CFP: Critical Theories in the 21st Century

Call For Proposals
Critical Theories in the 21st Century

Due to the success of last years’ inaugural event, we are very excited about the upcoming Critical Theories in the Twenty-First Century conference at West Chester University. Due to the deepening crisis of global capital and the anti-capitalist movement in embryo (since last November), this year we added a special theme: Critical Education Against Capitalism. As many reactions to the ravages of capital are reformist in nature, failing to identify and target the true causes (i.e. private property as a complex historical process) of exploitation, injustices, war, educational expansion as well as educational budget cuts, ideological indoctrination, and so on, especially in critical pedagogy, this discussion targeting the root capitalist cause of life at the present moment is particularly relevant and needed.

Consequently, whereas last year “the call for proposals” was “general enough to be inclusive of many critical approaches to transformative or revolutionary pedagogies and theory,” this year we ask the critical pedagogy community to present their works in a way that demonstrates how it contributes to achieving a post-capitalist society. As such, we can suggest a few relevant themes for proposals: Marxist educational theory, Anarchist pedagogies, austerity/educational budget cuts, ignoring poverty, racialization and hegemony, (anti)settler-colonialism/imperialism, indigenous critical theory/autonomous governance, anti-capitalist eco-pedagogy, atheism and education, queer theory against capital, etc.

While this conference will include important presentations and debates between key figures in critical pedagogy, it will not be limited to this focus. In other words, as critical theory becomes more inclusive, global, and all encompassing, this conference welcomes more than just academics as important contributors. That is, we recognize students and youth groups as possessing authentic voices based on their unique relationship to capitalism and will therefore be open to them as presenters and discussion leaders (as was done in 2011). While this inclusivity is obviously designed to challenge traditional distributions of social power in capitalist societies, it will not be done romantically where participants’ internalized hegemonies are not challenged. Put another way, while students will be included as having something valuable to contribute, they will both be subjected to the same scrutiny as established academics, as well as invited to share their own critiques. All participants will therefore be included in the discussions of why and how to achieve a post-capitalist society.

when:

November 16th and 17th 2012

duration:

Friday evening and all day Saturday

where:

West Chester University, West Chester, PA

purpose:

To contribute to the wide and deep network of critical educators throughout the world working with students and workers building a vast coalition of critical thinkers who know that a meaningful life after capitalism is possible.

More info here.

Workplace Issue #20 – “The New Academic Manners, Managers, and Spaces”

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/current

We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of Workplace Issue #20, “The New Academic Manners, Managers, and Spaces.” This issue includes key conceptual and empirical analyses of

the creation and avoidance of unions in academic and business workplaces (Vincent Serravallo)
the new critiquette, impartial response to Bruno Latour and Jacques Ranciere’s critique of critique (Stephen Petrina)
the two-culture model of the modern university in full light of the crystal, neural university (Sean Sturm, Stephen Turner)
alternative narratives of accountability in response to neo-liberal practices of government (Sandra Mathison)
vertical versus horizontal structures of governance (Rune Kvist Olsen)
teachers in nomadic spaces and Deleuzian approaches to curricular practice (Tobey Steeves)

We invite you to review the Table of Contents for articles and items of interest.

Thanks for the continuing interest in Workplace (we welcome new manuscripts here and Critical Education),

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Editors
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
Institute for Critical Education Studies
https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices
https://blogs.ubc.ca/workplace

CFP: “Teach for America and the Future of Education in the US”

Call for Submissions
Critical Education Special Series

“Teach for America and the Future of Education in the US”
Guest Editor: Philip E. Kovacs, University of Alabama, Huntsville

Founded in 1990 by Princeton graduate Wendy Kopp, Teach for America (TFA) has grown from a tiny organization with limited impact to what some supporters call the most significant force in educational reform today. Indeed the organization has recently been embraced by both the president of the National Educational Association and U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan as a force for tremendous good.

Critics argue otherwise, pointing to data that is mixed at best while questioning the almost $500 million annual operating budget of the non-profit, a significant portion of which comes from U.S. taxpayers. In light of questionable results and practices (such as using non-certified TFA recruits to work with special education students in direct violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) organizations are working to end TFA’s “highly qualified teacher” provision in 2013, an effort TFA is aggressively trying to thwart.

