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This critical content analysis aims to examine the depiction of oppression in the 2022 Notable Social Studies Trade Books (K-2). From the framework of major types and levels of oppression, this paper sheds light on the rich affordances and problematic representations of oppression.

From the perspectives of an intersectional approach and the framework of oppression, the authors conducted a critical content analysis of the written texts, illustrations and peritexts of the notable books for young readers.

Among the 73 picturebooks, 46 (63%) include representations of oppression in the written texts and/or illustrations. Half of these books depict more than one type of oppression. The most frequently represented oppression is racism, followed by sexism. There are limited depictions of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, antisemitism and Islamophobia. Nine books (20%) only include the representation of oppression in the peritexts.

This study contributes to anti-oppressive education by offering a theoretical framework of oppression, which emphasizes the interlocking systems of oppression. This framework can help foster a holistic understanding of oppression and dismantle it in a holistic way.

The authors also offer suggestions to help educators curate picturebooks for anti-oppressive social studies education.

This study contributes to anti-oppressive education by offering a theoretical framework of oppression, which emphasizes the interlocking systems of oppression. This framework can help foster a holistic understanding of oppression and dismantle it in a holistic way. The authors also offer suggestions to help educators curate picturebooks for anti-oppressive social studies education.

Providing insights into the need to go beyond superficial equity efforts in classrooms, the authors present a standardized test analogy to make the concept of oppression accessible and relevant for educators. Three levels of oppression (individual, institutional and cultural/societal) are described along with a brief overview of Paulo Freire’s four dimensions of oppression. Drawing parallels from a children’s book, Testing Miss Malarkey (Finchler, 2014), strategies for recognizing and interrupting oppression are offered. The authors recommend resources that teachers can use to help children and themselves take reflective actions (praxis) to interrupt systemic types of oppressions in their classrooms and personal spaces.

This paper is grounded in the belief that to teach in socially just and equitable ways, educators benefit from a fundamental understanding of how systems of oppression work in classrooms and in society. The paper provides both a theoretical and practical approach to help guide educators’ efforts in such a way as to address systemic issues of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and other “isms” (systems of oppression).

This paper does not present findings such as those found in an empirical study. However, it does provide an overview of Freire’s levels of oppression along with instructional guidelines to assist teachers in helping provide children with tools to understand oppression and to take reflective actions (praxis) to make a dent in systemic types of oppressions in their classrooms and worldwide.

There are many other decolonizing frameworks that are available. This translational study focuses on one of them (Freire’) and what it means for teachers.

Believing that the school years are foundational for providing children with the tools that they need to be able to identify and address the ongoing acts of oppression, this paper seeks to make the topic accessible to educators with the hope that they can make a lasting and positive difference in children’s lives (and in society in general). Recommended resources are provided.

To interrupt and counter oppression, educators must be informed. The benefits of doing so readily extend to society in general; so, it is important for both educators and students to understand oppression and have tools for disrupting it.

This paper takes the original approach of using standardized tests as analogy to make the concept of oppression accessible and relevant for educators. The authors use this example because they recognize that many teachers can identify with feeling disempowered by the standardized testing mandates and frenzy. They believe that educators will be able to extrapolate the process by which the loss of their power occurs with standardized testing to understand how institutional oppression works. Neither author has seen an article that uses an analogy from the professional lives of teachers to illustrate oppression.

Illustrates and explicates the proposition that the critique of exploitation and injustice found in contemporary Liberation Theology is theologically grounded, in that these phenomena are rebuked as discordant with God′s will, as revealed by textual re‐examination of the Bible, notably the Old Testament, not merely as socially undesirable, by examination of four central themes: (1) the Old Testament characterization of God as hater of exploitation, lover of justice, and Liberator of the oppressed; (2) the Biblical depiction of the character and methods of oppression and exploitation and the identification of oppressors and oppressed; (3) the Old Testament model of stages in the liberative process and vision of a future society characterized by peace, freedom, justice, equality, community, and prosperity; (4) significant elements of continuity between Old and New Testament on these issues.

This research theorizes the condition of human beings reduced to being users (and only users) in human-computer interaction (HCI), a condition that favors them becoming objects or targets of commercial dark patterns, racialized profiling algorithms, generalized surveillance, gendered interfaces and heteromation.

The reconceptualization of the users’ condition is done by confronting HCI theories on users with a dialectical-existential perspective over human ontology. The research is presented as a conceptual paper that includes analyzing and revising those theories to develop a conceptual framework for the user oppression in HCI.

Most HCI theories contribute to the user oppression with explicit or implicit ontological statements that denies their becoming-more or the possibility of users developing their handiness to the full human potential. Put together, these statements constitute an ideology called userism.

