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In this chapter, we present critical race theory (CRT) with a focus on Latino critical theory (LatCrit) and its impact on Latinx educators, Latinx youth, and Latinx communities. We focus on identity inclusion and Latinidad as a way to increase critical consciousness of educators and Latinx youth, language rights, and feminist pedagogies of resistance. LatCrit frameworks are used as transformational resistance and afford a productive platform for developing critical understandings of the educational experiences of Latinx youth. We discuss relationships and community through the alignment of LatCrit and critical pedagogy and the application of critical theory and community-responsive pedagogy in increasing equitable outcomes in educational settings that support Latinx youth and families. We provide recommendations to address the challenges Latinx youth face and how Latinx educators can continue to support youth through a LatCrit framework, and a summary of possible solutions to consider. We close with some reflection and dialogue questions.

Preservice English teachers are expected to use literary theories and criticism to read and respond to literary texts. Over the past century, two of the most common approaches to literary encounters in secondary schools have been New Criticism – particularly the practice of close reading – and Rosenblatt's transactional theory, both of which have been expanded through critical theorizing along the way. Elucidated by data produced in iterative experiments with Frost's “The Road Not Taken,” the authors reconceptualize the reader, the text, and close reading through the critical posthuman theory of reading with love as a generative way of thinking outside of the habitual practices of European humanisms.

In “thinking with” (Jackson and Mazzei, 2023) desiring-machines, affect, Man and critical posthuman theory, this post qualitative inquiry maps how the “The Road Not Taken” worked when students plugged into it iteratively in processes of reading with love, an affirmative and creative series of experiments with literature.

This study mapped how respect for authority, the battle of good v evil, individualism and meritocracy operated as desiring-machines that channeled most participants’ initial readings of “The Road Not Taken.” In subsequent experiments with the poem, the authors demonstrate that reading with love as a critical posthuman process of reading invites participants to exceed the logics of recognition and representation, add or invent additional ways of being and relating to the world and thereby produce the possibility to transform a world toward greater inclusivity and equity.

The authors reconceptualize the categories of “the reader” and “the text” from Rosenblatt’s transactional theory within practices of reading with love, which they situate within a critical posthuman theory. They eschew separating efferent and aesthetic reading stances while also recuperating practices of “close reading,” historically associated with the New Critics, by demonstrating the generativity of critically valenced “close reading” within a Deleuzian process of reading with love.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. That is, without critically inquiring into the knowledge of life, which is well-being and valuable, life is not worth living. Critical thinking questions existing theories and their unexamined and obsessive assumptions and generalizations, constraints, and the so-called “best” practices of the prevailing system of management and tries to replace them with more valid assumptions and generalizations that uphold the dignity, uniqueness, and inalienable rights of every individual and the community. In our diverse and pluralistic cultural environment, the promise of a truly generative dialogue among occidental (western) and oriental (eastern) cultures and civilizations holds great hope for the future. Critical thinking can facilitate this dialogue such that all of us have a meaningful place in this universe. In this chapter, we explore introductory working definitions of critical thinking so that we can early enough understand its demanding domains, moral calls, and ramifications in its current critical applications. Specifically, in Part I, we examine the structured layers of our thinking and reasoning to dismantle them progressively, and in Part II, in support of our claims, we explore complexity and chaos theories as a new resource for critical thinking.

This chapter introduces the tenets of international student critical race theory (IntlCrit) by expanding the critical race methodology to better account for the racialized experiences of international students of color (SOC) in higher education. IntlCrit emphasizes recognizing international SOC as a racialized student body and acknowledges international students' different racial contexts and experiences in their home countries beyond the US dominant monolithic paradigm of racism (Black and White). IntlCrit provides a conceptual foundation for scholarly discourse on race and racism by offering a set of tailored tenets while utilizing tenets of critical race theory (CRT). The tailored tenets can further advance critical analyses to examine developmental processes of racial “othering” and understand the ways that racism affects international SOC in the internationalization of higher education. The IntlCrit tenets include: recognizing and humanizing international SOC as a racial body; evolving international students' eyes (racial identity development); acknowledging intersectional and transnational identities; using an expansive and inclusive historical approach; centering race and racism on international students' experiential knowledge; challenging notions of color-evasiveness and meritocracy in the internationalization of higher education; and committing to global justice. While IntlCrit tenets are focused on addressing the contexts of international students, the framework provides critical perspectives that can be useful in understanding the experiences of different international student groups by nationality or region. Indeed, it can contribute to more extensive discussions regarding how racism functions globally and in the United States. Lastly, it is important to note that the IntlCrit tenets are not definitive or permanent but are a meaningful initiative that challenges inequities and inequalities toward international students' racial experience. I hope the IntlCrit perspectives contribute to including race and racism in international education scholarship and enhancing the policies and practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion to embrace the global, multicultural, and multi-ethnic/racial contexts.

