PRODUCTS

The Improvement Science Dissertation in Practice provides a narrative and illustration about the purpose and features comprising the Dissertation in Practice and how this culminating experience is well suited to using Improvement Science as a signature methodology for preparing professional practitioners. This methodology, when combined with the Dissertation in Practice experience in EdD programs, reinforces practitioner learning about and skills for leadership and change. As a guide, the book is an extremely valuable resource that supports faculty, students, and practitioners in the application of Improvement Science to pressing educational problems in a structured, disciplined way.

Improvement Science in Education: A Primer serves a simple but vital purpose: it provides a comprehensive explanation about the field of improvement science to both novices and current practitioners.

Improvement science is a methodological framework that is undergirded by foundational principles that guide scholar/practitioners to define problems, understand how the system produces the problems, identify changes to rectify those problems, test the efficacy of those changes, and spread the changes (assuming that the change is indeed an improvement). This Primer is specifically designed to introduce improvement science to educational audiences. Originally employed in such fields as engineering and health care, it has proven to be a very effective process for improving schools. The book first explores the philosophical and methodological foundations of improvement science, juxtaposing it with traditional forms of research so that clear distinctions can be drawn. It then guides the reader through the process of improvement. By providing many examples of strategies to achieve educational equity, the Primer illustrates the practicality of the method as a way to deal with today’s most pressing problems in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. It should be adopted in every classroom devoted to the topic.

New Directions for Theorizing in Qualitative Inquiry consists of thematic edited volumes that help us understand how to put qualitative inquiry into practice. The chapters in each volume, from established and emerging scholars, represent new directions for incorporating theory into justice-oriented qualitative research. It will reach a wide audience of scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences. The series aims to bring about experimental ways of reading lives so as to implement radical social change. In focusing on performance as resistance, the present volume features narratives, photographs, drawings, and performance autoethnographies.

New Directions for Theorizing in Qualitative Inquiry consists of thematic edited volumes that help us understand how to put qualitative inquiry into practice. The chapters in each volume, from established and emerging scholars, represent new directions for incorporating theory into justice-oriented qualitative research. The series is designed to reach a wide audience of scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences. The series aims to bring about experimental ways of reading lives so as to implement radical social change. The present volume takes theory as resistance as its focus, emphasizing how theory and pedagogy can work toward justice.

This book seeks to critically examine African Americans in higher education with an emphasis on social and philosophical foundations of Africana culture. This is a critical interdisciplinary study, which examines the collection, interpretation, and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data in the field of higher education. To date, there are not any single-authored or edited collections that attempt to research the logical and conceptual ideas of the disciplinary matrix of Africana social and philosophical foundations of African Americans in higher education. Therefore, this volume provides readers with a compilation of literary, historical, philosophical, and communicative essays that describe and evaluate the Black experience from an Afrocentric perspective for the first time. It is required reading in a wide range of African American Studies courses.

It’s clear that American public education has been under assault for more than the last 30 years. So much of the Age of Accountability has focused on blame, both of teachers and those who prepare them. Somehow, unlike in other professions, declarations were made to the effect that anyone could teach better than teachers, including business leaders and people from tony universities without teacher preparation.

The Age of Accountability scrutinizes the attack on teachers through weaponized data. While an effective corporate tool to improve bottom-line goals, its use in education became more sinister and misanthropic. International PISA scores imply the mediocre ability of American students, fueling a belief that American education needed more than an upgrade. The only answer that would placate many was a complete upheaval, a redefinition of a teacher and who should be permitted to become one. We teachers ceded authority to these business and legislative forces. Their subsequent fervor for testing overwhelmed teaching and drove the joy out of schooling for students. It is time for a recounting of what has been done to the profession and to our children. Young teachers need encouragement and veteran teachers need reminding of their valiant and effective efforts.