In an effort to provide assistance to those organizations working to maintain the integrity of the teaching profession, the Critical Education seeks research on TFA’s practices, procedures, outcomes, and impacts. We are looking for empirical and theoretical pieces written in a style that congressional staffers can easily access and understand. We are not interested in pieces that sacrifice intellectual rigor for ease of reading, but we are also wary of overly theorized pieces that alienate readers outside of the academy.

In addition to full-length manuscripts (5,000-8,000 words), we are also soliciting short accounts of TFA’s impact in specific cities to be presented as “field reports.”

Proposals of no more than 200 words due by September 15, 2012.

Notice of acceptance of proposal by October 1, 2012

Final Submission due by February 1, 2013.

For more information on submission contact Philip Kovacs at: pk0001@uah.edu

Critical Education is an international peer-reviewed journal, which seeks manuscripts that critically examine contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is interested in theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and informal education.

Critical Education CFP: Liberalism in Educational Policy, Practice, and Discourse

Call for Papers

Special Theme Issue of Critical Education
Theme: Liberalism in Educational Policy, Practice, and Discourse

Guest Editors:
Angelina E. Castagno & Sabina Vaught

Despite current scholarly attention to the ways neoliberalism characterizes much of our contemporary socio-political context, liberalism still profoundly informs power dynamics within schools, community organizations, and other educational contexts. While neoliberalism focuses on markets, choice, and efficiency, classical liberalism centers notions of the individual, equality, democracy, and meritocracy. These are enduring notions with significant ideological attachments, as well as institutional and policy-based manifestations within school settings. Although the concept of liberalism has somewhat shifting boundaries in response to larger social, political, and economic changes, there remain these powerful central elements (see, for example, Cochran, 1999; Dawson, 2003; Locke, 1690; Mill, 1869; Olson, 2004; Starr, 2008). This special issue seeks to examine how these liberal tenets shape power dynamics around race, gender, class, and sexuality in school policy, practice, and law.

We suggest that liberalism’s power in schooling operates from its axis of individualism. At the heart of liberalism is the notion of the individual and individual rights. In liberal thought, individuals provide the foundation for laws and societal norms, and institutions exist primarily to further the goals, desires, and needs of individuals. An individual’s rights are of utmost importance under a liberal framework, so rights such as freedom of speech, thought, conscience, and lifestyle are viewed as fundamental and worth protecting at almost any cost. Equality of opportunity is another liberal mainstay. Value is placed on ensuring that individuals have equal access to various opportunities in society. However, liberalism is not concerned with ensuring equality of outcome since it is assumed that individuals can reasonably decide if and how to capitalize on opportunities presented to them. Moreover, liberalism generally opposes too much government regulation, but this can be a point of contention since government involvement is sometimes required to ensure the stability of other core liberal values. These tenets allow liberalism to both mask and reproduce power imbalances. As such, liberalism informs power mechanisms by which educational policies, practices, and discourses are shaped.

With liberalism as an analytic construct through which to view schooling, we seek papers for this special issue that might address the following broad questions:

  • How is liberalism taken up, engaged, and employed in various educational contexts to reproduce power along axes of race, gender, sexuality, and class?
  • To what extent does the liberal identity and agenda drive educational efforts and movements, and to what effect?
  • What are the implications of liberalism on schools? On youth? On policy? On curriculum? On pedagogy? On activism? On reform efforts?

Through these analyses, we hope to map the multiple ways liberalism impacts schooling in order to disrupt power inequities that remain pervasive and elusive when viewed strictly through a neoliberal framework. Drawing on critical theory, Critical Race Theory, Tribal Critical Theory, Red Pedagogies, gender and feminist studies, and other related theoretical traditions, this special issue will bring together articles that advance a critical conversation about liberalism, individualism, and power within U.S. schools.

To submit a manuscript for consideration in this special issue of Critical Education, and for author submission guidelines, please visit (www.criticaleducation.org). For any inquiries related to this special issue, please e-mail the guest editors at liberalismineducation@gmail.com. For full consideration, complete manuscripts of no more than 5,000 words, including references, should be submitted by January 15, 2013. We strongly encourage submissions from advanced doctoral students and junior scholars.