HCI needs to acknowledge its role in structuring oppression not just in sexism, racism, classism and ableism, but also the specific relation that pertains to HCI: userism. Similar to other fields, acknowledging oppression is the first step toward liberating from oppression.

The user is an existential condition for HCI theories, yet few theories can explain in depth how this condition affects human development. From the dialectical-existential perspective, the user condition can be dehumanizing. Computers may intensify existing oppressions through esthetic interactions but these interactions can be subverted for liberation.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework for democratize inclusively through participatory and deliberative apparatus.

The paper draws on literature from inclusion in deliberation, gender in participation and intersectionality to critically analyze the democratic deepening. By bringing into dialogue with one another “the norm of parity of participation” (Fraser, 2006), “communicative democracy” (Young, 1993) and the “matrix of domination” (Collins, 1990) a response to one of the questions that has been put to European and North American thought in democracy since the 1960s is proposed: how is it possible to democratize inclusively?

The reproduction of domination through apparatuses for the extension of democracy is both possible and probable. So, to democratize inclusively, it is necessary to bring the theories on vertical and horizontal inclusion into dialogue with each other. With the aim of establishing a dialogue between the two, it is necessary to export complex thought regarding oppression and inequality into the design of deliberative and participatory apparatuses. For that, consider that designing democratization processes based on the fact that the intersectional experience of oppression is not an exception but rather an everyday occurrence allows participatory procedures to be made more inclusive.

This paper proposes a tool designed with a focus on dialogue among the norm of parity of participation, communicative democracy and the matrix of oppression, based on 11 direct questions for the inclusive design of deliberative or participatory procedures. Facilitators, experts and social agents involved in deliberative or participatory processes will be able to use this question-based instrument in their work.

This paper has applied value because it offers a conceptual key to the design of and thought about participatory inclusive processes. The originality of this approach lies in its shift away from partial analyses of horizontal and vertical inclusion. It is of use both to facilitators of participatory processes and educators and researchers concerned with democratization. It offers an instrument for working on reflexivity with regard to inclusion in democratic extension, based on a series of key questions that can be used as a checklist. In comparison with other forms of considering inclusion in democracy, the proposal considered includes complex thought on oppression based on the critique of simple identity, as well as on an intersectional perspective.

This chapter explores the challenges for the application of the concept of disability to other categories of oppression utilized in the notion of intersectionality.

The concept of intersectionality argues that oppression occurs within the contexts of class, race/ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. We raise questions about the applicability of intersectionality to persons with disabilities. Using a Symbolic Interactionist approach to understand the matrix of domination or subordination, we examine how well disability as a category of disadvantage applies to intersectionality.

We argue that the fluid, heterogeneous, and discordant status characteristics, physicality, and diagnostic ambiguity of disability present a considerable challenge for the application of intersectionality as a useful paradigm for disability studies. While several ascribed statuses may contribute to the oppression of persons with disabilities, disability itself offers many unique challenges to understanding the intersection of these traits in the lives of these same people.

The conceptual uniqueness of disability produces rather complex methodological circumstances for understanding the social identity of persons with disabilities who are simultaneously members of additional categories of oppression. These complex and challenging methodological issues can best be met qualitatively, i.e., by approaching disability as lived experience.

For students of intersectionality, this chapter offers a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the concept of disability as a category of oppression.

The authors explore the entanglement of smartphone technology and power in this paper. This paper explores the following question: In what ways does the actualization of smartphone affordances result in empowering outcomes (i.e. increase or reduce oppression) in the daily lives of refugees? Leveraging both affordance and feminist theories, the authors develop a hybrid lens bringing attention to the contextualized relationship between social process goals and affordances for sociality, upon which the authors introduce the notion of “goal-affordance interrelations”. The authors then trace how the actualization of these interrelations increases or reduces oppression.

Using an abductive approach, the authors analyze 32 semi-structured interview transcriptions conducted with Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The analysis in this study reveals four categories of social process goals (meet financial needs, satisfy security needs, communicate and learn and maintain pre-existing social ties) that are intimate components of contextually meaningful affordances. When actualized, the goal–affordance interrelations fundamentally shape refugee experiences of power outcomes. The findings suggest forms of empowerment where powerlessness, marginalization, violence and exploitation are perceived to be reduced. Actualization outcomes are also found to increase perceived oppression. Additionally, the findings reveal that not all interrelations are actualized, such that the anticipation of an oppressive power outcome may limit the actualization of affordances for sociality.

This research raises considerations concerning technology and oppression, and that efforts to empower refugees through technology should critically question whether the lived experiences of oppression will be reduced. The findings of this study reveal various forms of less empowering (i.e. oppressive) outcomes for the refugees sampled, they also point to the potential politicization of the actualization of goal–affordance interrelations.

