Critical Theories in Education
University of British Columbia, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy
Seminar Series 2020-2021
“Neoliberalism, Critical Education, and Social Justice: A focus on the Current Moment in History”
Dr Alpesh Maisuria
University of the West of England
September 15, 2020 12:30-2:00pm Pacific [Zoom link tba]
I 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 Activists, which I 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.
THE ROUGE FORUM CONFERENCE 2014
The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom
JUNE 5-7, 2014
Denver, Colorado
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Program
All sessions at MSUD, Auraria Campus, Downtown Denver, West Classroom Building. Map:http://goo.gl/hvIWiH
THURSDAY JUNE 5
Conference dinner, location TBA
FRIDAY JUNE 6
8:00-8:30am
Outside West Classroom (WC) 164
Registration/Coffee
8:30-9:00am
WC 155
Opening Session
Chair: C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University)
9:00-10:00am
WC 155
Plenary Session
Chair: E. Wayne Ross (University of British Columbia)
Featured Speaker:
Hacking Away at Pearson and the Education-Foundation-Industrial Complex
Alan J. Singer (Hofstra University)
10:00 – 10:15am
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
10:15 – 11:30am
Breakout Sessions 1
Breakout 1A – Children and the Social Justice Conversation
WC 259 Presenters:
Breakout 1B – Panel: Engaging Foucault: Rethinking Our Questions
WC 261
Panelists: David Gabbard, Angela Crawford, Marilena “Lenny” Martello, Kelli Kinkela, Sarah Ritter, Mike Boyer, Jennie Moyett, Gregory Martinez, YuWen Chen (Boise State University)
Breakout 1C – Panel: Mapping Knowledge Wealth and Resources in Diverse School Communities
WC 257
Panelists: Kelli Woodrow, Todd Bell, Melanie Bruce, Cathi Brents, Shana Mondaragon (Regis University)
11:30am-1:00pm
LUNCH
1:00 – 2:15 pm
WC 155
Plenary Session
Chair: Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)
Keynote / Adam Renner Memorial Lecture
Saving The Future
David Barsamian (Alternative Radio)
2:15 – 3:00pm
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
3:00 – 4:15pm
Breakout Session 2
Breakout 2A – Creating Counter-narratives to Mainstream
WC 259
Presenters:
Breakout 2B – Dialogue Session
WC 261
Presenter:
Breakout 2C – Panel: Angels for AP Excellence: Increasing Students of Color Enrollment and Success in AP Classes
WC 257
Panelists: Kate Greeley, Amanda West, Nathan Merenstein, Niesha Smith, Joey Halik, Ray Pryor, Janae Brown, Rheadawn Chiles, Christine Miller (Denver Public Schools)
4:15 – 4:30pm
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
4:30 – 5:45pm
Plenary Session: Performance & Discussion
WC155
Celebrating Pete Seeger
Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)
[End of Day 1. Dinner location TBA]
SATURDAY JUNE 7
8:00-8:30am
Outside WC 164
Registration/Coffee
8:30-10:00am
Openning Plenary Session
WC 155
Chair: Greg Queen (Detroit, MI)
Featured Speaker:
Why it is Possible and Imperative to Teach Revolution—and How!
Rich Gibson (San Diego State University)
10:00 – 10:15am
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
10:15 – 11:30am
Breakout Session 3
Breakout 3A – Models of Resistance and Activism
WC 164
Presenters:
Breakout 3B – Responding to Educational Exclusion
WC 259
Presenters:
Breakout 3C – Virtual and For-Profit Higher Education: Implications of Critical Education
WC 257
Presenters:
Breakout 3D – Voices (Panel)
WC 143
Chair: Lauren Johnston (St. Catharine College)
Panelists: Nancye McCrary, Casey Baryla, Rebecca Just, Rebekah Sams, Amanda Conrad (St. Catharine College)
11:30am-1:00pm
LUNCH
1:00 – 2:15 pm
Breakout Session 4
Breakout 4A – Critical and Revolutionary Pedagogy
WC 259
Presenters:
Breakout 4B Counter-narratives and Critical Consciousness
WC 261
Presenters:
Breakout 4C Transformative Social Studies Teaching and Learning
WC 257
Chair: E. Wayne Ross
Panelists: Abraham DeLeon (University of Texas, San Antonio), Four Arrows (Fielding Graduate University), C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University), Curry Stephenson Malott (West Chester University), Greg Queen (Teacher, Detroit, MI), E. Wayne Ross (University of British Columbia), Doug Selwyn (SUNY Plattsburgh)
2:15 – 3:00pm
WC 164
Coffee/tea Break
3:00 – 4:15pm
Breakout Session 5
Breakout 5A – Planning Lessons to Combat Capitalism
WC 259
Presenters:
Breakout 5B Social Justice vs. The Psychosis of Success
WC 261
Presenters:
Breakout 5C Public Memory and Revolutionary Pedagogy
WC 257
Presenters:
4:15 – 4:30pm
WC 164
Coffee/tea Break
4:30 – 5:45pm
Plenary Session: Performance & Discussion
WC 155
Chair: Gina Stiens
Sex, Death and Other Deviations from the Common Core
William R. Boyer
Sunday JUNE 8
9:30am – 11:30am
WC 155
Conference Debriefing & Reflections
Steering Committee brunch (location TBA)
[Anyone interested in participating in the RF Steering Committee is invited to attend this meeting]
Rouge Forum 2014 runs from June 5-7 at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Check out the details here.