CFP: Marxian Analysis of Society, School and Education – AERA SIG #157

Marxian Analysis of Society, School and Education SIG #157
CALL FOR PAPERS

American Educational Research Association 2013

The global financial crisis detonated in the West in 2007 has highlighted long-standing structural faults within capitalism, especially in its financialization of the economy – something that Marx and his predecessors already predicted. The current economic genocidal policies in nations such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus, along with the bailouts to specific US corporations, and the slow down of China’s ‘new economy’, present a credibility check in the recognition of the predatory policies and practices of capitalism’s third hegemonic momentum. In fact such financialization of the economy, with its the recurrent and increasingly devastating financial debacles assailing the world’s capitalist economies, has been incapable of producing sustainable growth in any sector while creating economic genocide, and has resulted in driving societies towards social foreclosures strong-armed through painful strangulation of austerity policies that are asphyxiating public institutions and transforming the very notion of public good and democracy itself!

The 2013 Marxian Analysis of Society, School and Education SIG program asks scholars, educators and graduate students around the globe who are profoundly committed to the struggle for social and cognitive justice to help us examine the transformative role of education and schools in addressing the contemporary crises, as well as, addressing the role of educators in helping to resolve the contradictions of the present and to contribute to a better future for schools, education and society.

Therefore, we ask scholars, educators and graduate students to contribute papers, posters or symposium that utilize a Marxist/Class analysis that will critically address the impact of the late capitalism’s financialization of the economy on questions of schools, education and society and how to move from pre-history to history proper to create a more and just democratic society and education.

Note: All submissions will be reviewed without author identification. Please submit them without author names on the abstracts or summaries. Proposals that bear the names of the authors and/or participants will not be considered for review and, consequently, will not be considered for the SIG #157 program for the 2013 AERA Annual Meeting.

Thank You, Dr. Sheila Macrine,
2013 Program Chair

Sheila L. Macrine, Ph.D.
Chair of the Teaching & Learning Department
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Road
North Dartmouth, Ma 02747
Phone: 508-999-8262
Fax: 508-910-6916

New issue of Critical Education: Consumers or Critical Citizens? Financial Literacy Education and Freedom

Critical Education
Vol 3 No 6
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/article/view/182350

Consumers or Critical Citizens? Financial Literacy Education and Freedom
Chris Arthur
Toronto District School Board
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Abstract

Given the recent and ongoing economic crisis and high levels of consumer debt, the teaching of financial literacy in elementary and secondary schools has received widespread support. Too often, however, financial literacy education policy documents promote the individualization of economic risk and privilege the autonomy of the consumer or consumer-citizen over that of the critical citizen. This article argues for the necessity of a critical financial literacy education aimed at supporting critical citizens by providing a Marxist critique of the dominant liberal and neoliberal notions of freedom and responsibility reproduced in financial literacy education policy documents. The choice highlighted here is not between financial illiteracy and financial literacy but between accommodating oneself to neoliberal capitalism’s needs so as to remain in perpetual competition with others or understanding and collectively altering an economic system that promotes alienation, insecurity and exploitation.

Critical Education: ‘Critical Thinking’ And State Mandated Testing: The Collision Of State Rhetoric And Teacher Beliefs

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled.

We invite you to review the Table of Contents below and then visit our web site to read articles and items of interest.

Critical Education
Vol 3, No 5 (2012)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182244

Articles
——–
‘Critical Thinking’ And State Mandated Testing: The Collision Of State Rhetoric And Teacher Beliefs
Melissa Freeman, University of Georgia
Sandra Mathison, University of British Columbia
Kristen Wilcox, University at Albany, SUNY

Abstract

Based on case studies of two school districts in New York State, the authors analyze the contradictory and hegemonic discourse of critical thinking proffered in State curriculum standards and as manifest in state mandated student assessments. Using Gramsci’s (1971) notion of hegemony, the analysis illustrates that dominant groups (such as state administrators or federal policy makers) gain and maintain dominance by projecting their own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it (such as teachers) accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural.’ The ways in which this hegemonic relationship is created and sustained, and it’s consequences, are illustrated in the way teachers make sense of fundamentally contradictory rhetoric and lived practice.

Keywords
Hegemony; Accountability; Critical Thinking

NEPC: Bunkum Awards Spotlight Shoddy Education Research: Grand Prize Winner Says Charter Schools Should be Like Cancer

Bunkum Awards Spotlight Shoddy Education Research: Grand Prize Winner Says Charter Schools Should be Like Cancer

Contact:

Kevin G. Welner, (303) 492-8370, welner@colorado.edu

URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/brhh8u8

Boulder, CO (May 31, 2012)– The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder, has announced via online video the winners of the 2011 Bunkum Awards – presented for the most compellingly lousy educational research for the past year. The video is now available for viewing at http://nepc.colorado.edu/think-tank/bunkum-awards/2011.