This paper is an extension of a panel presentation delivered in response to a joint call for panels by the Social Informatics and Information Ethics and Policy Special Interest Groups for the 2022 Association for Information Science and Technology conference. The purpose is to introduce critical race frameworks and tenets as a lens to develop, assess and analyze the social informatics (SI) within information science (IS) research, professional discourse, praxis and pedagogical paradigms. This paper spotlights one of the presentations from that panel, an iteration of Critical Race Theory (CRT) designed specifically for information studies: CRiTical Race information Theory (CRiT).

Just as importantly, using SI as part of the context, the paper also includes a discussion that illustrates research and theory building possibilities as both counter and complement to the technocratic advances that permeate society at every level (macro, mezzo and micro), which can also be reasonably framed as the information industrial complex. Thus, CRiT joins other forms of critical discourse and praxis grappling with deconstructing, decolonizing, demarginalizing and demystifying the influence and impact of information technologies. While CRiT has global intentions and implications, this specific discussion has an extensive American focus.

If we consider the rapid pace in which techno-determinism is moving toward the vise grip of techno-fatalism controlled by frameworks generated from the information industrial complex, we can reasonably consider that humanity on a global basis is living within a meta-large technocratic crisis moment. This crisis moment is both acute and chronic. That is, the technocratic crisis is continuously moving quickly while simultaneously worsening over an extended period of time with no remedies and few responses to substantively address the crisis.

Part of the nature of information and data is measurability. Thus, identifying compatible nomenclature connecting the descriptiveness of intersectionality (a seminal CRT tool) as a qualitative research method to the measurability of data connected to quantitative research, a mixed method approach moves from possible to plausible. Additionally, within IS, there are often opportunities to measure human engagement, such as social media content, search engine use, assessing practices of categorizations, and multiple forms of surveillance data as a short list. Hence, the descriptiveness of intersectional qualitative research “mixed” with the measurability of quantitative research within information settings implies exponential methodological possibilities.

CRiT is multilayered, on the one hand, with the intention of being a discipline-specific, information-specific form of CRT. On the other hand, CRiT theory building is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary based on information as omnipresent phenomena. An ongoing challenge for CRiT theory building is identifying and working within a balance between, practitioners who typically throw anything and everything at practical problems, while scholars often slice problems into such small segments that practical understanding is severely limited. Embracing and integrating the dynamic interplay between developing ideas and using them is the key to evolving CRiT within the social sciences.

There is plenty of room as well as a need for additional narrative discussing or challenging the use or appropriation of information from a technocratic approach, a counter to the information industrial complex.

CRiT is emerging and cutting edge in discussion that addresses the technocratic determinism found in most scholarly discourses.

The aim of this article is to develop an architectural pedagogy for the Anthropocene. The author reflect on a project within a postgraduate architectural theory module to address the following questions: How can architectural pedagogy articulate critical modes of production that contribute to quality education in the time of the Anthropocene? What are the ideas, values and practices needed?

The method employed is close reading of texts focussed on three areas: critical theory and pedagogy, political theory and the Anthropocene, and architectural theory and typological urbanism. These theoretical narratives are placed in dialogue with a reflection on a design research pedagogical project. The theoretical narratives and design research project seek to articulate the multidimensionality of critical education. The methodology enacted in the paper performs the pedagogy of the classroom.

The study yields compelling conclusions regarding the potential for rethinking the idea of typology under the pressure of the Anthropocene and of critical pedagogy combined with design research to take positions on urgent political and social matters. The author concludes with a toolkit of concepts, values and knowledge practices.

At a time when disciplines tend towards discrete specialisation, while the need for knowledge production is ever more transdisciplinary, this paper develops inventive techniques and conceptual frameworks for supporting approaches where different fields and ideas make contact as a collective task in the era of the Anthropocene. It updates theories of typology to address contemporary pressures.

This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies.

This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted in Denmark, USA and Italy, and engaging more than 1,500 young adults. Multi-method pedagogical design trains students to conduct self-oriented guided autoethnography, situational analysis, allegorical mapping, and critical infrastructure analysis.

The techniques of guided autoethnography for facilitating sustained data literacy rely on inviting multiple iterations of self-analysis through sequential prompts, whereby students move through stages of observation, critical thinking, critical theory-informed critique around the lived experience of hegemonic data and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures.

