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1 – 10 of 102Discourses celebrating Kurt Hahn's practical and intellectual contributions to the field of progressive education are ubiquitous. However, the centrality of sexuality in Hahn's…
Abstract
Purpose
Discourses celebrating Kurt Hahn's practical and intellectual contributions to the field of progressive education are ubiquitous. However, the centrality of sexuality in Hahn's educational aims is often misrecognized in contemporary accounts. The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical and historicized contextualization of Hahn's hypervigilance on young male sexuality as it pertained to his educational aims.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an historical analysis of sexuality in Kurt Hahn's educational aims and practices. It draws on Hahn's own writings and speeches, coupled with documents from his students and colleagues, educational historians, German historians and historians of both world wars. The paper is informed by critical theory as well as critical approaches to gender, sexuality and pedagogy.
Findings
Contrary to contemporary accounts, Kurt Hahn was neither a liberal nor modernizing progressive educator, nor was he interested in generalized sexual repression. Hahn developed a homophobic pedagogy due to his belief that inside all young males were the latent capacities to either be homosexual or contribute societal value. His political-aristocratic allegiances, desire to identify and educate future ruling classes and fear homosexuality was the death of social value led to the use of adventure as a form of preemptive conversion therapy.
Originality/value
This paper links several historical threads and analyses to provide a unique vantage point for understanding the origins of adventure as pedagogical intervention and Kurt Hahn's aims of education.
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Nicole A. Beatty and Ernesto Hernandez
The purpose of this paper is to examine the theoretical concept of socially responsible pedagogy because it applies to teaching information literacy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the theoretical concept of socially responsible pedagogy because it applies to teaching information literacy.
Design/methodology/approach
At Weber State University, two librarians use a socially responsible pedagogical approach, combining critical information literacy and visual literacy to teach an undergraduate information literacy course.
Findings
Initial results suggest that the course design and the authors’ approach to socially responsible pedagogy are largely successful based on students’ application of course material to a signature assignment in the course.
Research limitations/implications
Data are limited because this approach was only used for two semesters. The authors are aware that a socially responsible information literacy classroom needs quality assessment to help make instructional decisions, evaluate teaching strategies and assist with ongoing student learning. Additional semesters of using this instructional approach will allow for reflection and critical inquiry into the theories and teaching strategies that currently inform instruction. Early implications of using this method of instructional design reflect students’ deep understanding of the importance of information literacy because they explore social justice topics.
Practical implications
The practical implications of this research reveal a theoretical framework for teaching critical information literacy, called socially responsible pedagogy. The theory looks at teaching based on the “spirit” of the course, which is the promotion of equality. It also looks at “the art” of designing an information literacy course, incorporating socially responsible pedagogy, culturally responsive teaching and critical information literacy. This study also looks at “the science” of assessment and offers suggestions on how one might go about assessing a socially responsible information literacy class. Moreover, the authors examine how visual literacy helps teach information literacy concepts in the course as students put together a signature assignment that meets both information literacy course objectives and general education outcomes.
Social implications
This general review of the theoretical concept of socially responsible pedagogy is limited to two semesters of information literacy instruction. In researching these topics, students situate themselves within a diverse worldview and work to promote awareness and advocacy through group presentations.
Originality/value
While librarians are exploring critical librarianship and social justice, many are not using socially responsible pedagogy combined with other social theories and images to help students work through the research process and develop information literacy skills.
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The purpose of this study is to examine how the religious beliefs and experiences of a white Evangelical English teacher, Amy, shaped her enactment of critical inquiry pedagogy in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how the religious beliefs and experiences of a white Evangelical English teacher, Amy, shaped her enactment of critical inquiry pedagogy in her English classroom.
Design/methodology/approach
This study drew on three in-depth interviews focused on a white Evangelical English teacher’s negotiation of her faith and understanding of critical inquiry issues in her teaching.
Findings
The teacher embraced anti-racist pedagogy by aligning definitions of structural racism with her understanding of the inherent sinfulness of humankind. She did so at the risk of her standing within her Evangelical community that largely rejected anti-racism. On the other hand, the teacher struggled with embracing LGBTQ+ advocacy, believing that affirmation of LGBTQ+ identities ran counter to her beliefs in “the gospel.” Her theological beliefs created complications for her when students brought the issue up in her class.