The 2011 Bunkum Grand Prize goes to the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), which received the “Cancer is Under-Rated Award” for Going Exponential: Growing the Charter School Sector’s Best. In its report, which advocated the rapid expansion of preferred charter schools, PPI compared those charters to viruses and cancers.

PPI says that it “conducted research about when and how exponential growth occurs in the natural world, specifically examining mold, algae, cancer, crystals and viruses. We used these findings…to fuel our thinking about fresh directions for the charter sector.”

“The Progressive Policy Institute deserves our top award for combining a weak analysis, agenda-driven recommendations, and the most bizarre analogy we’ve seen in a long time,” stated Kevin Welner, director of NEPC. “This report spoke to us in ways matched by no other publication.”

Welner and the NEPC recognized the report for its almost complete lack of acceptable scientific evidence or original research supporting the policy suggestions, as well as its failure to make the case that its suggestions are relevant to school improvement. To view the NEPC review of this report, and for a link to the report itself, visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-going-exponential.

The NEPC also awarded its “Get a Life(time) Achievement Award” to Dr. Matthew Ladner, senior advisor of policy and research for Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. This is the first time NEPC bestowed an individual with a Bunkum Award.

“We’ve never before found someone with an individual record of Bunkum-worthy accomplishments that just cries out for recognition,” stated Welner. “Dr. Ladner’s body of Bunk-work is focused on his shameless hawking of what he and the Governor call the ‘Florida Formula’ for educational success.”

Specifically, Ladner argues that because Florida’s test scores had increased during a time period when Florida policy included things like school choice and grade retention, these policies must be responsible for the scores. Yet decades of evidence link grade retention practices to increased dropout rates, not to improved achievement.

Moreover, Florida’s recent test score results are notably unimpressive, but Ladner continues to promote his favored policies, blaming the scores on a slide in home prices and other factors he says are “impossible” to determine. Learn more at http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/learning-from-florida.

NEPC’s other 2011 Bunkums (full descriptions are available at http://nepc.colorado.edu/think-tank/bunkum-awards/2011):

“Mirror Image Award (What You Read is Reversed),” to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for Learning About Teaching (2011 First Runner-Up). Although the Foundation touted the report as “some of the strongest evidence to date of the validity of ‘value-added’ analysis,” showing that “teachers’ effectiveness can be reliably estimated by gauging their students’ progress on standardized tests,” the actual data show only a modest correlation between teachers’ effectiveness and students’ test scores. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-learning-about-teaching

“If Bernie Madoff Worked in School Finance Award,” to ConnCAN for Spend Smart: Fix Our Broken School Funding System. This report promotes a “money follows the child” funding system that would have the effect of making funding even more inequitable by shifting funding away from students in poverty and those learning English. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-spend-smart

“If Political Propaganda Counted as Research Award,” to the Center for American Progress and the Broad Foundation, for Charting New Territory: Tapping Charter Schools to Turn around the Nation’s Dropout Factories. Drawing on mysterious backwards-engineering techniques, the authors of this report build a foundation for their findings and conclusions that mimics real evidence. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-spend-smart

“Discovering the Obvious While Obscuring the Important Award,” to Third Way for Incomplete: How Middle Class Schools Aren’t Making the Grade. Mixing and matching data sources and units of analysis to such an extent that it’s almost impossible for readers to figure out which analyses go with which data, the report attempts to convince its readers that middle-class schools are doing a lot worse than we think. In fact, the results show the results of middle class schools to be … in the middle. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-middle-class

The word Bunkum comes from Buncombe County in North Carolina. Buncombe County produced a Congressman, Representative Felix Walker, who gained infamy back in 1820 for delivering a particularly meaningless, irrelevant and seemingly endless speech. Thus, bunkum became a term for long-winded nonsense of the kind often seen in politics, and today in education.

The National Education Policy Center unites a diverse group of interdisciplinary scholars from across the United States. The Center is guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. To learn more about NEPC, please visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/.

Rouge Forum 2012

The Rouge Forum 2012 will be held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The University’s picturesque campus is located 50 minutes northwest of Cincinnati. The conference will be held June 22-24, 2012.

