Although the social reality is stark for progressive scholars who engage in scholarly activities or are committed to guiding their students to develop a social-just praxis in the circles of higher education, some scholars have found fissures amid the alienating, often hostile academic world to learn, grow, and create transformative communities. Up to this date, however, their stories have not been captured. Therefore, the purpose of this volume is to highlight alternative narratives generated by transformative scholars who have maintained their oppositional identity to the structures that oppress the vast majority of citizens. By bringing together these narratives, we focus on those who have joined with likeminded colleagues to teach, engage in activism, and conduct emancipatory forms of research, learning to negotiate and survive academic and corporate realities in spite of restrictive climates. Not only are these stories vital for helping students, academics, and the wider community understand how commercialized forces are impacting the professional lives of critical scholars in the academy, they have the power to help current and future critical pedagogues define (and redefine) themselves in a social world which is continually “promoting a narrow and intellectually stifling agenda for the role of education and turning the public against the very idea of a critical education” (McLaren, 2006). As stated by Bruner (1986) stories give “a map of possible roles and possible worlds in which action, thought, and self-definition are possible (or desirable)” (p. 2, cited in Collins & Cooper, 2005). These possibilities for definition and redefinition are what we seek to present, explore and understand.

At the time of Obama’s draconian anti-immigrant policies leading to massive deportation of undocumented, poor immigrants of color, there could not be a more timely and important book than this edited volume, which critically examines ways in which immigration, race, class, language, and gender issues intersect and impact the life of many immigrants, including immigrant students. This book documents the journey, many success-stories, as well as stories that expose social inequity in schools and U.S. society. Further, this book examines issues of social inequity and resource gaps shaping the relations between affluent and poor-working class students, including students of color. Authors in this volume also critically unpack anti-immigrant policies leading to the separation of families and children. Equally important, contributors to this book unveil ways and degree to which xenophobia and linguicism have affected immigrants, including immigrant students and faculty of color, in both subtle and overt ways, and the manner in which many have resisted these forms of oppression and affirmed their humanity. Lastly, chapters in this much-needed and well-timed volume have pointed out the way racism has limited life chances of people of color, including students of color, preventing many of them from fulfilling their potential succeeding in schools and society at large.

Discussion is distorting today. Within schools, social movements, and firms, there has been an increasing tendency for teachers and facilitators to announce that there will be a discussion while the interaction which follows this announcement is not a discussion, but something else??likely a recitation and lecture. This distortion of discussion promises democracy, equality, and participation during a meeting or class, but delivers inequality, prohibition, and dominance. Now is the time to begin changing these practices which ultimately create and support a neoliberal society that promises democracy but practices oligarchy. One way to change this neoliberal social world is by intervening in the distortion of discussion, by facilitating interaction so that discussion’s promise of equality and participation is fulfilled rather than negated. Elements of Discussion is a resource for this intervention. It is a political, poetic, and practical handbook for facilitating discussion. Discussions happen everywhere, and if society itself is composed of relationships between people then creating more participation and equality during discussions can help create the conditions for social change. Elements of Discussion therefore includes practical tips, techniques, and reflective questions through which it firmly and sensitively suggests to readers how to facilitate discussions across contexts. Beginning with the ways chairs and tables are set up, continuing through the kinds of questions a facilitator can ask, and including sample activities facilitators can use, the book expounds a philosophy of facilitating discussion, emphasizing the political and poetic significance of the tactics it recommends.

The SoJo Journal: Educational Foundations and Social Justice Education is an international peer-reviewed journal of educational foundations. The Department of Educational Leadership at California State University, East Bay, whose mission is to prepare and influence bold, socially responsible leaders who will transform the world of schooling, hosts the journal. It publishes essays that examine contemporary educational and social contexts and practices from critical perspectives. The SoJo Journal: Educational Foundations and Social Justice Education is interested in research studies as well as conceptual, theoretical, philosophical, and policy?analysis essays that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and (in)formal education. The SoJo Journal: Educational Foundations and Social Justice Education is necessary because currently there is not an exclusively international, Foundations of Education journal. For instance, three of the leading journal in Education Foundations journals (e.g., The Journal of Educational Studies, British Journal of Sociology of Education, The Journal of Educational Foundations) solicit manuscripts and support scholarship mainly from professors who reside in Britain and the United States. This journal is also unique because it will bring together scholars and practitioners from disciplines outside of Educational Foundations, who are equally committed to social change and promoting equity and social justice inside and outside of K?16 schools.

