Critical pedagogy

To address learning needs and learning interests among college level history students, a curriculum reliant on critical pedagogical and critical thinking and historical thinking exercises was explored. These exercises combined to form critical historical analyses. Critical historical analyses are reports on current and relevant sociological problems influenced from historical factors. Such reports reflect developed historical literacy. In this research, six critical historical analyses exercises were combined into a curriculum and instructional toolbox that was utilized to strengthen the historical literacy of two groups of college students enrolled in separate sections of an American history course. Once students engaged with critical pedagogical and critical thinking and historical thinking exercises featured in the critical historical analyses exercise toolbox, new learning emerged that gave students opportunities to develop critiques and conduct
dialogic and writing activities using history content.
Pedagogical exercises involved the history instructor engaging students initially in dialogic exercises and then moved to writing content. The history curriculum prompted non-history major college students, divided into advanced dual enrolled high school students and traditional state college students, to learn how to think in depth about societal issues linking the past and the present. Students then strengthened habits in how to identify relevant problems rooted from history and how to practice constructing modern solutions to problems.
The aim was to help students establish their critical voices and enhance their historical literacy to ultimately cultivate critical historical literacy. Critical historical literacy among these students reflected abilities to interpret historical data through critiquing lenses that focused on social justice and societal progression while developing skills to construct defensible critical narratives with historical evidence. In the process, students cultivated critical historical literacy on the foundation of engaging with the six critical historical analyses toolbox exercises on which this study centered.

Given the demands of the era of accountability and standardization, the purpose
of this study was to explore how educational leaders construct their identity and agency.
The study utilized overlapping post-structural and critical theoretical frameworks on
identity and agency to analyze how high school principals interpret and enact
comprehensive school reform rhetoric and their state’s educational leadership standards.
In addition to several cycles of coding, a critical discourse analysis was performed with
the input of the participants’ high schools in order to further analyze the form and
function of discourses, socially situated meanings, and ideologies that constitute being an
educational leader and doing the work of an educational leader.
The findings from the study revealed that the high school principals discursively
construct their professional identity and agency by engaging in discourses and social
practices related to managing the personnel, numerical data, and external expectations of
the organization. As a result, the participants use the comprehensive school reform rhetoric as a way to legitimize and rationalize their duty as educators. The socially
situated meaning attributed to the state’s educational leadership standards is not as clear,
with the participants dismissing their value for a lack of context. In interpreting and
enacting the school reform policy mandates set forth by the district and the state,
principals conserve a corporatized model of school leadership that borrows much of its
neoliberal language from the business sphere. The principals are positioned as mid-level
managers, confirming Foster’s (2004) description of the contemporary school leader who
is preoccupied with controlling the numeracy, information systems, and language of the
organization.
Future research should focus on performing critical discourse analysis studies
with the upper levels of management, including, but not limited to, the central office and
the office of the superintendent, as a way of exploring a more transcendent meaning of
schooling and school leadership that focuses on human development. This study has the
potential to provide leadership preparation programs and policymakers significant insight
into the problems, paradoxes, and possibilities of school reform rhetoric and its impact on
local school leaders.

This mixed methods study of teachers' beliefs about Advanced Placement (AP) equity and access policies occurred in Sunshine County School District, a large south Florida school district that had received accolades for leading the nation in access and equity in AP. Drawing on social reconstructionism, this study framed AP as an acceleration mechanism with the potential to increase students' prospects for social advancement. These policies have resulted in a more diverse classroom experience through nontraditional student participation in AP courses. The purpose of this embedded case study was to examine the relationship between beliefs held by AP teachers in regard to the implementation of equity and access policies, as well as to what extent these beliefs may support or hinder the execution of such policies and procedures. The study occurred in three phases and consisted of document analysis, a survey and interviews. Surveys collected from 176 AP teachers in the district yielded quantitative data on AP teachers' beliefs regarding equity and access and the subsequent implementation of equity and access policies. Qualitative data regarding beliefs surrounding equity and access policies and the potential challenges these policies may pose were collected through open-ended survey questions, document analysis, and interviews with eight teachers at two selected high schools representing the highest and the lowest access rates to AP in the district. The findings indicated that AP teachers support equity and access policies in AP. Despite these beliefs, there is evidence that such policies are not consistently implemented across schools and particularly in STEM-related content areas. The analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data led to the conclusion that the historic tension between elitism and equity that surrounds the AP program currently is fueled primarily through state accountability measures. Implications and suggestions for future research are related to policy changes regarding the revision of the state of Florida grading system and district-level procedural changes in relation to the design of school-based professional development and development of clear AP pathways that support access among underrepresented students.

