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Qualitative methodology is used to examine social and dialogic interactions, in a fifth‐grade classroom known as ‘Freedom Falls’. The author discusses social interaction through dialogue as a means of constructing a democratic classroom community for students. In this case study, through descriptive data, classroom dialogue is examined from the collective group to individual members. The author explains how she discovered that meanings about democracy in the classroom were transferred from the collective group to the individual members, and ways of expressing democratic practices in the classroom enhanced students’ participation as active classroom members responsible for their classroom culture.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways assemblaging communities work to support, hinder or disrupt literacy pedagogy in one English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. Through an expanded understanding of community based on the concept of assemblage, this paper discusses the ways in which one teacher’s critical literacies instructional practices emerged, configured and ruptured through the assemblaging communities’ that affected her enactment of critical literacies pedagogy. A focus on assemblaging communities recognizes the de/re/territorializing power of the evolving groups of bodies that produce a classroom and pedagogy in particular ways.

Drawing on observational field notes and informal exchanges, this qualitative study uses post-structural and post-human theory to examine the assemblaging communities that produced the enactment of critical literacies pedagogy in a seventh grade ELA classroom. Assemblage theory is used to analyze data to examine the assemblaging communities that de/re/territorialized in Ms T’s teaching in relation to critical literacies pedagogy. This analytical orientation allowed for a nuanced look at communities as evolving, de/re/territorializing formations that, in this study, created tensions for enacting critical literacies pedagogy.

Assemblaging communities are always producing classrooms in particular ways, demonstrating the complexities and realities of enacting literacy pedagogy. Through analysis of the data, the rupture between the assemblaging communities that produced the enactment of critical literacies pedagogy and the assemblaging communities that produced test prep (and altered critical literacies) became apparent. Ruptures like this must be attended to because enacting critical literacies pedagogy is never done neutrally and without attention to the assemblaging communities that are always de/re/territorializing pedagogy, teachers may not be equipped to respond to the unexpected ruptures as well as material realities produced from these.

Educators can use the concept of assemblaging communities for recognizing the territories that shape their literacy pedagogy. By foregrounding assemblaging communities, researchers and educators may be more appropriately equipped to consider the real-time negotiations at play when enacting critical literacies pedagogy in the classroom. Enacting critical literacies pedagogy is never done neutrally, and attention to the assemblaging communities that are always de/re/territorializing pedagogy, teachers may be more equipped to respond to the material realities that are produced through their pedagogical actions.

This study suggests assemblaging communities as a way to productively move forward a perspective on communities that foregrounds the moving bodies that produce communities differently in evolving ways and their de/re/territorializing forces that create material realities for classrooMs Assemblaging communities moves the purpose from defining a community or interpreting what it means to looking at what it does, how it functions and for this study, how assemblaging communities produced critical literacies pedagogy in one classroom.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways racialization in K-12 mathematics classrooms has narrowed the understanding of mathematical learning for Black children.

Drawing on situated learning theory and funds of knowledge, the authors argue that the social learning context of mathematics classrooms has limited the understanding of what Black children are capable of mathematically. The authors suggest that as a community of practice, mathematics classrooms may be marginalizing Black children, as well as other students of color, by devaluing their community-based knowledge and ways of knowing.

The extant literature portrays Black children as struggling in mathematics; however, this research is overwhelmingly conducted based on school performance measures. Yet, if one looks beyond the classroom to Black children's homes and communities, a plethora of mathematical knowledge tied to cultural and community practices may be found. As such, Black children who struggle in mathematics classroom may be experiencing misalignment across contexts, rather than a lack of mathematical knowledge altogether.

This paper has implications for classroom practice, particularly teacher ideologies pertaining to community-based knowledge. The authors urge mathematics education researchers and practitioners to look beyond the classroom, as community-based mathematical practices may provide more insight into students’ mathematical capabilities. These implications are particularly important for educating students of color, who often experience a subpar classroom education.

