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Abstract: This study undertakes a conceptual journey—metaphorically mapped along a river—to explore the Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) through the lens of assemblage thinking. By focusing on how these environments are built and organized, the research contributes to the broader discourse on the development of intra-active citizenship within ILEs from the perspective of new materialism. The aim is to reveal new synergies and build upon the existing body of literature in this field. Employing a comprehensive rhizomatic review, the study analyzed 45 documents using a Spinozist-Deleuzian toolkit grounded in new materialist thinking. The findings indicate a shift towards the idea of infra-assemblage, which plays a key role in how these environments come together. Using Hjelmslev’s linguistic model, the study explored how ideas move through four different research strata. The results highlight the need to consider social mobility when forming [minor] citizenship within ILEs, particularly in relation to gender, race, ethnicity, and physical ability. These factors are closely linked to how well educational institutions can adapt to larger social and cultural changes, especially regarding themes such as posthumanism and neoliberal influences. By introducing a new framework for understanding ILEs, this research provides valuable insights into the ethical and political aspects of knowledge creation and offers methods that are relevant to this field of study. PubDate: 2025-07-01
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Abstract: In this article, we present an ongoing researcher practitioner partnership (RPP) that, among other goals, is aimed at better navigating top-down oversight from the ground up by leveraging critical connections between teachers. The Teacher Leadership Institute for Equity (TLI) works to support the development and sustained efforts of teacher leaders to ameliorate inequities within their local school communities. By centering teachers as leaders, TLI allows for sustained and scalable change to occur through the creation of equity impact communities (EICs) within individual schools. Over time, the goal is for the development of EICs within multiple schools to create a ripples of change throughout our district—designing upwardly to scale that results in site specific equity-based solutions across a multitude of school communities. PubDate: 2025-06-30
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Abstract: Despite the growing gap in educational opportunities and outcomes, very few policy initiatives have effectively addressed the pertinent issues faced by African American males. The inability to execute meaningful policy targeted explicitly towards African American males has resulted in their prolonged status as endangered. In 2014, President Obama created the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) initiative as a public–private partnership designed to improve the educational and economic opportunities for young boys and men of color. By situating MBK within broader frameworks of neoliberalism and targeted universalism, this Critical Policy Discourse Analysis uses a Critical Race Theory lens to critically examine the textual, linguistic, and rhetorical mechanisms embedded in its policy discourse. In doing so, this study answers the call for a more critical engagement with policies aimed at addressing the problems of African American boys and young men. Findings highlight three interlocking discursive patterns within MBK’s discourse that reinforce the neoliberal ideology in the policy design: (1) the reliance on race-neutral language, (2) the perpetuation of deficit narratives, and (3) the operation of neoliberalism through market-based frameworks. These findings challenge the presumed inclusivity of the targeted universalism policy framework of the MBK initiative, highlighting the need for a race-conscious, equity-driven approach to education policy reform. PubDate: 2025-06-30
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Abstract: As a collective, African Americans and their language(s) are no stranger to shared struggle in education. Black students, Black Language, and their ways of knowing, are in search of solidarity in a language education that honors their race, their culture, and their linguistic flexibility. An antiracist language and literacy education that pledges itself to the fight for linguistic justice commits to honoring the humanity of Black students. To provide an antiracist language and literacy education is to teach in a way that respects and cares for the souls of students in language arts classrooms. In this paper, I examine antiracism as a pedagogy within the institution of education by providing an overview of research on antiracist language and literacy education. Antiracist Pedagogy aims at transformation by challenging the individual as well as the structural systems that perpetuate racism (Kailin, 2002; Blakeney in JCP 2:119–132, (2005)). Specifically, I address an antiracist language and literacy education from a pedagogical approach, an Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy (Baker-Bell, 2020), that centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, and intellectual needs of Black students and Black Language speakers. The language and literacy education of Black students requires an approach that names, interrogates, and dismantles the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language speakers experience in and out of schools (Baker-Bell 2020). PubDate: 2025-06-28
