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Colleges of education must do more than expose prospective educators to “best” practices for teaching and leading linguistically, culturally, and ethnically diverse students. Educators need to develop attitudes, knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to become competent in catering to diverse student populations in schools. In this chapter, we seek to extend this conversation using a critical pedagogical lens. We draw specifically on Paulo Freire’s concept of radical love to interrogate our ways of teaching, leading, and opening up spaces for dialogue toward educating pre-service teachers and leaders who are critically conscious. Additionally, we use Paulo Freire’s concept of radical love to explore the similarities and disjunctures in our pedagogy and positionalities as international scholars of color.

In this study we examine how doing research on gender impacts identity, sense of self, and relation to community; and how fieldwork is mediated by gender structures.

We draw on feminist epistemology, qualitative methodologies, and critical pedagogies to analyze the fieldwork experiences of 15 women students and nine men fieldwork partners in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

By conducting fieldwork which challenged gender norms, students and partners gained greater awareness of themselves and confidence. Their actions challenged the appropriate place of women (and minority ethnicities) as perceived by research participants in these communities. The experience rendered the community a site of hope and learning for them, working to empower them as well as building relationships grounded in lived experiences with their communities.

Women’s voices are more prominent in this analysis than men’s.

This chapter points to the potentially empowering aspects of doing gender-related fieldwork in the developing context, as well as how gender and other power structures mediate fieldwork experiences in Muslim communities in South Asia.

The primary goal of this longitudinal study was to examine whether technology use predicts substance use and/or whether substance use predicts technology use during adolescence.

The sample included 1,031 10th and 11th grade students from the Mid-Atlantic United States. The students completed surveys in school in the spring of 2007 and 2008.

Gender differences in technology use were observed with girls texting, e-mailing/instant messaging, and working on the computer more than boys, and boys playing video games more than girls. Technology use also predicted later substance use for boys and girls. Importantly, technology use was observed to have both negative and positive effects on youth. Substance use also predicted later technology use for girls.

The sample only included adolescents from the Mid-Atlantic United States. In addition, the measures were based on self-reports. Nevertheless, results from this study highlight the importance of considering both negative and positive effects of technology on adolescents. Of note, social types of technology (texting and e-mailing) predicted more substance use for both boys and girls. As such, substance use prevention programs should target these types of technology.

Findings from this study underscore the importance of examining both directions of influence between technology use and adolescent adjustment.

This chapter features leadership practices sourced from more than 25 Māori (Indigenous) and non-Māori women in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) who are leaders of schools where Māori-based best practices benefit Māori and other systemically underserved students (e.g., children in poverty, Pasifika [i.e., Samoan, Fijian, Cook Island, Tongan] descent). This study, by Auckland-based scholars of North American, Indigenous, and international descent (Māori, Latino, African American/American Indian [Choctaw], and East Indian immigrant) examines the expression of Applied Critical Leadership (ACL) in women leaders participating in Te Ara Hou or The Māori Achievement Collaboratives (MACS), an initiative aimed at challenging status quo leadership practices, which result in persistent inequitable educational outcomes for Māori learners. Based on an analysis of data, women leaders demonstrated leadership that mirrored and exemplified leadership practices suggested in ACL research. Qualitative stories evidenced from women leaders in MACS provided exemplars of authentic and appropriate pathways for implementing effective leadership practices aimed at promoting whānau (family), iwi (tribe), and hapū (subtribe) engagement, context-specific pedagogy, tikanga (cultural protocols), and whanaungatanga (relationships) within mainstream school contexts. These findings affirm and validate research on the benefits of critical and culturally appropriate leadership around the world in a number of diverse contexts.

This chapter theorizes academic libraries and library workers as partners in social justice work in higher education, linking the core concerns of critical librarianship (or Critlib) to library leadership practices that can enable and facilitate widening participation as a political project. ¹ Widening participation, as a policy imperative and higher education practice, attempts to improve access to higher education among underrepresented groups. However, rooted in the logic of marketized, neoliberal higher education, liberal approaches to widening participation are instrumentalist and contribute to a cultural discourse which reproduces inequity and unequal educational outcomes.

Drawing on Nancy Fraser's model of social justice and critical sociology of education, particularly the work of Penny Jane Burke and Diane Reay, this chapter develops a critical theory of library leadership which radically reframes widening participation practice as a project of recognition and inclusion. In connecting the rich scholarship of Critlib movement, particularly critical information literacy and library pedagogies, to shared commitments to social justice between library and other education workers, this chapter deepens our theoretical understanding of libraries' contributions to widening participation.

A testimonio reveals the bridges and connections created by collective learning. For many Xicanas, the first learning occurs in their home. Studies show that the familia encourages life lessons through daily chores, conversation about school and education, advice from grandparents, sibling interaction, and by watching parents or elders negotiate and interact with the dominant society and among other family members. This research in home-learning practices provides valuable data in understanding the successes and challenges of Xicanas in higher education. Ultimately, testimonio presents a unique method, process, and product that uncovers the many daily challenges that Xicanas confront. The purpose of this chapter is to draw attention to the fact that testimonio and storytelling does and can play an important role in the life and work of Xicanas in higher education. The chapter outlines the framework and theoretical lens of mestiza consciousness and pedagogies of the home as the foundation for storytelling through interviews and platicas identified as testimonio. The study conducted is an autoethnography that details the significance of storytelling through testimonio as a method of survival in higher education. Testimonio and storytelling are central to the field of critical race theory, Xicana feminism, and social justice education which stresses the significance of Being authentic to Self.

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.

This chapter examines the dynamics of occupational segregation by gender in the German vocational training system (VET) and explores the validity of two hypotheses regarding the causes of changes in the sex composition of occupations. According to the first, the ‘job growth hypothesis’, feminisation of occupations occurs when women increasingly enter growing employment sectors that are experiencing a shortage of (preferred) male candidates. According to the second, the ‘exit hypothesis’, the movement of men out of selected occupations is the main mechanism driving the changes. Using official data from enrolment into the VET of skilled crafts for the period of 1997–2013, we find a very high level of occupational segregation, a very modest trend toward desegregation and a substantial increase of female representation in a group of selected training occupations. Our analysis implies that the rising share of female apprentices within these fields cannot be explained by an increased entry of young women into growing employment sectors, but that it mainly results from a disproportionate reduction of male participation in select occupations.