In this paper, the authors provide a critical lens to situated learning theory, pushing mathematics education research to examine the underexplored topic of Black children's out-of-school mathematical practices.

This study aims to investigate how, through text-based classroom talk, youth collaboratively draw on and remix discourses and practices from multiple socially indexed traditions.

Drawing on data from a year-long social design experiment, this study uses qualitative coding and traces discoursal markers of indexicality.

The youth sustained, remixed and evaluated interpretive communities in their navigation across disciplinary and fandom discourses to construct a hybrid classroom interpretive community.

This research contributes to scholarship that supports using popular texts in classrooms as the focus of a scholarly inquiry by demonstrating how youth in one high school English classroom discursively index interpretive communities aligned with popular fandoms and literary scholarship. This study adds to understandings about the social nature of literary reading, interpretive whole-class text-based talk and literary literacies with multimodal texts in diverse, high school classrooms.

The purpose of this paper is to present a straightforward technique for engaging students and building a sense of community in the university classroom by allowing students to give brief extra‐credit presentations on topics of personal interest.

The paper includes an overview of the literature related to engagement and “sense of community,” a discussion of the motivation for incorporating “off‐topic” presentations in the university classroom, a description of the presentation requirements and grading practices, and comments on the results of employing the presentations. Because individual perceptions were the goal of this research, survey methodology was used. All items were measured on a five‐point Likert scale and administered to students at the end of the most recent term.

Using survey results, factor analysis, and regression, the paper finds that the presentations increased student attentiveness and fostered a sense of community in the classes in which the presentations were employed.

This research presents a unique method – the use of off‐topic presentations – to increase sense of community in the university classroom.

This study aims to illustrate Mitchell’s (2008) theory of critical service-learning within elementary and middle school classrooms, looking specifically at classroom events, in which community partners visit classrooms to discuss student-selected social issues.

Data from teacher interviews, classroom observations, teacher-recorded classroom videos and photos of student artifacts were collected and analyzed. Using deductive analysis, key observable events were identified, in which a teacher and their students navigated opportunities to take a social change orientation, redistribute power, or engage in authentic relationships. Classroom discourse analysis was used to examine these specific events to illustrate what critical service learning looks like in action.

Analysis revealed how core principles of critical service-learning play out in the classrooms. Two major themes that emerged were students engaging in systemic thinking and students taking on new roles as they operated in classrooms where traditional relationships among teacher, student and content were shifted from a banking model to a problem-posing model.

Much of the research on service learning has been conducted in university, high school or out-of-school settings or analyzes classroom practices based on traditional, individual civic actions. Very little empirical work explores practices in classrooms where teachers facilitate critical service-learning over the course of an entire school year. This study offers an image of the kinds of student thinking that becomes possible in elementary and middle school classrooms enacting critical service learning.

The purpose of this study was to examine teacher decisions surrounding opportunities for student voice, experiences and beliefs in digital classroom communities. The teachers’ decisions reflect monologic rather than dialogic teacher pedagogies which prompted the authors to ask the following question: What led to these teacher-centered practices in digital environments?

Authoritative discourses in school policies and a missing connection between critical pedagogies and teachers’ technology practices are examined in light of teachers’ decisions to engage in monologic and/or dialogic teaching practices. The authors propose professional development and research that emphasize pedagogy that supports student voice as foundational to practices involving digital literacies.

Examination of the teachers’ decisions showed monologic practices void of student opportunities to critically engage in digital environments. Dominant discourses imposed through protectionist and digital citizenship policies of schools as well as lack of opportunity through professional development to connect critical pedagogy to technology impacted the teachers’ decisions.

Current research surrounding teachers’ digital literacies uses the TPACK framework to examine technology integration practices. Missing is a critical component that addresses and works to dismantle the dominant discourses and power structures in digital communities (Author, 2018). The authors build on research in critical digital literacies to argue for adding the critical missing “C” into the TPACK framework (C-TPACK) to move researchers and educators to consider pedagogies that examine ideologies at work in digital communities to provide opportunities for student voice.