Remixed and Reimagined: Innovations in Religion, Spirituality, and (Inter)faith in Higher Education is a new edited book that invites readers to rethink and re-examine the traditional paradigms in which religion, spirituality, and interfaith (RSI) have been studied within higher education and student affairs settings. This volume introduces new theoretical frameworks that enrich and enliven the study of RSI, making it more dynamic, inclusive, and, most importantly, innovative. It is framed by a commitment to social justice and intersectionality, while centering the narratives of the religiously marginalized. The text is divided into two units. The first unit explores new and emergent frameworks for analyzing and interpreting RSI in higher education and student affairs. The second unit puts various theoretical frameworks into practice, while highlighting the often-marginalized voices of the religiously minoritized. The book concludes with a call for researchers to begin exploring the new proposed horizons within the study of RSI in higher education and student affairs. This text is perfect for graduate level seminars in higher education and student affairs programs. It is also an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars.

Mistakes We Have Made: Implications for Social Justice Educators is an edited collection from eleven authors with a wealth of experience teaching in K-12 schools and utilizing culturally relevant practices. This book is current with social justice research and strategies, while connecting to the audience through personal vignettes in each chapter. The personal connection of research supported ideas to help new teachers avoid the authors' early career mistakes in the classroom is at the center of this text. The content is organized into three themes: Inclusive Classrooms, Curriculum Implementation, and Professionalism. Reflection questions are provided at the end of each chapter, which will guide the practitioners to self-reflect and plan next steps accordingly. The e-book provides links to videos, strategies, articles, and other supplemental resources to make this text a “one-stop shop.” Mistakes We Have Made speaks to several audiences, from pre-service teachers to new teachers, to any practitioner that needs a new perspective on teaching with a social justice lens. It can be used as a text in a variety of college courses, professional development workshops, or as a gift for new teachers.

Focus Groups: Culturally Responsive Approaches for Qualitative Inquiry and Program Evaluation takes an in-depth look at how culturally-responsive focus groups are developed and implemented within the context of qualitative inquiry broadly, and program evaluation more specifically. The book showcases various forms of focus groups and how they can be responsive to specific communities across different disciplines. This book provides:

• an historical perspective on focus groups
• a theoretical foundation helpful for supporting focus groups with marginalized groups, vulnerable populations (older adults, children), and participants within non-Western settings
• basic procedures for conducting focus groups
• guidelines for cultural responsiveness and
• case examples of alternative approaches to focus groups that target specific communities and those in different contexts.

Donald Trump’s election forced academics to confront the inadequacy of promoting social change through the traditional academic work of research, writing, and teaching. Scholars joined crowds of people who flooded the streets to protest the event.

The present political moment recalls intellectual forbearers like Antonio Gramsci who, imprisoned during an earlier fascist era, demanded that intellectuals committed to justice “can no longer consist in eloquence ... but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, ‘permanent persuader’ and not just a simple orator" (Gramsci, 1971, p. 10). Indeed, in an era of corporate media and “alternative facts,” academics committed to justice cannot simply rely on disseminating new knowledge, but must step out of the ivory tower and enter the streets as activists.

The Activist Academic serves as a guide for merging activism into academia. Following the journey of two academics, the book offers stories, frameworks and methods for how scholars can marry their academic selves, involved in scholarship, teaching and service, with their activist commitments to justice, while navigating the lived realities of raising families and navigating office politics. This volume invites academics across disciplines to enter into a dialogue about how to take knowledge to the streets.

This volume on arts-based research explores the transformative power of arts for qualitative inquiry and beyond. The chapters address multiple approaches from within arts-based research and suggest that art can be mobilized to reorient the political, especially when we find the political aim straying from its proper target of truth and justice. Artistic representation is never an end in itself, for the goal is to change the way we think about people and their lives. Arts-based research makes the world visible in new and different ways, in ways ordinary scholarly writing does not allow. The Arts develops a utopian idea of belonging, illustrating how moments of history, biography, culture, politics and lived experience come together in the aesthetic. Ultimately, the content of the book examines how artistic insights resonate in arts-based research, something that not only gives us criteria for assessing the quality of ethical engagement in arts-based research practice, but also provides a conceptual framework for living more just lives through art.