This text is relevant for members of faculties of education such as administers, directors of teacher education programs, teacher educators (for pre-service and/or inservice teachers), and teacher candidates. There is also a potential appeal to professors in higher education institutions as integration practices can be adapted to meet the requirements across disciplines. K-12 classroom-based teachers may find this text useful as a source for content-based learning either from disciplinary or cross-disciplinary practice as well as individuals serving in an educational capacity in community-based settings, for instance. Parts of this work have already been presented in both US and Canadian based conferences such as the American Educational Research Association and the Canadian Society for the Study of Education and serve as optimal venues to reach the academic market. Advertising in publications geared towards providing practical articles could also serve a way to reach classroom based and community-based educators. ENDORSEMENTS: "Everybody needs to eat! Unfortunately, too many communities live food insecure and to not address this in our education system is a massive problem. Valeri, in the book Educating about/for Food Security through Environmental Education, offers brilliant insight through the study of integrating food security into teacher education. In doing so, Valeri shares the importance of language, and specifically root metaphors, in addressing food security as a deep cultural problem rather than one of natural occurrence and this book highlights generative ways to not only address food security in teacher education, but also to prepare teachers that feel empowered to make very real material changes in their classrooms and communities." — John Lupinacci, Washington State University "In light of climate change and the impacts it will inevitably have on food production/distribution, "Educating about/for food security through EE" is an important study examining the intersections of teacher education, food security, and sustainability. Examining ways in which educators and researchers ought to integrate food security into classrooms, while also examining the cultural causes of systemic inequity, this book is important for teacher educators who are interested in further incorporating food security and suitability into their classrooms." — Brandon Edwards-Schuth, Oulu, Finland

This book considers the detrimental changes that have occurred to the institution of the university, as a result of the withdrawal of state funding and the imposition of neoliberal market reforms on higher education. It argues that universities have lost their way, and are currently drowning in an impenetrable mush of economic babble, spurious spin-offs of zombie economics, management-speak and militaristic-corporate jargon. John Smyth provides a trenchant and excoriating analysis of how universities have enveloped themselves in synthetic and meaningless marketing hype, and explains what this has done to academic work and the culture of universities – specifically, how it has degraded higher education and exacerbated social inequalities among both staff and students. Finally, the book explores how we might commence a reclamation. It should be essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of education and sociology, and anyone interested in the current state of university management.

Written by leading scholars and activists from Canada, Germany, Malta, Norway, Turkey and the USA, this book offers international perspectives on critical pedagogy during the Covid-19 pandemic. It examines the social and political impact of the pandemic on education, and explores how the creation of digital communities has become indispensable in maintaining connectivity and building networks. Including contributions from Michael W. Apple, Antonia Darder, Henry A. Giroux, Peter Mayo, Peter McLaren, Wayne Ross and Ira Shor, this volume examines critical issues, controversies of education, and social and political problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The chapters call for constructive critical consciousness and a commitment to social justice, addressing current issues, including Black Lives Matter, racism, poverty, social and gender inequality, women's rights and teachers' isolation during the pandemic. In part I, the authors address these issues through the lenses of neoliberalism, neo-conservatism, rightist ideology and capitalism. Parts II and III of the volume offer inclusive perspectives, personal accounts and regional outlooks on these issues, and assess their influence on society and education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research offers a vivid portrait of both theoretical perspectives and practical action research activity and related benefits around the globe, while attending to the cultural, political, social, historical and ecological contexts that localize, shape and characterize action research. Consisting of teachers, youth workers, counselors, nurses, community developers, artists, ecologists, farmers, settlement-dwellers, students, professors and intellectual-activists on every continent and at every edge of the globe, the movement sustained and inspired by this community was born of the efforts of intellectual-activists in the mid-twentieth century specifically: Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, Kurt Lewin. Cross-national issues of networking, as well as the challenges, tensions, and issues associated with the transformative power of action research are explored from multiple perspectives providing unique contributions to our understanding of what it means to do action research and to be an action researcher. This handbook sets a global action research agenda and map for readers to consider as they embark on new projects.

This fully revised and updated edition includes twelve new chapters on contemporary topics such as ecological democracy, Native studies, inquiry teaching, and Islamophobia. The Social Studies Curriculum, Fourth Edition updates the definitive overview of the issues teachers face when creating learning experiences for students in social studies. The book connects the diverse elements of the social studies curriculum—civic, global, social issues—offering a unique and critical perspective that separates it from other texts. Completely updated, this book includes twelve new chapters on the history of the social studies; democratic social studies; citizenship education; anarchist inspired transformative social studies; patriotism; ecological democracy; Native studies; inquiry teaching; Islamophobia; capitalism and class struggle; gender, sex, sexuality, and youth experiences in school; and critical media literacy. All the chapters from the previous edition have been thoroughly revised and updated, including those on teaching social studies in the age of curriculum standardization and high-stakes testing, critical multicultural social studies, prejudice and racism, assessment, and teaching democracy. Readers are encouraged to reconsider their assumptions and understanding about the origins, purposes, nature, and possibilities of the social studies curriculum.

Winner of the 2017 AESA Critic's Choice Book Award This book provides multiple perspectives on the dual struggle that teacher educators currently face as they make sense of edTPA while preparing their pre-service teachers for this high stakes teacher exam. The adoption of nationalized teacher performance exams has raised concerns about the influence of corporate interests in teacher education, the objectivity of nationalized teaching standards, and ultimately the overarching political and economic interests shaping the process, format, and nature of assessment itself. Through an arc of scholarship from various perspectives, this book explores a range of questions about the goals and interests at work in the roll out of the edTPA assessment and gives voice to those most affected by these policy changes, teacher educators, and teacher education students.