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Abstract: In response to racial and cultural inequities that persist in areas of curricula and school-family partnerships, this study examines how parents’ perspectives (including primary caregivers) on their children’s experiences in one Freedom Schools program in a mid-sized urban city informs the ways traditional curriculum and pedagogy might be more fully centered on Black and Latinx families and their communities. Through analysis of parent interview data using theories of culturally relevant teaching and critical literacy, the following themes highlight significant aspects anchoring their children’s experiences: (1) Families feeling valued through the Freedom Schools approach, (2) Parents’ awareness, appreciation, and excitement around their children’s literacy experiences, and (3) Community-centered experiential learning. Implications focus on parent-school relationships, literacy education, and curriculum and pedagogy in traditional school spaces. Implications include parent-school relationship terms that are on shared, reciprocal ground and that begin with valuing families’ life experiences and histories. Additionally, centering culturally relevant literature to cultivate critical literacy must become a priority if youth are to engage in meaningful reading experiences that transcend school-home boundaries. Finally, parent perspectives could act as critical leverage for shifting traditional school curricula, an aim that continues to require more force and momentum in the movement toward equity- and justice-centered schools in urban communities. PubDate: 2025-06-28
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Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Drawing from anticolonial scholarship, critical race theory, and critical youth studies—this paper positions youth inquiry as a form of resistance to schooling. Youth resistance communities represent learning contexts that insist on the immediacy of challenging the pain of normative schooling through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Our driving research questions were: (1) What is the capacity of inquiry to operate as a form of resistance' and (2) How does youth inquiry disrupt normative schooling' To answer these questions we pulled from ethnographic projects with youth conducting YPAR across multiple sites. Findings illustrate how youth inquiry operated as resistance to the violence of invisibility, resistance to the violence of standards/standardization, and resistance to the violence of youth-adult power dynamics. PubDate: 2025-06-18
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Abstract: In the United States, legislatures, boards of education, and governors have established various educational policies. However, in recent times, there has been a rise in policy efforts aimed at prohibiting discussions deemed “divisive” regarding race and racism. Considering the increasing prevalence of these policies nationwide, it is essential for education policy research to focus on this area. Utilizing critical policy analysis approaches with conceptual insights from the Narrative Policy Framework and Critical Race Theory (CRT), we examined the policy language of “anti-CRT” policies across 17 different states and found that these policies were intrinsically racialized and explicitly designed to maintain current racial hierarchies. The study’s results also highlight the pervasive presence of neoliberal racism in the policymaking process within education. As we discuss, these findings lay the groundwork for further investigation into the salient and often harmful impact of neoliberal educational policies on students and schooling communities more broadly. We conclude this work by providing recommendations for combating the continued propagation of racist educational policies and practices in K-12 schooling. PubDate: 2025-06-15
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Abstract: This qualitative case study focuses on the impact of neoliberal education reform on an urban charter school serving students of Color. This study has two main objectives: to examine how neoliberal reform influences the goal-oriented actions of data meetings (DMs) in an urban elementary school and engages in a formative intervention methodology to collaborate with educators in addressing(mediating) our assumptions around the ways of measuring what students know and learn, paying particular attention to how teachers’ language and decisions reflect neoliberal ideologies. Cultural historical activity theory methodology and an expansive learning cycle provide a framework to collect and analyze data of teachers’ goal-oriented actions in the context of neoliberal reform and standardized testing to aide in understanding and interpreting joint activity systems in educational institutions. The study’s significance lies in the potential for intentional teacher learning activities that challenge and transform the marginalizing effects of neoliberal education reform, particularly in relation to standardized testing at the intersections of race and ability. Key findings of the study are the complex challenges educators face in balancing accountability policy requirements with the unique needs of their students. It emphasizes the importance of professional learning that moves away from individual performance toward collective agency. PubDate: 2025-06-13