This paper aims to present an interpretive case study in education for sustainability (EfS) that applies VanWynsberghe and Herman’s (2015, 2016) adaptive education as pedagogy. Dewey’s theory of behaviour change is applied to educative experiences based on habit disruption and real-world learning, leading to creativity in the formation of new habits. The programme presented inverts dominant conceptions of knowledge to design innovative sustainability pedagogy. Instead knowledge resides alongside experience, cases, intuition, advice, experimentation and dialogue in the individual and collective effort to address daily sustainability challenges.

The paper reports on the outcomes of an interpretive case study (Merriam, 1998) of a higher education programme in sustainability pedagogy. It presents a series of reflections by instructors and participants in discussing the programme’s relationship with the core themes of habit, disruption, creative action and dialogue framed within the five features of adaptive education: stakeholders, real-world learning, off campus, transdisciplinarity and non-traditional rewards.

Through this examination, the authors found that adaptive education offered a pedagogy that simultaneously addressed the need for increased sustainability knowledge, whilst inverting its dominance. As a long-term project, the extent of the programme’s impact will be evident beyond the programme’s completion.

This interpretive case study is analysed through high-level conceptual and theoretical aspects of the pedagogy rather than the particularities of the case. By putting the centrality of knowledge into question, the authors are advocating for a more experimental role for higher education in its teaching and learning. These questions are broadly applicable.

There are research, learning and social benefits to this programme. Adaptive education builds capacity for future leaders and educators of sustainability.

The paper concludes with a discussion for further theorizing and research on adaptive education and EfS in higher education. This research will contribute to broader discussions of the evolving role of education in sustainability.

Oftentimes, attempts at culturally relevant early childhood practices are limited to diverse materials in the physical environment. The purpose of this study is to document the culturally relevant teaching practices, specifically for African American children, within a culturally diverse preschool classroom with a Black teacher.

The researchers used qualitative methodology to answer the following question: How does a Black preschool teacher enact culturally relevant practices for her African American students in a culturally diverse classroom? Data sources included field notes from classroom observations, transcripts from both formal and informal semi-structured interviews with a Master Teacher and photographs.

The authors found that the participant fostered an inclusive classroom community and a classroom environment that reflected the range of human diversity. She was intentional in her integration of culturally representative read alouds and lessons designed to incorporate students’ interests. Finally, she engaged families by facilitating their involvement in her curriculum. However, social justice aspects were absent during the time of the study.

This paper contributes to the literature in that it documents a high-quality early childhood classroom with a teacher, that is, actively trying to incorporate the cultures of her African American students. Many extant studies provide examples of superficial culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) being enacting in early childhood classrooms or the focus is not specifically on African American children.

The purpose of this study is an exploration of stories told by multilingual students participating in a literacy project in a secondary English course as part of a larger three year practitioner inquiry study, in which the author analyzed students’ literacy project to create a culturally responsive English curriculum. In this paper, the stories of two participating students were examined to derive ideas for an English curriculum in which students’ assets, such as cultural heritage and religious traditions, are recognized and honored.

Two objectives of the study were to learn about my students’ assets and to use them to complement the district-mandated texts in ways that honored students’ cultural traditions and accumulated knowledge. This paper focuses on an artifactual literacy project paired with reading the novel To Kill a Mockingbird in an English course for emergent bilinguals, in which the modified curriculum highlighted their experiences and traditions.

Two themes emerged from the analysis. First, religious communities are often valuable to emergent bilingual students. Second, although borders often separate the families of these students, they continue their religious traditions with those in their new communities in the USA, whose members have also carried traditions across borders to honor and preserve their families’ cultures, languages and religions in new places.

Religion is rarely discussed in public school English classrooms. This research project demonstrates the value of artifacts in secondary classrooms which provide a space for students to discuss personally meaningful religious and cultural literacy practices.