This article introduces the life and work of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871-1944), a Japanese teacher, school principal, educational philosopher, author, activist, and Buddhist war resister. Quite likely, readers are unfamiliar with Tsunesaburo Makiguchi or his ideas. His writings on education covered three main areas, human geography, community…

This theoretical article explores the Bakhtinian concept of voice from the perspective of Makiguchi's philosophy of value in the context of Japanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) education. Bakhtin conceptualized a dialogic process of multiple voices within an individual or a society. For the conflict between different voices in a particular…

Many have suggested that issues of democracy are fundamentally related to school curricula and contexts (Conant, 1948; Dewey, 1944; Dimitriadis and Carlson, 2003; West, 2004). Current social theorists have suggested that a globalized social, economic, and cultural structure has necessitated a rethinking of the relationships between individuals,…

America's sense of community is broken down; its sense of connectedness and the collective is "collapsing." That these senses ever existed is a matter for considerable debate. But, as the new millennium gains momentum and neoliberalism seeks expansion, the author argues that a focus on rekindling these concepts of community, connectedness, and the…

In the past few decades, a constructivist discourse has emerged as a very powerful model for explaining how knowledge is produced in the world, as well as how students learn. Constructivists believe that what is deemed knowledge is always informed by a particular perspective and shaped by various implicit value judgments. However, there is an…

This article explores the history of human capital in the United States in relation to scholarly study of the private economic returns to higher education. The focus of this study is the private economic returns to subbaccalaureate education in two-year community and technical colleges. This article argues that although there are some beneficial…

In this article, the author reflects on how people "think" the university in terms of certain borders, and how the foundational faculty of education are positioned with regard to these borders and structures, and what that might mean in terms of the conflicts within which they find themselves embroiled at this point in history. Ultimately, his…

Educational research suggests that the response biases of educators can negatively influence student performance and aptitude (Blanchett 2006; Bloom 2001; Darity et al. 2001; Gordon 2005; and Skiba et al. 2000). This article introduces "good enough methods" for autoethnography as an alternative approach to this problem. Luttrell (2000, 13)…

Many teacher educators recommend that preservice teachers examine their own backgrounds and experiences to identify assumptions, beliefs, and values, as well as cultural contexts in which they grew up, which impact on how they understand schooling and students. Commonly, Social Foundations courses initiate self-examination through processes such…

The Christian Right opposes the inclusion of sexual orientation in school policies, charging that the schools are legitimating and promoting homosexuality. The arguments have moved past the trite, "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," to claims of violations of parental rights and the First Amendment, often positioning Christians as the…

In this article, I argue the proposition that educators ought to be including a serious consideration of intelligent design as a counterexample to the scientific explanations of human origins. The article first distinguishes between three different ways people ask "why": the Scientific Why, the Ultimate Why, and the Teleological Why. Although…

This synthetic review aims to unite a seemingly disjoint collection of studies over the past 3 decades around their shared examination of sexism in an often overlooked U.S. population, namely girls attending private Christian schools. This undertaking reveals substantial harms that I categorize as those of immediacy and potentiality, which are…

In this article, I add a discursive analysis to the discussion about Muslim girls and women's dress in non-Muslim educational contexts. I argue that a law or policy that prohibits the wearing of "khimar," "burqa," "chador," "niqab," "hijab," or "jilbab" in the context of public schools is a form of censorship in educational contexts. This…

Religious pluralism led to the colonies' separation of church and state by 1776, to Mann's campaign for common schooling, and to the complete secularization of public schools by 1900. The dependence of Western theology upon untenable Greek metaphysics justifies an explanation that the evolutionary purpose of religion was to promote personal…

This article discusses what David Berliner (2005) has called the perverse "spectacle of fear" (208) surrounding issues of teacher quality and accountability in contemporary school reform. Drawing principally on the critical semiotics of Roland Barthes' essay, "The World of Wrestling" (1957), it examines the way that this spectacle works to…