Beyond Equality in the American Classroom: The Case for Inclusive Education addresses the basis of inclusive education for students with exceptionalities from the perspective of social justice and scholarship-activism. Drawing on historical, legislative, and philosophical references, this book builds the case for including individuals with exceptionalities in general education classrooms as a matter of social justice and civil rights. Providing a comprehensive foundation for exploring the concept of inclusive education scholastically, Shyman provides a well-organized and clearly-structured treatise for both the philosophy of inclusive education as well as a means of putting inclusive education into practice in American schools. With pointed critiques of the current trend of standardization and traditionalization in the current educational climate, a new philosophy for addressing inclusive education is put forth. The book is both readable and scholastically legitimate, and can be adapted for personal academic use or as a teaching tool for undergraduate or graduate classes in the areas of education, philosophy and sociology.

For far too many people today, their perception and discernment of history begins with the day that they were born. And unfortunately, most of these very same people truly believe that the world, and all life on earth, revolves around them. Each and every one of us need to learn our proper place in life and in the world: To be a leader, a follower, or to just stay well out of the way of both of the others. In America, we are constitutionally granted the rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Read and listen closely; we are not guaranteed any degree of happiness, only the freedom to seek happiness on our own.

Vicious Circles traces the history of development of public education and the near simultaneous advent of educational reform from its very beginning. Drawing on history, politics, law, sociology, and educational research, all aspects of public schooling are brought to light using a non-partisan analytical approach. Critically examining areas such as institutional racism, sexism, ableism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia, as well as the corporatization and privatization of public schooling, Shyman extracts the fundamental problems that have ever plagued, and continue to plague, successful education reform. Essentially, Shyman demonstrates that little progress in the area of education reform has ever been made. Rather, the same misinformed, repackaged efforts by a disconnected and insularly private political elite have continued to be applied, perpetuating a “vicious circle” of failed and misguided attempts at education reform.

This phenomenological study of the experiences of women leaders in higher education emphasizes that the pursuit of gender equity has not delivered the anticipated cultural shifts for women. The lenses of structure, culture, and nurture serve as a conceptual framework to better understand the expectations and experiences of women leaders. Women in this study face intersectional identities (like race and gender but also as a working woman and a mother). Three archetypes of women's leadership orientation emerged from the study of women academic leaders' experiences: Passers, Pushers, and Peacekeepers. The three archetypes provide helpful distinction to the leadership orientations of women. Yet across all three archetypes, women endure and ultimately succeed by exercising responsive agency--rejecting structural and relational passivity, embracing the nuances of the environment, and capitalizing on the leader's strengths. As an alternative to equality, this book proposes responsive agency--an embodied theological response to gender oppression--as a way forward for women looking to advance in the workplace. The analysis into the three profiles reveals that equality is simply not enough. Each of the chapters shows equality to be necessary but insufficient, and invites women academics pursuing leadership to embrace responsive agency.

Now in its second edition, Rethinking Disability introduces new and experienced teachers to ethical framings of disability and strategies for effectively teaching and including students with disabilities in the general education classroom. Grounded in a disability studies framework, this text’s unique narrative style encourages readers to examine their beliefs about disability and the influence of historical and cultural meanings of disability upon their work as teachers. The second edition offers clear and applicable suggestions for creating dynamic and inclusive classroom cultures, getting to know students, selecting appropriate instructional and assessment strategies, co-teaching, and promoting an inclusive school culture. This second edition is fully revised and updated to include a brief history of disability through the ages, the relevance of current educational policies to inclusion, technology in the inclusive classroom, intersectionality and its influence upon inclusive practices, working with families, and issues of transition from school to the post-school world. Each chapter now also includes a featured "voice from the field" written by persons with disabilities, parents, and teachers.

Finding the Teacher Self offers a foundation to begin and sustain a discussion with preservice and in-service teachers about the role of teacher identities in the classrooms, what their teacher identity is, and how they can continue to develop it. The book is intended to create a backdrop to deepen conversations with and between teachers and administrators on topics that are often avoided or devalued in the contemporary education discourse. Through the delineation of background information from scholarly sources and related discussion prompts and questions, real and constructive conversation can be fostered across the educational landscape including undergraduate and graduate classes, faculty meetings, professional development workshops, or ongoing district-based or school-based reflective teaching projects.

A Language of Freedom and Teacher’s Authority: Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States explores dimensions of authority that are deeply embedded in the profession of teaching. It examines critical dimensions of the foundations of Turkish and U.S. public education, both of which are under new pressures due to changes in the relationship between public schooling and current reforms in education. The contributors reflect on varied dimensions of authority, of which ideals are shifting under political and economic pressures. In both Turkey and the U.S, public education reflects the early influence of secular equalitarianism, revolutionary democratic developments, and an Enlightenment-based sense of the human right to education. Against this, we see the opposing dialectic where state control and curricular censorship and constriction appear too often.

Capital, Labor, and State is a systematic and thorough examination of American labor policy from the Civil War to the New Deal. David Brian Robertson skillfully demonstrates that although most industrializing nations began to limit employer freedom and regulate labor conditions in the 1900s, the United States continued to allow total employer discretion in decisions concerning hiring, firing, and workplace conditions. Robertson argues that the American constitution made it much more difficult for the American Federation of Labor, government, and business to cooperate for mutual gain as extensively as their counterparts abroad, so that even at the height of New Deal, American labor market policy remained a patchwork of limited protections, uneven laws, and poor enforcement, lacking basic national standards even for child labor.

First Published in 2002. This single-volume reference provides readers and researchers with access to details on a wide range of topics and issues in the sociology of education. Entries cover both national and international perspectives and studies, as well as tackling controversial points in education today, including gender inequality, globalization, minorities, meritocracy, and more. This is a key, one-of-a-kind resource for all educational researchers and educators.

Parts one and two of this volume present the theoretical lenses used to study the social contexts of education. These include long-established foundations disciplines such as sociology of education and philosophy of education as well as newer theoretical perspectives such as critical race theory, feminist educational theory, and cultural studies in education. Parts three, four, and five demonstrate how these theoretical lenses are used to examine such phenomena as globalization, media, popular culture, technology, youth culture, and schooling. This groundbreaking volume helps readers understand the history, evolution, and significance of this wide-ranging, often misunderstood, and increasingly important field of study. This book is appropriate as a reference volume not only for scholars in the social foundations of education but also for scholars interested in the cultural contexts of teaching and learning (formal and informal). It is also appropriate as a textbook for graduate-level courses in Social Foundations of Education, School and Society, Educational Policy Studies, Cultural Studies in Education, and Curriculum and Instruction.