump presidency.

Keywords
Marxism; Marx; History; Critical Pedagogy; Communism; Anti-Communism; Social Class; Class War; Donald Trump

ICES Seminar: Curricular ideologies in the discussion and negotiation of the Chilean social studies curriculum

Institute for Critical Education Studies
Open Seminar
Monday, September 26, 2016
Noon – 1:oopm
Scarfe 1209
University of British Columbia

Curricular Ideologies in the Discussion and Negotiation of the Chilean Social Studies Curriculum

GazmuriRenato Gazmuri, PhD
Assistant Professor at Universidad Diego Portales (Chile). Dr. Gazmuri received his PhD at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) 

Abstract: The Chilean social studies curriculum has been defined through processes of discussion and negotiation between diverse actors and institutions with different views on the subject. In order to identify and describe these ideologies, a sequential and recursive methodological device was designed and applied in three stages of production and analysis of information: a documentary compilation around three curricular events of debate and negotiation, application of questionnaires, and interviews. At each stage a content analysis was performed. Five curriculum ideologies are identified and described, considering their assumptions about how the curriculum should define the subject matter, as well what its aims, contents and its guidelines for teaching.

Radical Departures: Ruminations on the Purposes of Higher Education in Prison

Call for Manuscripts:
Critical Education

Radical Departures: Ruminations on the Purposes of Higher Education in Prison

Series Editors:
Erin L. Castro, University of Utah
Mary Rachel Gould, Saint Louis University

Higher education in prison is experiencing a moment of increased attention throughout the United States. The Second Chance Pell Program, an Experimental Sites Initiative facilitated by the U.S. Department of Education, has helped to propel access to education inside prisons into mainstream discourse. The commonsense justification provided for increasing access to higher education in prison, a bipartisan language spoken across the political landscape, hinges on a compelling rationale: access to higher education in prison reduces recidivism, lowers cost, and increases safety and security. Departing from conventional logic regarding the rationale for higher education in prison, this special edition considers possibilities and futurities regarding postsecondary educational opportunity made available inside prisons.

The series aims to explore how various educational theories and theorists can inform understandings of and desires for higher education in prison. We invite manuscripts that provide imaginative and theoretically grounded visions for postsecondary education inside prisons that are disentangled from the logics of the carceral state and the afore mentioned commonsense rationales for higher education in prison. Authors are invited to put on hold narrow discourses of recidivism to explore higher education inside prison through conceptual, empirical, theoretical, pedagogical, narrative, and poetic articles that approach this topic from a variety of perspectives, frameworks, and positionalities.

In considering higher education in prison, we especially seek manuscripts authored and/or co-authored by currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, co-written essays among diverse stakeholders, and other creative configurations.

Manuscripts may examine, but are not limited to, the following questions:

  • What does it mean to teach and/or learn on inside prisons?
  • How can educational theory inform possibility inside prison classrooms?
  • What does/should education mean inside prisons during hyperincarceration?
  • What should be the purposes of higher education in prison?
  • How can/do various educational theories take root inside prison classrooms?
  • Which theoretical bodies are useful in (re)imagining and (re)engaging higher education in prison?
  • How do examples in practice provide potential for re-theorization?

Manuscripts due: May 1, 2017.

For details on manuscript submission see: Critical Education Information for Authors

Additional questions can be directed to Erin L. Castro: erin.castro@utah.edu

EDCP Seminar: Abraham DeLeon “A Schizophrenic Scholar out for Stroll: Multiplicities, Becomings, Conjurings”

2016-sept-edcp-seminar

ICES Seminar: Curricular Discourses with Practical Implications: Perspectives and Experiences From Spain & South America

Public Seminar
Institute for Critical Education Studies

September 22, 2016
11:30am – 1:30pm
Scarfe 310
University of British Columbia

Curricular Discourses with Practical Implications:
Perspectives and Experiences From Spain & South America

This seminar brings together scholars from Spain and South America working within a variety of curriculum studies traditions to discuss curriculum issues in contexts ranging from elementary education to higher education. The seminar will be an opportunity to explore how curricular discourses have implications in educational practices in local, national, and global contexts.