Critical digital/data literacy researchers should continue to test models for building sustained critique that not only facilitate changes in behavior over time but also facilitate citizen social science, whereby participants use these autoethnographic techniques with friends and families to build locally relevant critique of the hegemonic power of data/AI infrastructures.

The proposed literacy model adopts a critical theory stance and shows the value of using multiple modes of intervention at micro and macro levels to prompt self-analysis and meta-level reflexivity for learners. This framework places critical theory at the center of the pedagogy to spark more radical stances, which is contended to be an essential step in moving students from attitudinal change to behavioral change.

Development theory in college describes and explains how students develop. This chapter explores ways to balance and consolidate differentiation and integration in this theory. First, it traces the origins, history and current development of the theory, which evolves from an integrative understanding to a differentiated one. Subsequently, it identifies the tensions between integration and differentiation in this evolution. This chapter consider two directions towards the theoretical consolidation of differentiation and integration: (1) returning to how integrative understandings were achieved and exploring research directions that further advance integrative understandings; (2) recognizing the parallel evolution of North American student development theory in theorising about learning from a critical realism perspective, and, by overlaying this theory upon such a perspective, reconstructing it towards consolidation. This chapter concludes by discussing two implications for further higher education research that draws on student development theory.

The corporate communications literature recently focused on corporate board gender diversity, specifically looking at two central aspects: gender quotas and equitable target percentages for women on corporate boards. This paper extends the debate by focusing on board gender diversity and critical mass theory.

The paper gives a conceptual viewpoint on the issues raised in the literature on board gender diversity through a critical mass theory lens.

Following the 2022 European Union (EU) directive, all EU member states will have to attain a 40% women representation on large corporate boards to achieve board gender diversity and what has been termed a “critical mass”. However, the literature indicates that gender diversity benefits may not be achieved if a critical mass is not composed of independent women directors who create a voice that produces a collective action. The authors highlight why a critical mass may not be achieved. The inconsistency in prior research linking corporate board gender diversity to economic performance may result from the critical mass of women directors not reflecting an independent collective action. However, as gender-diverse boards evolve, the authors argue that women will not just be seen as female directors but will be accepted on equal terms with their male counterparts and have an equal voice; gender will no longer be an issue and critical mass theory may then become irrelevant.

From a corporate communications perspective, this study will focus the minds of human resources (HR) professionals on the importance of the composition of women on corporate boards if the HR professionals wish to obtain the full potential benefits of board gender diversity. Theoretically, this study highlights the importance of critical mass and collective action when researching the economic benefits of corporate board gender diversity. Investment analysts may wish to look more closely at the structure of corporate boards and not just the numbers.

This paper gives a conceptual viewpoint on the critical mass theory and corporate board gender diversity, identifying that it is not just the numbers that are important but also the issue of minority independence and collective action, and this is, therefore, unique in this respect. Future research should identify if a critical mass (not just numbers) of women on corporate boards has been achieved. Only then that the linkage, based on critical mass theory, between board gender diversity and corporate performance/profitability can be made. Knowing whether board sizes are being increased to accommodate the added female directors would be also interesting, or will the new female directors replace existing male directors? However, the most important research question, once gender diversity has been achieved, could be: Is critical mass theory relevant with respect to board gender diversity?

This study aims to examine how critical love theory is operationalized in K-12 classrooms to support Black children. The authors use BlackCrit and a conceptual framework of critical love to describe the strategies educators used as pro-Black pedagogies of resistance.

The authors conducted a thematic analysis to identify how critical love praxis is used by K-12 educators as a tool to address anti-Blackness, neoliberal multiculturalism and ahistoricism as defined by the framings of BlackCrit theory. The authors produced a literature synthesis of qualitative research that responds to this study’s research questions: How are critical love theories operationalized? What educator practices do researchers identify as material manifestations of critical love?; and How and to what extent do critical love praxis address anti-Blackness, neoliberal multiculturalism and ahistorical approaches to social transformation as defined by BlackCrit theory?

Critical love theories manifest as critical love praxis. Educators used critical love praxis to address anti-Blackness, neoliberal multiculturalism and ahistoricism by cultivating and supporting the co-creation of homeplace for Black students in K-12 education. Homeplace is cultivated through critical love praxis as classroom-focused, person-focused and politically focused approaches.

This study’s findings extend current theoretical research on critical love by describing its material form in K-12 education and by identifying how a critical love praxis can work to directly challenge anti-Blackness. The authors find implications for their work in teacher education and teachers’ in-service professional development.