Practical implications
This study illustrates the way an English teacher incorporated anti-racism into both her teaching and religious identity, demonstrating that for some, the main concepts promoted in teacher education programs are held against a theological standard. It suggests that more work must be made by English teacher educators to provide space for religious pre-service teachers to find religious justification for engaging in LGBTQ+ advocacy.
Originality/value
One of the goals of English education is to encourage students to read texts and the world critically. However, the critical inquiry may be seen by Evangelical teachers and students as value-laden, too political and hostile to religious faith. This study examines the tensions that arise for an English teacher who is a white Evangelical. It contributes to possible strategies for the field to address these tensions.
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In this paper, the authors draw on theories of critical pedagogy to interrogate recent trends in online education scholarship, calling for more humanizing pedagogies. By using…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, the authors draw on theories of critical pedagogy to interrogate recent trends in online education scholarship, calling for more humanizing pedagogies. By using vignettes from their own teaching experiences, the paper illustrates tensions between autonomous and ideological visions of humanizing approaches, particularly how they apply to issues of inclusion in online teaching and learning.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on critical theory to interrogate the framings of humanizing online teaching. Sharing three illustrative vignettes from their own reflexive teaching practice, the authors demonstrate how a critically framed approach to humanizing digital pedagogies can promote the design and enactment of more inclusive learning environments across online contexts.
Findings
Based on the pedagogical cases presented, the authors demonstrate (1) how methods promoted in autonomous models of humanizing pedagogy can present challenges for inclusive design, (2) how participatory media production activities can still intersect with issues of racialization, and (3) how humanizing pedagogical commitments by individual instructors can be constrained by material, structural, and institutional realities.
Practical implications
While critical framings of pedagogy necessarily resist prescriptive recommendations, the authors conclude the article by underscoring the importance of critically interrogating the ideological dimensions of humanizing pedagogies, the need to grapple with social inequities even as educational contexts are increasingly digitized; the importance of considering structural issues of power and privilege that produce and constrain pedagogical possibilities.
Originality/value
The authors offer a critical framing of humanizing pedagogies in online education that runs counter to the often-autonomous framings of these approaches, highlighting issues of power, privilege, and ideology that can be overlooked in online educational contexts, especially at the level of institutional, instructional design and support.
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John P. Elia and Jessica Tokunaga
The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively affected such populations as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) individuals, people of color, and the disabled. The social ecological model is introduced as a way of offering sexuality educators and school administrators a way of thinking more broadly about how to achieve sexual health through sexuality education efforts inside and outside of the school environment.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses critical analysis of current and historical school-based sexuality education methods and curricula used in the USA. Authors use both academic journals and their own expertise/experience teaching sexuality education in the USA to analyze and critique the sources of sexuality education information and curricula used in schools.
Findings
Historically, sexuality education in school settings in the USA has been biased and has generally not offered an educational experience fostering sexual health for all students. There are now welcome signs of reform and movement toward a more inclusive and progressive approach, but there is still some way to go. Sexuality education programs in schools need to be further and fundamentally reformed to do more to foster sexual health particularly for LGBTQ individuals, students of color, and people with disabilities.
Practical implications
This paper offers sexuality educators ways of addressing structural issues within the sexuality education curriculum to better serve all students to increase the quality of their sexual health. Integrating critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education can increase students’ sexual health along physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions.
Originality/value
This paper provides historical analysis along with the identification of structural difficulties in the sexuality education curriculum and proposes both critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education as ways of addressing sex and relationships education.
