The current study explored coach training and experience, and individual identities and roles that youth sport coaches hold as well as how they enact social justice within youth sporting communities. Using convergent mixed-methods design, critical consciousness (Freire, 1970) was the theoretical framework and method of analysis for this study. Forty-seven participants responded to this open-ended survey; 85.1% of coaches reported coaching part-time, 59.5% of the sample were volunteer coaches, and 33% of coaches had less than 1–3 years of coaching experience. Findings revealed a majority White (69%) and Majority Male (61%) sample of youth sport coaches and described coaching identities were categorized into multiple and intersectional (Women of Color; n = 5) identities. Emic coding through cross-analysis of open-ended questions suggested a deeper understanding of coaches’ connection to community in relationship to how coaches described identities. These were coded as Coach-Centered Coaching , Limited Connection, or Synthesizing Connection. Furthermore, community-based sport coaches were engaging in and enacting social justice within youth sporting communities in ways that mirror critical consciousness patterns of dialogue, reflection, and action. The theoretical implications of this study expand the application of societal roles, more specifically the role of a youth sport coach to the theory of intersectionality. This study supports past literature that found that youth sport coaches are dissatisfied with the education they receive; thus these findings inform suggestions for how to make coaching education more relevant and accessible. Empirically, study findings suggest that the underresearched area of youth sport coaches’ identities may be related to the depth of connection coaches have to community, impacting the holistic developmental outcomes of participating youth athletes. Practically, this study delivers a critical pedagogy framework for community-based coaching education that blends the personal (identity and role development) and professional (coaching specific knowledges). Results of this study can inform future empirical research of youth sport coaching and intervention development that theoretically considers the integration of intersectionality with critical consciousness.