This qualitative study was conducted to develop a better understanding of the
place of praxis in higher education women’s studies programs in the U.S. Built upon
theories of feminist pedagogy, feminist praxis, activism, experiential education, and
academic service-learning, the research explores how praxis is reflected and taught in
women’s studies programs, how these programs impact students’ understanding of
feminist theory and practice, and what factors affect the implementation of action-oriented
pedagogy. Examples of several action-oriented projects that have successfully
been implemented in women’s studies courses are offered, and a case study demonstrates
the impact of these projects. The methods used include document review of women’s
studies mission statements and syllabi, and interviews with women’s studies faculty and
alumnae. The interview data were coded and analyzed using a grounded theory approach.

President Obama’s 2014 “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative responds to the continuing educational disparities that the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to have addressed. The preoccupation with standardized testing and accountability over the past decade has revealed evidence of disparities in achievement between Black male students and their White counterparts. Critical Race Theorists have framed these persistent disparities as evidence of the opportunity gap and have advocated culturally responsive pedagogy that would facilitate students’ academic success.

This quantitative, non-experimental study was conducted to investigate the link between school principal influence actions, climate, culture, and school performance. Additionally, this study sought to determine if the influence of these variables or the relationship among them is altered by individual and/or institutional characteristics. The first phase of the study was conducted to determine whether or not the Customer Survey aligned to distinct dimensions. Two factors were identified: Staff Attitudes and Student Disruptions. The second part used regression to examine the relationships among four constructs and test the seven hypotheses.

This study aims to analyze three popular U.S. children’s TV shows – Dora the
Explorer (Nickelodeon), Maya & Miguel (PBS) and Handy Manny (Disney Channel) – in
terms of their incorporation of Spanish. Qualitative and quantitative measures were used
to assess the frequency and types of code switching both in the context of bilingualism
and language pedagogy. The study revealed different strategies of language choice and
socio-cultural objectives for each show. A close analysis of language choice in the three
children’s TV programs revealed distinct approaches to TV writing in the name of raising awareness of ethnic diversity, developing cultural literacy, and brand marketing.

This study investigates the dominant discourse of the failure of public education and the 'reform du jour' response ; and seeks ways school leaders could disrupt and transform to create possible alternate discourses for schools. This critical autoethnography included interviews, a focus group, document analysis and a research journal permitting participant research at the heart of a high school reading department. The data were synthesized in ways that made sense of power, practices, and culture allowing the personal to become valid data. ... This narrative illustrated the complexity of the emotional context and illustrated how school leadership discourse could turn the dialogue away from an economic and back to a teaching and learning relationship. The narrative aimed to give rise to a counter narrative, but found that the site of the high school reading department was currently too confused, too complex and too contradictory to establish any meaningful conclusions for its future that are not underpinned by extensive reforms designed to end its isolation.

The purpose of this study was to discover how ethnicity, gender, and mentoring influenced the career experiences of Jamaican administrators in Sunshine County Public Schools (SCPS), a pseudonym that was used for a large public school district in Florida. This qualitative, phenomenological study focused on the career experiences of eight Jamaican administrators in SCPS. Seven of the participants were all native-born Jamaicans and one was a first generation Jamaican, born in England to Jamaican parents and raised in Jamaica until the age of 14. The researcher gained this understanding by interviewing participants in-depth about how their Jamaican ethnicity, gender, and personal mentoring experiences impacted their personal and professional journey as administrators in SCPS. Findings and conclusions will inform mentoring and educational leadership literature on strategies for success geared toward this understudied population.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the development of global-mindedness (GM) in the leadership of primary schools offering international educational programs around the world with an emphasis on the need for school leaders that understand and support the development of a critical, global perspective of education. Reported findings identified the presence of the five dimensions of global-mindedness as well as the relationships between demographic variables such as travel experience, second language ability, and years of teaching experience. The findings also reported positive relationships between the subscales of Hett's (1993) Global-Mindedness Scale and the attributes of international-mindedness as defined by the International Baccalaureate's learner profile. The results of this study are intended to advance knowledge of the development of global-mindedness for school leaders around the world.