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Abstract: This paper explores what educators articulated and perceived about their knowledge, beliefs, and mindsets (KBMs) to engage in racial equity practices aimed at closing opportunity gaps in their schools. Our research team utilized cognitive interviews (Drennan in J Adv Nurs 42:57–63, 2003) to gain insight into the educators’ KBMs about racial equity in their roles as teachers, school leaders, and aspiring school leaders. The data collected and analyzed from the cognitive interviews are part of a larger, multi-phase project designed to develop and validate a survey instrument to assess educators’ perceived KBMs regarding racial equity. In this paper, we focused on six educators who participated in the study. Their roles included school leaders, teachers, and aspiring school leaders working in urban schools. The findings suggest discrepancies in the educators’ preparation programs, which influenced how the educators engaged and negotiated racial equity practices in their classrooms. Additionally, participants discussed how their identities, their students’ identities, and various contextual factors shaped their practices. Lastly, we discuss the implications for teachers, school leaders, and program coordinators of educator preparation programs. PubDate: 2025-06-12
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Abstract: In this qualitative study, I center two pre-service Latina teachers who attend a Hispanic-serving institution in a major urban city in the Southwest to illustrate their aspirations to become teachers in their communities. Using “care” as a conceptual lens, I discuss that, besides merely caring about children, these two women were inspired to become teachers because of the care they received from their own teacher(s) thus, in their own future classrooms, they aim to enact culturally affirming and relevant care with students and families. This is an important experience that Latinas bring with them into teacher education and their future classrooms because they understand from lived experiences the contextual factors that contribute to student learning and the need for more critical forms of caring in our urban schools. However, while well-intentioned, this goal of Latina pre-service teachers may perpetuate expectations which often place further taxation and increased roles for them as teachers. Given this implication specific to Latina pre-service teachers, preparation to prevent excessive emotional labor is much-needed in the teacher education field for their persistence. PubDate: 2025-06-11
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Abstract: This study examined the Racial Equity Consciousness Institute, a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative founded by Ron Idoko in 2020 at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Race and Social Problems. Using cognitive-behavioral principles, RECI aims to address systemic racism and its effects on communities of color. The research investigated how undergraduate students at an urban university processed and engaged with RECI material and how their insights—particularly the qualities that enabled meaningful understanding and application—could enhance the program’s relevance and adaptability for broader audiences. Employing a qualitative methods approach, the study analyzed discussion board reflections from 19 consenting students enrolled in the RECI undergraduate course, uncovering four key themes: Openness, Objectivity, Operationalization, and Optimism. These themes highlighted students’ ability to balance reflective learning, critical self-awareness, and practical application, demonstrating an approach that deepened engagement compared to prior RECI cohorts. Storytelling and empathetic dialogue emerged as pivotal tools, underscoring the importance of fostering connections across diverse perspectives. By situating these findings within a lifelong, transformative learning framework, the study offers actionable insights to improve DEI initiatives, making them more impactful and inclusive across age groups and contexts. PubDate: 2025-06-10
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Abstract: This article juxtaposes neoliberal, high-stakes accountability policy solutions within an urban school with findings about a humanizing professional learning community offered during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of a paradigm shift to ameliorate inequities embedded within P-12 urban schools. PubDate: 2025-05-30
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Abstract: The persistent teacher diversity gap in U.S. urban schools has spurred interest in Grow Your Own (GYO) initiatives, which aim to recruit and prepare local community members as teachers to address both workforce shortages and the cultural mismatch between educators and students. While these programs hold promise, their potential is often undermined by the influence of neoliberal policies that prioritize standardization, market-based choice and competition, and technocratic accountability. This article situates GYO initiatives in the context of current reforms and critically examines their broad appeal through the lens of critical race theory and interest convergence. Findings highlight how core aims of GYO intersect with core elements of neoliberalism in adverse ways, such as commodifying teacher diversity to improve test-score outcomes and to staff under-resourced schools while perpetuating inequitable working conditions and diminished collective power for teachers and their students. The discussion draws further attention to barriers that constrain GYO programs’ transformative potential to create and sustain diverse teacher pipelines. Ultimately, by interrogating deep tensions between the equity-oriented promise of GYOs and patterns of precarity in the wake of neoliberal reforms, the article offers recommendations for the design and implementation of GYOs that should be tied to broad justice-oriented advocacy projects and seek to empower teachers of color as agents of change rather than instruments of organizational compliance and productivity. PubDate: 2025-05-29