This qualitative research study examines classroom observations and transcripts, teacher and student interviews and student writing to investigate how white English teachers can cultivate students’ critical literacies regarding race and oppression through classroom literature. As research and practice in the field of critical literacy has yet to effectively center black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) lives and histories, this study aims to expand on existing critical literacy research by examining how literature teachers disrupt the perpetuation of whiteness through literature instruction that explicitly grapples with race and structures of oppression.

This research examines the pedagogical practices of two white English teachers through a yearlong investigation of classroom instruction and curriculum in an urban high school in a large Northeastern city. The overarching question of this study asks, how do white English teachers cultivate students’ critical literacies regarding race and social justice through classroom literature? Additional questions that guided this study are: How do students in these classes learn about structures of oppression? What language is used in these classrooms to discuss ideas about power? What texts and materials do these teachers use to engage students in critical literacy practices?

The findings of this study provide insight as to how white English teachers can foster students’ critical literacy development regarding race and oppression through their pedagogy and curriculum. The two teachers’ introduction of critical language and frameworks in the classroom supported students’ ability to critically engage with classroom literature and with their own social worlds. In addition, these teachers’ practices emphasize the need for white teachers to decenter their own knowledge and identities to effectively foster students' critical and sociopolitical development.

This research responds to McLean et al.’s (2021) call for a disruption of the “perpetuation of Eurocentric, hegemonic perspectives by white scholars” in the field by centering race in approaches to critical literacy development in the classroom. By analyzing data from classrooms in the same school with distinct curricular approaches, this study examines not only what but also how educators are teaching in classrooms designed to cultivate students’ critical and sociopolitical development through English Language Arts. This study offers hope for developing critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies among non-BIPOC educators who teach Black and Latinx populations.

Desistance is increasingly conceptualised as a theoretical construct which is used to explain how offenders orient themselves away from committing crimes. Previous studies suggest that successful desistance occurs due to one or a number of factors. These factors include things such as: faith (Giordano et al., 2007); a rite of passage (Maruna, 2010); gender (Giordano et al., 2002); psychosocial processes (Healey, 2010); personal and social circumstances which are space and place specific (Flynn, 2010); ethnicity and faith (Calverley, 2013); race and racialisation (Glynn, 2014). However, to date there has been little work undertaken to examine how notions of “intersectionality” may be a more appropriate theoretical lens through which to locate and contextualise the understandings of desistance when looking at marginalised populations such as black offenders. Intersectionality is an understanding of human beings as shaped by the interaction of different social locations. These interactions occur within a context of connected systems and structure of power. Through such processes independent forms of privilege and oppression are created. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper concludes with a perspective that envisions moving towards an “intersectional model of desistance for marginalised groups such as black offenders”.

It is the author’s view that the development of a intersectional model of desistance for black offenders may begin a dialogue that further pushes the study of re-entry and desistance into an area that transcends the criminal justice system and locates itself firmly within the civil and human rights of black offenders, and indeed, offenders as a whole. It is hoped that by using intersectional approaches when conducting inquiries we will be able to lead towards eradicating multiple oppressions faced by so many sections of the offender populations and the communities they come from.

This paper is positional inasmuch as it attempts to establish some, principled arguments to advance the study of desistance. Therefore, a testing of the views expressed in the paper is required.

It is the author’s contention that for those black offenders who desire to quit crime, there needs to be networks and activities that not only support their desire to desist, but a radical reframing of how interlocking oppressions that render them subordinate must become a key driver for the desistance project. How can/do black offenders acquire and tell their own authentic narrative when it has been shaped by a history of oppression? It is therefore right to assume that meaningful reintegration of black offenders back into communities requires a deeper commitment to culturally competent rehabilitative processes, that could lead towards a culture of desistance.

An “Intersectional Model of Desistance” also needs to challenge some white criminologists’ claims by validating the black contribution to criminological theorising. This position should embrace and include perspectives which unify theoretical positions that validate interlocking oppressions; racism, poverty, ethno-cultural group membership, etc., where the broader distribution of opportunities across society, and the ability to recognise them as such as opportunities for black men to desist are taken into consideration. As part of a process of rehabilitation, black offenders need to be engaged with intersectional institutional processes and practices that will lead to a challenge of their criminal values and behaviour, designed to increase their capacity to consider desistance. It is hoped that by using intersectional approaches when conducting inquiries we will be able to eradicate multiple oppressions faced by so many sections of the offender populations and the communities they come from.

Understanding how the experiences of black offenders, are impacted by examining interlocking oppressions of criminal justice processes; police, courts, incarceration, probation, etc., would critically assess how these intersections enhances or impedes the desistance trajectories of black offenders, in relation to offenders as a whole. As much of black offender lived reality centres on having to contend, not just with criminal justice process, but the additional oppression of racialisation, the outcomes become more heavily context dependent and driven.