In the last four years, teacher-activists in the United States have engaged in an unprecedented wave of protests and strikes. The developing body of literature seeking to understand this flurry of activity has taken various analytical approaches; for example, distilling movements into their key tactics in the hopes of lending important tools to…

Although U.S. schools grapple with persistent racial inequities, niceness, a socioemotional way of being that privileges whiteness, regularly impedes equity efforts in K-12 and teacher education settings. In the Midwest, niceness is uniquely rooted in a historical "obsession with public civility" (Cayton & Gray, 2002, p. 159) that…

This essay explores the history of activism among students of color at the University of Oregon from 1968 to 2015. These students sought to further democratize and diversify curriculum and student services through various means of reform. Beginning in 1968 with the Black Student Union's demands and proposals for sweeping institutional reform,…

This manuscript examines how national reading policies in the United States shape specific kinds of civic identities for K-12 students. We engage in a thematic discourse analysis of two contemporary national policy documents--the "Common Core State Standards" ("CCSS") and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…

This paper draws on the concepts of settled expectations and the educational racial contract to provide an analysis of the current social movements calling for the improvement of teacher salaries and work conditions in K-12 schools. This paper argues that some teacher unions' lack of centering race in their advocacy to ameliorate educational…

The last few decades have seen increasing attacks on educators' right to participate in formal unions. Given the all-time low of formal union power in the United States and the success of anti-union efforts (Shelton, 2017), how and why have the educator uprisings manifested so intensely in the last few years? This article draws, in part, on a…

Public school teachers around the country are engaged in strikes. They walked out of their classrooms and schools to gain attention from state legislators, and not just for better salaries and benefits for themselves (although most Americans agree that teachers need better pay). Teachers are calling attention to a sticky problem in American public…

This paper analyzes the work of Herbert M. Kliebard, not only as a curricular historian, but also as a curricular theorist. We focus on his approach to studying the history of education and curriculum as a methodological framework for understanding the purpose of education. Next, we explore two important curricular events in the 1930s: The…

Michael Thier proposes that in a world beset by the opportunities and challenges of globalization, Global Citizenship Education (GCE) can instill the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and dispositions to live, learn, and work. In one of many global citizenship conceptualizations, Oxley and Morris (2013) present four cosmopolitan dimensions--political,…

The co authors of this article write that their own roles as teacher educators, student advocates, and social movement workers provide motivation for engaging in critical conversations to make sense of education in the era of Trump. They wonder how they should engage pedagogically with their contemporary political movement deep in the heart of…

It's too soon to know what will define Donald Trump's presidency, but one of the defining characteristics of his campaign was a near-total disregard for facts. According to PolitiFact ("Donald Trump's file," n.d.), about 70% of Trump's statements have been either mostly false, completely false, or outright lies. Candidate Trump wasn't…

For the last century, the quality of large-scale assessment in the United States has been undermined by narrow educational theory and hindered by limitations in technology. As a result, poor assessment practices have encouraged low-level instructional practices that disparately affect students from the most disadvantaged communities and schools.…

This paper situates recent changes in educational policymaking, especially the increased use of the ballot initiative, within larger historical trends related to democratic engagement in policy development. I conduct an integrative literature review that combines conceptual analyses with findings from empirical investigations into new policymaking…

In this article, Dr. Malott challenges the conclusion that the primary factor that led to Trump's victory in the 2016 United States presidential election was the racism of poor whites. Rejecting this position for its capitulation to bourgeois caricatures of segments of the working class, Malott points to the fall of communism for a more…

The purpose of this article is to re-conceptualize the definition of classroom management, moving away from its traditional definition rooted in discipline and control toward a definition that focuses on the creation of a positive learning environment. Integrating innovative, culturally responsive classroom management theories, frameworks, and…