GazmuriA National Curriculum: Educational Standardization or Common Cultural Base
Renato Gazmuri, Assistant Professor, Universidad Diego Portales (Chile).
Dr. Gazmuri received his PhD at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain)

SDelgadotudent Activism: Building an Alternative Educational Logic in Opposition To Corporatized Learning
Sandra Delgado (Colombia)
PhD Student in Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia

MurilloCurriculum as Symptom: Local Experiences of Global Designs
Fernando M. Murillo (Chile)
PhD Student in Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia

 

Tosar

Critical Literacy in the Social Studies Elementary Classroom
Breo Tosar (Spain)
PhD Student in Social Studies Education, Autonomous University of Barcelona

 

Gomez

Human Rights in the Curriculum: Precarity and Complexity
Héctor Gómez (Chile)
PhD Student in Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia

Seminar: Challenges and Tensions in Curriculum Management: Theory and Practice

Challenges and Tensions in Curriculum Management: Theory and Practice

Public Seminar Sponsored by
Institute for Critical Education Studies

July 13, 2016
12:00pm
Scarfe 2108
2125 Main Mall
University of British Columbia

Carolina Castro, Héctor Gómez, and Fernando Murillo, co-authors in the recently published book Desafíos y Tensiones en la Gestión Curricular: Teoría y Práctica [Challenges and Tensions in Curriculum Management: Theory and Practice] in Chile, will present their contributions to the discussion of curriculum design, development and implementation in the contexts of schools and higher education.

The book, co–edited by Gómez and Castro, gives voice to a variety of perspectives and experiences in schools and higher education. In this regard the authors ask: How is curriculum managed? Who is involved in the process and how? What authority do curriculum managers have, and how is power distributed in order to influence and make decisions on the curriculum? What effective spaces for innovation exist? How are perennial and new issues considered in the management of curriculum?


Screen Shot 2016-07-04 at 6.11.50 PMCurriculum Design and the Teaching Role: An Outstanding Relationship. Reflections From Research at a Hospital-Based School
Carolina Castro

Bachelor in Education – Primary School Teacher, Master of Arts in Education and Curriculum. Head of the Curriculum Unit at Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez in Santiago, Chile.

Screen Shot 2016-07-04 at 6.12.04 PMProfessional Formation Beyond the Know-How: Considerations and Challenges for a Post-Competence Curriculum Management
Fernando M. Murillo

Bachelor in Education – TEFL, Master of Arts in Education and Curriculum, UBC PhD student in Curriculum Studies

Screen Shot 2016-07-04 at 6.12.16 PMTeacher Education in Chile: Curriculum design and its Complex Discourses.
Héctor Gómez

Bachelor in Education – Teacher of History and Social Sciences, Master of Arts in Education and Curriculum, UBC PhD Student in Curriculum Studies

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CFP: (Re)Considering STEM Education

Critical Education Special Series: Call for Papers

(Re)Considering STEM Education: A Special Series in Critical Education

Series Co-editors:
Mark Wolfmeyer, Ph.D., Kutztown University of PA
wolfmeyer@kutztown.edu
John Lupinacci, Ph.D., Washington State University
john.lupinacci@wsu.edu

Critical Education provides a space for inquiry into the philosophies and contexts of educational priorities set by today’s global elite and the role of STEM Education in the political and economic restructuring of education and educational research. The time is now for an ongoing, dedicated space that deconstructs and reconstructs the interdisciplinary, ubiquitous, powerful and perhaps dangerous STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The series title reflects our concerns and suggests a space for dedicated inquiries taking up oppositions to—and substantive and timely reframings of—STEM. It is the desire of the editors of this series to cultivate a series of articles from a diverse array of educational research occurring both within and from outside the critical-foundations community. The special series continues a long tradition of such critique, at least those occurring in STEM related journals like For the Learning of Mathematics, Journal of Urban Mathematics Education and Cultural Studies of Science Education, and will be the first location dedicated specifically to critical explication of STEM on the whole.

We invite manuscripts that contribute to understanding and defining STEM education in a variety of ways, from critical curricular and pedagogic explorations of STEM contents on their own and in total, to broader conception of STEM such as the infiltration of STEM culture throughout higher education and research programs. In considering STEM, we especially seek explorations (re)considering how STEM perpetuates systems of domination and hierarchy while potentially offering unexpected moments for reformations that foster alternatives. In other words, how is mainstream STEM a part of the problem? In (re)considering STEM, we hope contributions will provide the opportunities for scholarly projects that range from policy to grant research, curriculum to media, experiences in STEM education from diverse students, and from teacher innovation to student resistance.

The issue aims to critique STEM but also present it as a space for critical examinations that move beyond the traditional perspectives reproducing the dominance of STEM. Such endeavors might include but are not limited to manuscript submissions that draw from a variety of frameworks appropriate to critical-foundations work, including critical theories like, ecojustice education, critical race theory and critical disability studies and with goals that counter neoliberal projects and embrace community, democracy, anarchism and anti-capitalism. In general, this series seeks to foster an ongoing scholarly conversation through manuscripts that broadly engage the question: How are critical scholars engaging and working within STEM educational spaces and/or habits of mind?

All manuscripts, including references and notes, should be 4000-6000 words. Authors are encouraged to submit complete manuscripts that match this call for papers as soon as possible. For now, this is an open call lasting at least through December, 30 2016.