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Abstract: Teaching multilingual students from African immigrant and refugee backgrounds in the U.S. remains a persistent challenge for educators. Limited educational programs directly cater to the unique needs of these students, with a particular gap in addressing the educational needs arising from partially overlapping marginalized identities. Phenomenological study methods were employed to glean insights from three public secondary school teachers on their lived experiences with multilingual African immigrant and refugee background (AIRB) students. The study revealed that teacher preparation and professional development overlooked the experiences of AIRB students, and teachers struggled to embrace and accommodate classroom diversity while grappling with underlying structural obstacles impacting multilingual AIRB students. Teachers identified gaps in their training that affected their capacity to effectively meet the needs of multilingual AIRB students. Teachers' positionality and agency emerged as critical factors in addressing these needs. The findings underscore the importance of equipping teachers with the requisite skills to effectively navigate 21st-century classrooms, while also providing recommendations informed by teachers' insights. PubDate: 2025-05-29
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Abstract: This theoretical essay takes up charter schooling as a form of neoliberal educational reform. This essay grapples with multiple theoretical ideas to present a novel way of thinking about charter schooling, especially charter networks, as a form of racialized enclosure. This essay uses the concept of “the commons”—a form of communal wealth that historically nourished the masses—and applies it to public education. We do so to understand the charter school movement as a form of enclosure, a move towards taking a public good and limiting access to it to create a private gain. We argue that this process acts as a form of accumulation by dispossession that is racialized in how it is enacted. We present charter schools as a form of racialized enclosure that ultimately creates a privatized gain while ultimately failing to deliver on promises of better schooling, most frequently in urban spaces. We conclude with a brief section on resistance to charter schooling. PubDate: 2025-05-19
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Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways school leaders perceive and engage in community-focused, activist leadership in response to community needs. We rely on a critical qualitative research design that draws on critical urban theory. Sources of data include a pilot focus group, semi-structured in-depth interviews with activist leaders, and publicly available documents. Findings demonstrate the ways that leaders engaged in activism by developing understandings of the communities they served as a first step to activism, rooting their schools as a physical resource for communities, and responding to community needs via activist practices. Through their work, leaders intentionally countered the impact of white supremacist neoliberal policies that negatively impacted their school communities. Our research contributes to the growing scholarship of in-practice models of activist school leadership, highlighting the necessity for leadership practice that addresses the challenges of disinvestment and heightened resource competition in urban communities of color. Furthermore, this study advocates for an expanded concept of equitable school leadership that encompasses both in-school and community-focused justice work as to engage in wholistic school improvement. PubDate: 2025-05-19
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Abstract: This study conducted a meta-analytic case study of NAEP Trial Urban Data Assessment (TUDA) data, exploring science achievement trends among Black girls in urban versus larger city school districts (N = 26,298). Results revealed statistically significant but practically small differences in achievement (g = − .07), underscoring structural inequalities and systemic racism. The receivement gap between eighth-grade Black girls in urban districts and their large city counterparts widens despite similar performance across science content areas. Variations in district performance suggest complexities within urban contexts. Meta-regression analysis shows an inverse relationship between science performance and the proportion of Black girls receiving free or reduced lunch, highlighting the impact of resource disparities. Recommendations include targeted funding, culturally responsive teaching, professional development, and increased access to advanced courses to promote equity in science education for Black girls in urban settings. The study calls for further research and evidence-based interventions to address these educational inequities. PubDate: 2025-05-10
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