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Article
Publication date: 6 April 2008

Jeanne A Klockow

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…

Abstract

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.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 December 2019

Kelly C. Johnston

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

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Practical implications

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.

Originality/value

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.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 March 2024

Ariel Cornett and Erin Piedmont

Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the…

Abstract

Purpose

Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the research question, “In what ways do classroom and field-based experiences prepare teacher candidates (TCs) to make connections between place-based education and elementary social studies education?”

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative case study examined how elementary TCs learned about, researched, curated and created place-based social studies educational resources related to community sites. Data collection included TCs’ Pre- and Post-Course Reflections as well as Self-Evaluations, which were analyzed using an inductive approach and multiple rounds of concept coding. Several themes emerged through data analysis.

Findings

The authors organized their findings around three themes: connections (i.e. place becomes personal), immersion (i.e. learning about place to learning in place) and bridge building (i.e. local as classroom). The classroom and field-based experiences in the elementary social studies methods course informed the ways in which TCs learned about and connected to the concept of place, experienced place in a specific place (i.e. downtown Statesboro, Georgia), and reflected upon the myriad ways that they could utilize place in their future elementary social studies classrooms.

Originality/value

TCs (as well as in-service teachers and teacher educators) must become more informed, connected and committed to places within their local communities in order to consider them as resources for elementary social studies teaching and learning.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 March 2021

Jahneille Cunningham and Kimberley Gomez

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.

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Practical implications

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.

Originality/value

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.

Article
Publication date: 18 January 2022

Scott Storm, Karis Jones and Sarah W. Beck

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.

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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

Findings

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

Originality/value

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.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 21 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 September 2011

Nicole F. Velasquez, Jerod W. Wilkerson and Marilyn B. Misch

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…

472

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Originality/value

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

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 3 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2022

Kathleen Riley and Elizabeth Gayle Soslau

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…

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Originality/value

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.

Details

Journal for Multicultural Education, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-535X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 21 November 2015

Renée T. Clift, Chris Da Silva Iddings, Donna Jurich, Iliana Reyes and Kathy Short

This chapter is about the multiple forms of collaboration that are crucial to designing and implementing a school and community-based early childhood teacher preparation program…

Abstract

This chapter is about the multiple forms of collaboration that are crucial to designing and implementing a school and community-based early childhood teacher preparation program. Maintaining quality in education and teacher education is a systemic, interdependence among individuals, institutions, and local, state, and national policy makers. We conclude that teacher education redesign is less about courses and pedagogies and more about systemic relationships, routines, and evaluations over time.

Details

International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part C)
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-674-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 December 2019

Vicki A. Hosek and Lara J. Handsfield

The purpose of this study was to examine teacher decisions surrounding opportunities for student voice, experiences and beliefs in digital classroom communities. The teachers’…

Abstract

Purpose

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?

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Originality/value

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.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 5 October 2015

Marva McClean

This chapter applies a qualitative theoretical approach, drawing on critical literacy frames including socio-cultural theory and auto-ethnography to examine the journey of a…

Abstract

This chapter applies a qualitative theoretical approach, drawing on critical literacy frames including socio-cultural theory and auto-ethnography to examine the journey of a language arts teacher in her struggle to respond to her students’ resistance and create a classroom context of mean-making and empowerment. Asserting the process as the decolonization of pedagogy, the chapter asserts the language arts classroom as a borderland, a site for both critical analysis and a source for creativity and possibility (Giroux, 2001) to teach students who are traditionally underserved in the educational community. The chapter points to ways students’ rich cultural heritage and the teacher’s autobiographical narrative can become part of the classroom pedagogy and result in a rich learning experience that is transformative.

Details

Living the Work: Promoting Social Justice and Equity Work in Schools around the World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-127-5

Keywords

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