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This article explores the adoption of a transcultural education approach, rather than multicultural or intercultural education, and the implications this would have for educational practice. With the multiple issues associated with multicultural and intercultural education, the authors emphasize the need for a definitive definition of the term “transcultural” in the educational literature, as well as a new model of transcultural education. Addressed in the article are: (a) the contribution of transdisciplinary teaming to the definition and practice of transcultural education; (b) the meaning of “trans” in the term, transcultural; (c) a discussion of culture and individuality related to education; and (d) possible conclusions to facilitate dialogue regarding the future of transcultural education. Twelve vignettes are included to provide real world examples of the need for a paradigm of transcultural education.

Title IX and The Lilly Ledbetter (Fair Pay Act, 2009), an extension of the Civil Rights Act, have not changed the fact that women in academia are paid 78% less than males in the professoriate while sometimes experiencing subjugation and oppression. This context is juxtaposed with the Golden Rule and Platinum Rule as nudged by a mentor and mentee relationship between a professor and undergraduate, young female honor student. How does this constant social convention toward women academics effect matriculated university students?

Although the civil rights movement in the United States occurred more than 50 years ago, voter suppression, as witnessed in the 2012 election, for diverse groups of people continues. The information presented in this article supports the teaching and learning of social studies within early childhood and elementary grades as teachers and students consider and examine issues and problems concerning those who have been disenfranchised as voters within the United States. The use of historic role models, artwork, musical lyrics, and primary documents are various ways to assist young learners as they analyze and confront controversial issues such as discrimination within a pluralistic society. Through research, young learners can construct narratives from the present to make meaning from historical figures, events, and places of the past. Children’s understandings of historical people and events that took action against discriminatory practices and opportunities to expand learning about the topic may enable them to take the lead to make our democracy a reality for life, liberty and happiness.

Black women’s contributions to the struggle for educational equality and to the USA Civil Rights Movement have been deplorably under-examined and scarcely evident in educational literature. This historical, biographical account documents the life and challenges of one brilliant woman, Mamie Phipps Clark, PhD. The purpose of this paper is to consider how Mamie Phipps Clark encountered and connected with Thurgood Marshall to advance social justice and the historical outcomes in the Brown v. Board (1954) decision. More importantly, the ways in which young Black children perceived racial awareness and self-identity are examined, and the perniciously damaging effects frequently stated by children’s and their negatively held attitudes about skin color were revealed in her work (Clark and Clark, 1950).

This historiography examines Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s scholarship. Central to Brown v. Board of Education was Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s research agenda. She contributed to the USA’s history in the pursuit of justice and equity for children. To adequately prepare social studies and civics educators and students, the unknown has to be realized. To embrace Clark’s accomplishments within the educational literature is to forge a vast path of knowledge about children’s identity, racial awareness and psychological well-being. She worked determinedly for just ideals for generations of children and women preparing the way for just educational integration.

Nevertheless, until women, and essentially Black women’s scholarship and civic contributions are valued as imperative to foundational educational, civic, social studies, history canons the entirety of history remains veiled. When women’s scholarship by which our country achieved civic ideals is fully accepted, multicultural educators for social justice and action will claim Mamie P. Clark’s merited inclusion in the social studies and educational canon. Without the position, knowledge and expertise of Judge Thurgood Marshall, the momentous 1954 movement toward educational equity and civic righteousness would not have occurred. It took his skill, but mostly his powerful Black maleness to bring about just passage of Brown v. Board. Further, without the influential testimony of Dr Kenneth Clark at Brown v. Board the crucial argument of the “pernicious effects of segregation” would have not influenced the court in the same fashion as that of a Black woman. In fact, in one account (Pohlman, 2005), Mamie, P. Clark’s work is not mentioned when referencing a court cases’ detailed circumstances of the doll studies. Interestingly, Dr Henry Garrett, Mamie’s racist doctoral advisor is mentioned in the preliminary Virginia segregation court case as a prominent witness in this integration case without note of Dr Mamie Phipps Clark.