Current events and social movements aimed at bringing awareness to oppressed groups have reminded us that the United States has still not achieved justice and equality for all. Social and political tensions have become inescapable in our increasingly connected world. Therefore, students need to learn about diverse ways of knowing and being in a pluralistic society. Since publishing and education companies compete for business, the amount of digital and print resources available to teachers can be overwhelming. Because a vital component of a multicultural education includes diverse materials that authentically portray views and experiences from a wide range of cultures, traditions, and values, it is necessary to critically analyze the curricular content that teachers are expected to use in their classrooms. The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature that is included in district-approved book lists for public schools to determine how these texts support the principles of multiculturalism and multicultural education in sixth-grade classrooms. The tenets of critical multicultural analysis (CMA) guided this critical content analysis. Because teachers in these districts are limited to choosing books from approved lists to read with their students, the texts for this study were selected from approved literature lists that were provided by three public schools in North Texas. Although previous research on curricula and textbook analysis is available, little of that research analyzes approved literature lists in public schools. Since school districts are preparing to teach changing demographics and are striving to become more equitable, this study can offer insight into how the chosen texts align with broader district goals for meeting the academic, social, and emotional needs of each student.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur lärare i ämnet samhällskunskap förhåller sig till normkritisk pedagogik, samt hur de uppfattar att deras förhållningssätt präglar den samhällskunskapsundervisning som sker. Syftet är också att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar lärarnas förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik. Normkritisk pedagogik handlar om att visa sätten som olika normer interagerar och skapar obalanser i makt samt om hur dessa normer kan utmanas inom undervisningssammanhang (Bromseth & Darj, 2010, s. 13). Samhällskunskapslärare som undervisar i årskurs 7-9 har besvarat en kvalitativ enkät om deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik. Samhällskunskapslärarnas svar har analyserats utifrån flera bakgrundsfaktorer för att undersöka eventuella variationer i deras förhållningssätt utifrån deras bakgrund. Dessa bakgrundsfaktorer var ålder, kön, yrkeserfarenhet, behörighet och ämneskombination.  Samhällskunskapslärarna har till stor del positiva uppfattningar av begreppen normkritik och normkritisk pedagogik, vilket medför att majoriteten av samhällskunskapslärarna arbetar med normkritisk pedagogik i hög utsträckning eller i mycket hög utsträckning. Studien visar även en viss relation mellan ålder och kön som bakgrundsfaktorer för i vilken utsträckning som samhällskunskapslärarna arbetar med normkritisk pedagogik. Ett resultat var dessutom att de studerade samhällskunskapslärarna anser att deras personliga bakgrund har påverkat deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik i högre utsträckning än styrdokumenten. Faktorer som samhällskunskapslärarna själva menar har påverkat deras förhållningssätt är deras personliga bakgrund, didaktiska reflektioner, samhället och eleverna. Samhällskunskapslärarna nämner emellertid inte styrdokumenten som en viktig påverkansfaktor. Majoriteten av samhällskunskapslärarna menar dessutom att deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik påverkar deras samhällskunskapsundervisning. Studien indikerar även en viss relation mellan kön som bakgrundsfaktor och i vilken utsträckning som samhällskunskapslärarna menar att deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik påverkar deras samhällskunskapsundervisning. Flera samhällskunskapslärare betonar emellertid att andra faktorer än deras förhållningssätt påverkar deras val av ämnesinnehåll och undervisningsmetoder. Dessa faktorer är styrdokumentens centrala innehåll och/eller den aktuella elevgruppen.  Studien visar även att det är möjligt att styrdokumenten, lagar och institutioner kan påverka samhällskunskapslärares förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik utan deras medvetenhet. Studien visar emellertid även att majoriteten av samhällskunskapslärarna menar att deras personliga bakgrund påverkar deras förhållningssätt, vilket i sin tur påverkar den konkreta samhällskunskapsundervisningen. Styrdokumenten, diskrimineringslagen och Skolverket som institution fungerar därmed som ramar som påverkar och reglerar samhällskunskapslärares förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik och deras samhällskunskapsundervisning. / The purpose of this essay is to investigate how teachers in the subject of social studies approach norm-critical pedagogy, and how they perceive that their approach characterizes the social studies teaching that takes place. The purpose is also to investigate which factors influence the teachers’ approach to norm-critical pedagogy. Norm-critical pedagogy is about showing the ways in which different norms interact and create imbalances in power and about how these norms can be challenged in teaching contexts (Bromseth & Darj, 2010, p. 13). Social studies teachers who teach 7-9 graders have answered a qualitative questionnaire about their approach to norm-critical pedagogy. The social studies teachers’ answers have been analyzed on the basis of several background factors in order to investigate possible variations in their approach based on their background. These background factors were age, gender, professional experience, eligibility and subject combination.  The social studies teachers have to a large extent positive perceptions of the concepts of norm criticism and norm-critical pedagogy, which causes the majority of the social studies teachers to work with norm-critical pedagogy to a high extent or to a very high extent. The study also shows a certain relationship between age and gender as background factors for the extent to which the social studies teachers work with norm-critical pedagogy. A result was also that the social studies teachers believe that their personal background have influenced their approach to norm-critical pedagogy to a greater extent than the steering documents. Factors that the social studies teachers themselves believe have influenced their approach are their personal background, didactic reflections, the society and the students. However, the social studies teachers do not mention the steering documents as an important factor. The majority of the social studies teachers also believe that their approach to norm-critical pedagogy affects their social studies teaching. The study also indicated a certain relationship between gender as a background factor and the extent to which the social studies teachers believe that their approach to norm-critical pedagogy affects their social studies teaching. However, several social studies teachers emphasize that other factors than their approach influence their choice of subject content and teaching methods. These factors are the central content of the steering documents and/or the students.  The study also shows that it is possible that the steering documents, laws and institutions can influence social studies teachers’ attitudes to norm-critical pedagogy without their awareness. However, the study also shows that the majority of the social studies teachers believe that their personal background influences their approach, which in turn affects their social studies teaching. The steering documents, the Discrimination Act and the Swedish National Agency for Education as an institution thus function as frameworks that influence and regulate social studies teachers’ approach to norm-critical pedagogy and their social studies teaching.