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Lori G. Boyland, Jeff Swensson, John G. Ellis, Lauren L. Coleman and Margaret I. Boyland
School principals should lead for social change, particularly in support of vulnerable or marginalized students. An important social justice issue in which principals must provide…
Abstract
School principals should lead for social change, particularly in support of vulnerable or marginalized students. An important social justice issue in which principals must provide strong leadership, but may not be adequately prepared in university training, is creating positive and inclusive school environments for lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. Research reveals that LGBTQ students experience high rates of discrimination, bullying, and physical assault due to their sexual orientation or gender expression. This Application Brief describes how faculty members at a Midwest university developed curriculum and pedagogy for their principal preparation program with the goal of promoting the knowledge and skills that future school leaders need to provide effective leadership for protection, acceptance, and affirmation of LGBTQ students.
Current legislative, policy and cultural efforts to censor and illegalize classroom discussions and curricular representations of LGBTQ+ people reflect longstanding challenges in…
Abstract
Purpose
Current legislative, policy and cultural efforts to censor and illegalize classroom discussions and curricular representations of LGBTQ+ people reflect longstanding challenges in English education. In an effort to explore what curricular inclusion can (not) accomplish – especially what and how current struggles over inclusion, censorship, illegalization and ultimately representation in English education might (not) contribute to queer and trans liberation – the purpose of this article is to feature the experiences of queer and trans youth as knowers in classroom lessons with LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from a yearlong literacy ethnography at a Midwestern high school in which the author explored youth and adults reading, writing and talking about sexual and gender diversity, in this article the author focuses on one literacy learning context at the high school, a co-taught sophomore humanities that combined English language arts and social studies.
Findings
Engaging theories of epistemic (in) justice, the findings of this article highlight the experiences of queer and trans youth – especially two queer youth of Color, Camden and Imani – as knowers in the context of an LGBTQ+-inclusive classroom curriculum. The author describes epistemic harms with respect to distortions of credibility and homonormative assimilationist requirements and reflects on alternative possibilities that youth gestured toward through their small resistances.
Originality/value
By centering the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth, this article contributes to research about LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum in English teaching. Previous research, when empirical rather than conceptual, has tended to focus on the perspectives of teachers.
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Enid M. Rosario-Ramos, Deborah Rivas-Drake and Robert J. Jagers
Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have traditionally evaded or been silent on issues of (in)equity and, thus, critiqued for their lack of attention to how social…
Abstract
Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have traditionally evaded or been silent on issues of (in)equity and, thus, critiqued for their lack of attention to how social injustices create different outcomes for different groups (The Education Trust, 2020). Furthermore, these efforts have been criticized for placing the burden on individual youth to navigate challenges to SEL without recognizing the influence of systems. Transformative SEL offers an alternative approach that centers the integration of an explicit equity and social justice lens into the conceptualization and implementation of SEL (Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Williams, 2019). Notwithstanding its usefulness as a conceptual framework, mechanisms for “how” a transformative SEL approach may occur have not been well-specified. We recognize that historically, the curricular materials available to SEL educators often take a conformist approach focused on skill-building, coping, and even resilience absent attention to broader social injustices (Jagers, 2016), further burdening teachers with having to redesign curricula to incorporate their commitments into a culturally responsive, justice-oriented pedagogy. We offer stretching as a conceptual category that aims to capture the ways in which educators adapt SEL frameworks and school policies, student–educator relationships, curricula, and instructional practices in order to critically consider and responsibly address their students' experiences of injustice. We argue that stretching of SEL practice is a critical mechanism for conceptualizing how teachers go beyond traditionally equity–evasive notions of SEL to more proactively engage equity issues in their SEL implementation. We will use examples of teaching practice to illustrate and define what constitutes stretching in SEL instruction.
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Michael Manderino and Jill Castek
Today’s digitally connected classrooms have the potential to be places for rich and engaged disciplinary learning. This chapter takes two topics that have been identified in the…
Abstract
Today’s digitally connected classrooms have the potential to be places for rich and engaged disciplinary learning. This chapter takes two topics that have been identified in the What’s Hot in Literacy 2019 study, digital literacies and disciplinary literacies, and illustrates their intersections and synergies. Both areas have remained hot and very hot as individual topics. In this chapter, the authors explore the powerful opportunities to harness the learning potential of the Internet to engage learners across disciplines. By forging connections between digital literacies for disciplinary learning, the authors examine practices and develop pedagogies that youth deserve.
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