Howard University’s motto, Veritas et Utilitas, Truth and Service was key to Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Mamie P. Clark and Kenneth Clark’s moral code. They lived the possibility to intensify equitable, equal, and accessible education by enacting legal civil rights agency and action. Nevertheless, pending any woman scholar, essentially women civic scholars, Black women’s foundational social studies scholarship and contributions are wholly vital to our educational history and canons. It is only when women’s precedents are included into the literature by which our country achieved civic justice, then social studies educators and educational researchers may begin to achieve gender inclusive practice while transforming social studies scholarship to better all students’ worlds.

Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s work endures, as does her history and advocacy for generations of children, especially children of color, as well as women scholars. Her equitable, historical place will be actualized as long as scholars continue to herald her scholarship and contributions to the civic and social studies canon of literature.

Dr Mamie Phipps Clark. Central to Brown v. Board of Education was Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s scholarship. She contributed to the USA’s history in the pursuit of justice and equity for children. To adequately prepare social studies and civics educators and students, the unknown has to be realized. To embrace Clark’s accomplishments within the educational literature is to forge a vast path of knowledge about children’s identity, racial awareness and psychological well-being. She worked determinedly for ideals for generations of children and women preparing the way for educational integration.

It has been 34 years since the passage of Title IX. Yet women in academia are still underpaid and underrepre-sented in the full professor ranks nationwide. Why is this still an operative convention? Identities, roles, and perceptions leave some wondering if the old male guard isn’t still guarding.

This study is a result of working with a first-grade teacher, Ellen Stubblefield, who plans, implements, and evaluates a modified Reggio Emilia approach. She documents students’ learning through visual means. In tandem with a kindergarten teacher, Glenda Watson, early childhood learners question and reflect about their community history and that of Harlem primarily through folk art but also in music, poetry, literature, and architecture. Students inquire about historical events in the Harlem Renaissance and connected it to Hoover, Alabama. They deconstruct art works, replicate their favorites, learn the history of the Harlem Renaissance, map Harlem, write about artists, visit the local museum’s exhibit of folk art and make comparisons to their community. Ultimately, they educated peers and parents about the diversity of the people who made Harlem such a wonderful community. As educators, we learn the most. We see young children can begin historical understanding with an active learning/research approach.

This piece is about how elementary and secondary social studies students participate in transformational social studies education for social justice through oral history. The exemplar oral history illustrated is through the life of an exemplary educator, Ms. Lillie M. H. Fincher. She was a former social studies specialist in the Birmingham Schools and a civic activist. How she ushered in integration with her students in the early 1970s and the ways in which Ms. Fincher influenced students, imprinted lasting impressions, and made differences in their lives forever. This is the spirit of transformational social justice.

When educators, families, and children come together in the classroom to share their diverse cultures, potential exists for learning concepts about democracy, citizenship, and social justice through an immersion experience of interacting together. By involving families and encouraging interaction among them, social studies teachers can organize opportunities to develop democratic learning environments. Such an environment can have a bearing on how children and their families experience a sense of community. Teachers who plan intentional interactions among families of diverse cultures where parents can learn from each other may modify parental child-rearing practices. The three basic parenting styles that can be associated with a young child’s social development are authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive types. It is through these parental exchanges that alternative parenting styles can be observed and possibly adopted. Early childhood social studies educators can support children and caretakers to envision a just and compassionate democracy.

Too often, aesthetic education is neglected in the school curriculum. When school system budget monies are short, the arts seemingly are shortchanged. Nevertheless, aesthetic education is a necessary, intentional, and simultaneous endeavor within early childhood, elementary, secondary, and teacher education social studies curricula. To nurture students in the arts, while they become informed about themselves, promotes freedom, justice, and equality.

Early childhood social studies students deserve to learn in a powerful, in-depth fashion about their interests with teachers who facilitate cognitive and affective growth. Humanistic teachers offer democratic learning experiences characterized by exploration and inquiry within a challenging and caring environment. Growth toward acceptance of all types of diversity and every classmate is featured. Through discussion about social studies topics, learners proceed to graphically represent what they learn. This powerful social studies learning is found in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The tenets, strategies, and approaches are easily transferable and modified to create powerful and exemplar early childhood social studies learning for social rights and social justice. Early childhood is the perfect place to set social justice learning in motion.