A decline in the number of vowed religious who teach and administer in Catholic high schools has placed the responsibility for transferring the founders’ Charism, the traditional mission and identity of the schools, in the hands of lay educators. This study examined how one Catholic independent single-sex high school established programs and methods to transfer the founders’ Charism to its lay educators and students in the areas of social justice, diversity, and social and political awareness. The researcher collected data about Charism transference by interviewing five adults selected as a purposive sample and conducting focus groups with 15 students selected on a nominative basis. Additional research included prolonged researcher emic observation and an analysis of school documents and archives; the data were codified and an emergent analysis of the data was performed. The analysis focused on social justice, diversity, and social and political awareness at the school. Informing the analysis were the theories of Catholic Social Teaching, critical pedagogy, and liberation theology. The emergent analysis identified that the school institutionalized the founders’ Charism, established an atmosphere of care for others in the areas of social justice and diversity, and promoted awareness of feminine identity and a sense of students as leaders, as well as an understanding of social justice and diversity issues. However, factors including social reproduction, social capital, cultural capital, and class complicated the transformational praxis of action in the areas of social justice and political and social awareness.

As a committed social justice educator, I share in this dissertation a theoretically informed instructional autoethnography of my time teaching and researching as a Language Arts and Speech teacher across two different public high schools and two different school years. My story of learning to embody the values and practices of progressive teaching arises from the central research questions: "How can I, a self-identified progressive Language Arts educator committed to social justice, learn to implement critical, democratic, responsive, and holistic pedagogy as a public high school teacher in this particular region at this time in U.S. public education? And, within these particular schooling cultures, what aspects of these schooling environments support or inhibit my ability to perform as a progressive educator?" Responding to critiques of public schooling policy and practices, my work is grounded in theoretical commitments of progressive education articulated by the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and those North American educators who have brought his libratory praxis forward into what I call connected, social justice pedagogy.

This study explores the teaching practices and labor conditions of media and communication adjunct faculty at three universities. Since the late 1960s, the number of faculty who are part-time and contingent is increasing and adjuncts are now more than 70% of college and university faculty (AAUP, n.d.). In this study, I examine the neoliberal university’s reliance on the teaching labor of part-time faculty and interrogate the use of adjunct labor for skills-based, vocationally oriented elements of the media and communication curriculum. The history of higher education, the literature of teaching and learning, and the theoretical frameworks of Bourdieu’s practice theory and Freire’s critical pedagogy situate this qualitative study of adjunct faculty teaching practices and labor conditions. A multi-method approach includes textual analysis of course syllabi and university documents; eight interviews with administrators, department chairs, sequence heads, course directors, and university leadership; three interviews with union activists; eleven interviews with current or former adjuncts; semester-long participant observation of teaching practices of thirteen courses taught by nine adjunct faculty; and three student focus groups with nineteen total participants. This study reveals media and communication adjuncts as key members of the academic community who apply student-centered practices and who are responsible for important elements of the curriculum, and at the same time, marginalized as a flexible, on-demand, and disposable labor force that serves the neoliberal university. This study offers insights to improve the labor conditions of adjunct faculty. I conclude that the COVID-19 global pandemic and the disruption of higher education’s normal tempo reveals a changing higher education landscape with threats of financial exigency and increased precarity for all faculty. / Media & Communication

No description available.

<p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p> <p>This dissertation is a philosophical inquiry into the pragmatics of emotion as an inherent dimension of the learning self (Ellsworth, 2005). This inquiry first establishes the socio-political context regarding emotional responses to critical forms of pedagogy currently rising across the United States. Secondly, this inquiry explores philosophical conceptualizations of emotions as pedagogical within the fields of public pedagogy, affect theory, and arts-based educational research, as well as the paradigmatic contexts underlying these philosophies. Finally, this inquiry “thinks-with” (Jackson & Mezzei, 2017) these conceptualizations by enacting an affective pragmatic inquiry, centering emotions and embodied experiences of learning through my own neurotypicality as pedagogical inquiry via an arts-based empirical component, consisting of my enrollment in a community pottery class over the course of 40 weeks. I advocate for the need to reconsider the current paradigm around critical forms of pedagogy toward a pragmatist paradigm that uses emotions and value systems of learners to facilitate ethical pedagogical <em>response</em>-abilities (Haraway, 2016) for what to do, pragmatically, with complicated knowledge about social problems that result in ideological and axiological impasses. </p>