In addition to plenty of time for large group discussions, the Featured Speakers are:

SUSAN OHANIAN
Susan Ohanian will be a Keynote Speaker at the Rouge Forum 2012. Susan’s advocacy work keeps at its core her 20 years as a teacher. Her more than 300 essays on education issues have appeared in periodicals ranging from Phi Delta Kappan cover stories to The Atlantic, Nation, USA Today, Washington Monthly, Extra! (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and numerous education journals. One of her 26 book on education policy and practice introduced the word Standardisto.

Although currently censored at the NCTE online discussion site, Susan’s website received NCTE’s George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honest and Clarity in Public Language. She has delivered the annual MacClement Lecture for Excellence in Education, Queens University, Ontario, Canada, the Helen Oakes lecture at Temple University, and the Biber Lecture, Bank Street College, New York.

Susan notes that although she’s been a featured speaker at both the International Symposium for the Educational Welfare in Seoul, Korea, and British Columbia Teachers’ Federation events, her talk to the Progressive Caucus of the AFT was closed down by angry hoots from the audience.

Susan started a website to protest the passage of NCLB. She had hoped to shut it down by now, but things keep getting worse, so she persists.

MICHAEL PRYSNER
Mike Prysner is the co-founder of March Forward!, an organization of active-duty members of the US military and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict that encourages current active duty service personnel to resist deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a US army veteran that served in Iraq. His rank was corporal and duties in Iraq included ground surveillance, home raids and the interrogation of prisoners. These experiences led him to take a radical anti-war stand. In March of 2008 he testified in the Winter Soldier organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War. Later that year Michael ran a write-in campaign for the US House of Representatives for Florida’s 22nd congressional district (Boca Raton). He is a member of A.N.S.W.E.R. and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. In the recent Occupy movements, he has been active and arrested participating in direct actions.

PAUL STREET
Paul Street is a journalist, author, historian, and political commentator who has authored six books, including The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010). Street has a doctorate in U.S. History at Binghamton University and has taught at numerous colleges and universities in and around Chicago. He was the Director of Research and Vice President for Research and Planning at The Chicago Urban League from 2000 to 2005. Street has published a numerous articles, essays, reviews, and editorials in numerous outlets, including ZNet, Z Magazine, CounterPunch, Black Agenda Report, The Chicago Tribune, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of Social History, Mid-America, Critical Sociology, Chicago History,Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, Studies in History and Politics, History of Education Quarterly, Monthly Review, Iowa City Press-Citizen, In These Times, Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai, India), Tinabantu: Journal of African National Affairs (Cape Town, South Africa), Synthesis/Regeneration, International Socialist Review, Dissent, Capital City Times (Madison, WI), Black Commentator, Tom’s Dispatch, History News Network, MRZine, Dissident Voice, and Monthly Review.

New issue of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor — Belonging and Non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives

Dear Workplace and Critical Education Supporters,

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor has just published its latest issue
at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/current

We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of Workplace Issue #19,
“Belonging and Non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives.”
This special issue represents powerful narrative analyses of academic
lives– narratives that are sophisticated and sensitive, gut-wrenching and
heart-rendering. “Belonging and Non-Belonging” was guest edited by Michelle
McGinn and features a rich array of collaborative articles by Michelle,
Nancy E. Fenton, Annabelle L. Grundy, Michael Manley-Casimira, and Carmen
Shields.

We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our ojs
to review the articles and items of interest.

Thanks for the continuing interest in Workplace,

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Editors
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
Institute for Critical Education Studies
https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices/

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
No 19 (2012): Belonging and non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/view/182237

Articles
——–
Belonging and non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives
Michelle K. McGinn

Contextualizing Academic Lives
Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton, Michelle K. McGinn, Carmen
Shields

All the World’s a Stage: Players on the Academic Landscape
Michelle K. McGinn, Annabelle L. Grundy, Carmen Shields, Michael
Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton

Confronting the Myths and Norms of Academic Engagement
Carmen Shields, Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton, Michelle K.
McGinn

Exploring Emotional Experiences of Belonging
Nancy E. Fenton, Carmen Shields, Michelle McGinn, Michael Manley-Casimir

Required Payment: Extracting a Pound of Flesh
Carmen Shields, Nancy E. Fenton, Michelle K. McGinn, Michael
Manley-Casimir

Fitting Procrustes’ Bed: A Shifting Reality
Michelle K. McGinn, Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton, Carmen
Shields

The Erosion of Academic Troth: Disengaging from the Ties that Bind
Carmen Shields, Michelle K. McGinn, Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E.
Fenton