Every year the Rouge Forum honors the life and work of Adam Renner (August 18, 1970 – December 19, 2010) by inviting a critical scholar, educator, or activist to deliver the Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture.
Adam was a teacher, scholar, musician, revolutionary activist, martial artist, and lover of life. His courage took remarkable forms, from being willing to sacrifice to help others, to always learning, and altering his views, on the path to discover what is true in order to make the world a little better. What could be a more powerful legacy?
He received his BA in Mathematics from Thomas More College. While teaching mathematics at Seton High School in Cincinnati, OH, he completed his MEd at Northern Kentucky University. In 2002, Adam received his PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and subsequently worked as a professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY.
His scholarship focused on service learning, social difference, social justice, and pedagogy and he published in numerous journals including Educational Studies, EcoJustice Review, High School Journal, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Rethinking Schools and more. (Many of Adam’s publications are available to read here.)
Along with his life partner, Gina Stiens, he created a service partnership with schools and social service organizations in Jamaica and taught an ongoing course, “Education for Liberation or Domination: A Critical Encounter in Jamaica.” He was a key leader and organizer in the Rouge Forum serving as Community Coordinator and as editor of the Rouge Forum News.
In the fall of 2010, Adam left his professorship at Bellarmine University and returned to the school classroom, as a math teacher at June Jordan School for Social Equity in San Francisco.
In an article for Substance News, published just weeks before he died, Adam wrote,
“For me and my K-12 classroom, for instance, I have been searching for the intersection of liberation, curriculum, and student experience (comprised of individual traumas, structural oppression, nine years of mis-schooling, varying levels of confidence and skill, etc.). How can I shape the revolutionary subjects necessary to help tip the inflexion point toward the necessary qualitative changes?
“When we teach math, social studies, language arts, and science, can we credibly do so in a way that is separate from the growing militarization of our schools and society, gang and drug infestations in our communities, rampant unemployment, a school to prisons pipeline, the assurance of our students’ ignorance through standardization and a teach-to-the-test mafia-like pressure on teachers?
“So, if we shouldn’t teach our classes that way, can we organize in such a way that militates against such explorations?”
Theses are powerful questions that challenge us to embodied the interaction of critical, ethical theory and determined practice, just as Adam did everyday of his life.
Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Memorial Lecturers
2011
Peter McLaren, Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences, UCLA, world renowned critical pedagogue and author of over 40 books, including Life in Schools and Revolutionizing Pedagogy.
2012
Susan Ohanian, public school teacher, author, and winner of the National Council of Teachers’ of English “George Orwell Award,” for her outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.
2013
Patrick Shannon, Professor of Language and Literacy at Penn State University, former primary grade teacher and author of over 16 books, including Reading Wide Awake and Reading Against Democracy.
2014
David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio and author of Occupy The Economy: Challenging Capitalism and Targeting Iran. He is best known for his interview books with Noam Chomsky, including What We Say Goes.
Washington State Kappan: Winter 2015 Call For Manuscripts
Due September 15, 2014
Social Justice in Education: Diversity, Equity, Citizenship
Social justice in education remains crucial to American society and the development of diverse and well-educated citizenry. From issues such as civics and immigrant youth to equity and the transition from high school to college, what it means to support and advocate for social justice in classrooms, schools, communities, and the policy arena is much more than adding statements of tolerance to inherently inequitable systems and structures.
As Sensoy and DiAngelo assert, “Social justice education is not about serving the interests of political correctness. Every single measure of disparity in education is tied to group position — target vs. dominant. Special education and discipline referrals; math, science, and reading literacies; graduation and dropout/push-out rates; test scores, all of what is known as ‘the achievement gap’ are tied to race, class, and gender. This disparity is real. And to ameliorate such disparities and offer meaningful leadership in school contexts at all levels, we must attend to the real, to the concrete and active dimensions — not simply the slogans — of social justice” (2009, p. 348-350).
We invite articles that serve as a catalyst for exploring the real, concrete, active dimensions of social justice from a variety of perspectives. Those interested in submitting a manuscript may want to consider the following questions:
We are calling for theoretical/research articles, teacher-focused articles, and professional materials or book reviews on topics related to this theme. For additional information: https://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/wsk/announcement
For manuscript submission author guidelines: https://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/wsk/about/submissions – authorGuidelines
For past issues of Washington State Kappan, please go to: http://www.pdkwa.org/
If you have questions, please contact Antony Smith, editor: ansmith@uwb.edu
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 here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.
Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,
Stephen Petrina
Sandra Mathison
E. Wayne Ross
Institute for Critical Education Studies
University of British Columbia
wayne.ross@ubc.ca
Critical Education
Vol 4, No 5 (2013)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182404
Articles
——–
Coring the Social Studies within Corporate Education Reform: The Common Core State Standards, Social Justice, and the Politics of Knowledge in U.S.
Schools
Wayne Au, University of Washington, Bothell
Abstract
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted in 45 U.S. states. Driven by a wide coalition that includes both major U.S. political parties, the business elite, for-profit education corporations, cultural conservatives, and both major U.S. teachers’ unions, the CCSS have mainly garnered glowing praise in mainstream U.S. media and widespread acceptance amongst political figures and public school districts nationwide. This paper undertakes a critical analysis of the origins and political tensions found within the CCSS, arguing that the CCSS will inevitably lead to restrictive high-stakes, standardized testing similar to that associated with No Child Left Behind. Further this paper specifically examines the treatment of the social studies within the context of CCSS and questions the likely outcomes of the recently drafted College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards within the current political and cultural context of the United States.
Keywords
Social Justice; Common Core; Curriculum; Education Reform
This past weekend I had the great honor and pleasure to deliver a keynote address to the 6th Annual Equity and Social Justice Conference held at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
I would like to thank the conference organizers for inviting me to participate in an exciting day that included many cutting edge papers as well as a provocative and high energy performance/workshop by the Hip Hop Psychology Performing Arts Movement.
My keynote, titled “Dr Seuss and Dangerous Citizenship” explored the efforts of governments (in British Columbia, Arizona, and Texas) to keep schools “political neutral” and how these actions actually undermine opportunities for objective teaching and curriculum. I outline the contexts of rulings that have restricted the rights of teachers to express political views in BC (specifically in Prince Rupert where teachers have been banned from using particular Dr Seuss books and in a bizarre irony have also been prohibited from wearing t-shirts displaying portions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). I also outline the attacks on Tucson (AZ) school district’s Mexican American Studies program and the right wing Christian revisions of the Texas history curriculum, which demote Thomas Jefferson and promote St. Thomas Aquinas; deletes abolitionist Harriet Tubman and highlights the Confederacy; and emphasizes the role of religion in American society at the expense of the US Constitutional separation of church and state.
If political expression is repressed and restricted in schools (and it certainly is, as I illustrate in this talk) then there are reduced opportunities to critically examine knowledge claims. The ideology of neutrality that dominates current thought and practice in schools (and teacher education) is sustained by theories of knowledge and conceptions of democracy that constrain rather than widen civic participation and functions to obscure political and ideological consequences of so-called “neutral” schooling, teaching, and curriculum. The consequences include conceptions of the learner as passive; democratic citizenship as a spectator project; and ultimately the maintenance of status quo inequalities in society.
I offer up “dangerous citizenship” as a framework I have developed along with Kevin D. Vinson (University of the West Indies) for re-thinking responses to these conditions and explore the work of interventionist artists as sources of inspiration for teaching and curriculum.
Download the paper and accompanying powerpoint from Academia.edu or below.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference on Equity and Social Justice
2013 Conference Theme
Testing Our Limits: Teaching and Learning
with Courage and Conviction
March 2, 2013 at State University of New York at New Paltz, NY
Conference Website
http://www.equitysocialjustice.org/
Conference Theme Description
Testing Our Limits: Teaching and Learning with Courage and Conviction The stakes could not be higher. Educators today – as well as their students – are working in a world that is being overrun by standardized accountability initiatives that threaten to diminish learning endeavors aimed toward social justice. As K-12 schools and institutions of higher education are increasingly influenced by the implementation of data-driven, privatized and corporate reforms, educators and educational leaders at all levels must strive to ensure that learning and teaching are not reduced to ranked results that are frequently tied to economic outcomes. Authentic teaching and learning cannot be easily quantified: it intends to provide opportunities for
empowerment, agency, and self-actualization. Education in a democratic society is meant to foster the development of active citizens who think critically and act equitably, and educators are charged to keep that promise alive.
Proposals might address topics such as (but not limited to) the following:
• What kinds of data are meaningful in the quest for social justice through education?
• How is standardization affecting pre-service and practicing teachers? Students? Administrators?
• How might the experiences of students, teachers, and administrators in alternative settings inform traditional classrooms?
• How are efforts to achieve social justice and equity affected by the current reforms?
• How can educators use data to resist the negative effects of standardization?
• What is measured by standardized assessments? How can classroom assessments amplify and/or negate the results of standardized assessments?
Conference strands:
• Teaching and Learning for Equity and Social Justice
• Critical Race Studies
• Critical Youth Studies
• Urban Education & Community Partnerships
• “Othering”
• Genocide and Human Rights
• Educational Reform in the 21st Century
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