Contemporary Hip-Hop scholarship has revealed that Hip-Hop is a racially diverse, youth-driven culture, and is intimately connected to prior and on-going social justice movements (Chang, 2004; Kitwana, 2002). This study explores its Afro-Diasporic and activist origins, as well as the theoretical impact of Hip-Hop culture on the identity and pedagogy of educators belonging to the Hip-Hop generation(s). This qualitative study also examines how Hip-Hop culture impacts educators’ identity, politics and personal pedagogy, while seeking to create a new model of Social Justice Hip-Hop Pedagogy. This study was produced through twenty-three in-depth interviews with influential Hip-Hop educators (Aberbach & Rockman, 2002) from diverse backgrounds and geographic locations. There are currently limited theoretical and conceptual frameworks in the literature supporting the use of Hip-Hop as Social Justice Pedagogy, yet is currently being used in K- 16 educational contexts throughout the United States and abroad (Akom, 2009; Duncan- Andrade & Morrell, 2008). The results of this study reveal the foundational basis consisting of four primary core functions and seven practical tenets, necessary to negotiate and implement a new and innovative model for Social Justice Hip-Hop Pedagogy.

Lisa Delpit points out that when process pedagogues ignore grammar in their teaching of writing, they further the achievement gap between students of a variety of backgrounds. She then argues for a grammar/skills based pedagogy rather than process pedagogy in order to bridge the language differences students bring to the classroom. On the other hand, progressive-minded educators deeply question if skills pedagogy could ever transform unjust social conditions and relationships. Grammar pedagogy may potentially empower an individual's chance at social mobility, but what about the need for social change and respecting language diversity? Both sides of this important debate assume that grammar is a skill and that to teach grammar to writers is skills-based teaching. I challenge these assumptions in my qualitative teacher inquiry, prompted by this question: What difference would it make if the way I practiced grammar became more in tune with my beliefs about critical literacy practice? My dissertation takes up this question by arguing for a curriculum that links grammar and critical thinking and reporting on a qualitative study of this curriculum in action in my Basic Writing classroom. For this curriculum, I consciously engage theoretical micro-perspectives informed by a social semiotic view of grammar and language, explained in my dissertation as Critical Grammar. Such theoretical ground builds on the pedagogical grammars of Martha Kolln and Laura Micciche as well as the critical classroom and research practices of Min-Zhan Lu and Roz Ivanic. I then research Critical Grammar, my theoretical term, through a case study approach to my classroom, specifically through inductive, comparative analysis of how writers discuss sentence-level options and drawn on arhetorical, rhetorical, and critical reasoning in sentence workshops. My case study methodology helps me discover the effects of such discussions on a writer's final draft. Each case traces the process of composing and revising the sentence from first to final draft of an essay, drawing from the writer's process reflections, feedback from me and peers, and class workshop discussions of the sentence. In this way, the mini-cases capture how writers authorized themselves and responded to each other in ethical and resourceful ways. These case studies challenge notions that a teacher's knowledge of grammar should be in service of identifying error patterns and teaching editing skills. In sentence workshops, writers take responsibility for their sentence-level choices and authorize themselves through their ideas, often resulting in dynamic class discussions that inform their writing in a range of ways, the least of which is error reduction. In discussing choices of wording or arrangement, for instance, they would link to issues of a writer's ethos, questions of who/what has the authority for setting language standards, and cultural beliefs. At the same time, based in this research, errors were found to be implicit in Critical Grammar, leading toward further consideration concerning the function of error in Critical Grammar pedagogy. Finally, Critical Grammar was determined to be most successful when it complemented the ideological aspects to an existing curricular perspective on language.