All manuscripts are subject to the journal’s blind peer review process and are to be submitted online at http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions).

Pending review and the editors’ approval, articles will be published in this special series of Critical Education. Articles should follow the journal style guidelines of APA 6th Edition

(For info: http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/about/submissions#authorGuidelines)

We also encourage essay reviews of books on these subjects. For more information about submitting a book review contact the editors. Reviews should be approximately 2500 words.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Mark Woflmeyer (wolfmeyer@kutztown.edu) and John Lupinacci (john.lupinacci@wsu.edu)

VI International Conference on Critical Education – Dialogue, Solidarity & Resistance Against Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism in Education

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New Book: Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom

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We am pleased to announce a new book just published by Peter Lang, Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom: A Community of Students, Teachers, Researchers, and Activistswhich E. Wayne Ross co-edited.

Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom delivers critical counter-narratives aimed at resisting the insatiable greed of a few and supporting a common good for most. The book reflects the efforts of a hopeful community, the Rouge Forum, which has been working against perpetual war, corporate education reform, the destruction of our natural environment, increasing poverty, and social inequalities as they fight to preserve democratic ideals in a just and sustainable world. Written teachers, researchers, and activists, this collection is a tapestry of social justice issues woven in and out of formal and informal education.

The Rouge Forum has endured for two decades, a group of educators, students, parents, organizers, and activists who persist in working for social justice, democratic education and a common good. Founded by social education teachers, scholars, and activists, the Rouge Forum moves like waves that, once set in motion, are unstoppable. This remarkably inclusive community has been sustained with hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Rouge Forum website, annual conferences held throughout the United States and Canada, and many of the original founders continuing to ride the waves of change.

The Rouge Forum is uniquely inclusive. Educators, scholars, students, writers, union organizers, artists, and many more gather each year for dialogic interaction and learning together. Membership crosses cultural, national, racial, and class boundaries in the struggle for a just and sustainable world.

Rouge Forum conferences aim to foster dialogue among participants rather than stand-and-deliver speeches. Panel and roundtable discussions are encouraged. As one student said after presenting on a panel at the 2014 Denver Conference, “As we went one by one, you could tell that our confidence continued to rise. When we completed our panel, the crowd kept the conversation going with questions …about our ideas…on how to have dialogic discussions and [build] communities….” She continued saying that the participants were not asking questions about what they knew, how much they had prepared for their panel presentation, instead they wanted to know what those students thought. She ended by saying “…this experience was one for the books.”

This book was written for those who fight for democratic ideals and work against perpetual war, the destruction of our natural environment, and increasing poverty and social inequalities. As the world watches the skewed mass media portrayal of the 99%, the people of the Rouge Forum stand together to delivering a counter-narrative.

Contents:

Nancye McCrary & E. Wayne Ross: Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom: A Community of Teachers, Researchers, and Activists

Nancye McCrary: The Last Teacher

Staughton Lynd: What Is to Be done?

Susan Ohanian: Against Obedience

Alan Singer & Eustace Thompson: Pearson, Inc.: Slashing Away at Hercules’ Hydra

Faith Agostinone-Wilson: Relation of Theory and Research to Practice in Social Justice Education – On the Urgency and Relevance of Research for Marxists

Four Arrows & Darcia Narvaez: Reclaiming Our Indigenous Worldview: A More Authentic Baseline for Social/Ecological Justice Work in Education

Rich Gibson: Why It Is Possible and Imperative to Teach Capital, Empire, and Revolution – and How.

Dave Hill: Class Struggle and Education: Neoliberalism, (Neo)conservatism, and the Capitalist Assault on Public Education

Doug Selwyn: Social Justice in the Classroom? It Would Be a Good Idea

Patrick Shannon: Poverty, Politics, and Reading Education in the United States.

Glenabah Martinez: Counter-Narratives in State History: The 100 Years of State and Federal Policy Curriculum Project

E. Wayne Ross: Broadening the Circle of Critical Pedagogy

Leah Bayens: Social Justice Education Outside the Classroom: «Putting First Things First»: Obligation and Affection in Ecological Agrarian Education.

Tara M. Tuttle: «Barely in the Front Door» but Beyond the Ivory Tower: Women’s and Gender Studies Pedagogy Outside the Classroom

Paul Street: Our Pass-Fail Moment: Livable Ecology, Capitalism, Occupy, and What Is to Be Done

Brad J. Porfilio & Michael Watz: Youth-Led Organizations, the Arts, and the 411 Initiative for Change in Canada: Critical Pedagogy for the 21st Century.

Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom, is the second book published in the Peter Lang book series Social Justice Across Contexts in Education.

Read the read the preface and introduction here.