The chapters in this volume collect together perspectives on Indigenous epistemologies. These Indigenous ways of knowing pay particular attention to the relational aspects of language, culture, and place. They are not identified as specific themes, but as integrated parts of a philosophy, for Indigenous epistemologies think within a relational framework, so that all aspects are best understood from this perspective. Indigenous ways of knowing have resisted colonization and oppression, and as such, Indigenous research perspectives exemplify a commitment to social justice, one that recovers knowledges that have been silenced or subjugated. When such knowledge is shared, we can see how to challenge oppressive regimes. We can see how to seek truth in a relational way that’s attendant to being together. Indigenous Research takes up issues of social justice in a way that is informed by Indigenous epistemologies, an important practice in contemporary research, particularly qualitative inquiry.

For the past 35 years, Scott Mandel has been teaching students in an urban Los Angeles school district. In addition, he instructs teachers in professional development courses. In those classes, he’s known for telling stories—stories gleaned from his time spent in the classroom. Classrooms in the Real World is a collection of many of those stories, presented as a set of teachable moments—a practical how-to book for new teachers, one based on interacting with kids on a daily basis. Rather than providing educational theories about what should be, Mandel shares real-life stories of how to relate to your students, administrators and parents, along with his thoughts on how to deal with the multiple curricular and classroom challenges that all teachers face in the real world. Chapters such as "Kids Don't Care How Much You Know As Long As They Know You Care," "Take Curricular Chances," "Administrators Want You To Succeed," "Keeping My Sanity All These Years," and “What Have I Learned” will give you the reader practical ideas, philosophies and encouragement from a long-time classroom teacher, someone still in the classroom sharing the lived experience of teaching in today’s school environment.

Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Teaching, Classroom Management, Student Teaching

The first wave of Black immigrants arrived in North America during the 1960s and 1970s, coming originally from the Caribbean. An opportunity was missed, however, in documenting their everyday experience from a social science perspective: what did it mean for a Barbadian or a Jamaican to live in Toronto or New York? Were they Jamaicans or did they go with the descriptor ‘Black’? What relationship did they have with African Canadians or African Americans? Black Immigrants in North America answers these and other questions while documenting the second wave of Black immigration to North America, which started in the early 1990s. Theoretically and empirically grounded, the book is a documentation of the process of becoming Black – a radical identity transformation where a continental African is marked by Blackness. This, in turn, leads to a deeper understanding of what it means to encounter that social imaginary of, ‘Oh, they all look like Blacks to me!’ This encounter impacts what one learns and how one learns it, where learning English as a Second Language (ESL) is sidestepped in favor of Black English as a Second Language (BESL). Learning becomes a political and a pedagogical project of cultural, linguistic and identity investment and desire.

Perfect for courses such as: Black Immigrants, Race Complexity, Critical Applied Linguistics, Ethnography, Graduate Course on Educational Foundations and Curriculum

As Jana Noel taught courses in Educational Foundations, she was constantly struck by the lack of attention to the development of education in California within the currently available Educational Foundations textbooks. As she and other teachers worked their way through traditional texts, they began asking their students questions such as the following. How has the unique, diverse social history of California impacted the development of its public schools? Did California have legalized school segregation? Is there anything about the political structure of California that may have an impact on education? How many times has California law changed to either allow or ban bilingual education? By simply raising questions such as these, Noel noticed a large increase in interest in what had often been considered dry subjects such as history, educational politics, and educational funding. California Foundations of Education addresses the lack of attention to California’s education within Educational Foundations textbooks. The ultimate goal of the book is to scrutinize how education in California has developed in relation to the unique, diverse social history of California.

This text provides a unique collection of case studies across a wide range of organizations (higher education, K-12 education, military, state and local government administration, non-profit institutions, and agency management, etc.). These cases examine ethical decision-making and organizational and leadership behavioral concepts that are practiced in these organizations. The cases cover topics facing our workforce today and ask the reader to solve the dilemma. Through a discussion of these cases, students apply decision making and organizational and leadership strategies to analyze each case and therefore gain a better understanding of how to effectively lead and manage within their organizations. This text challenges students to think critically and analytically. Students are encouraged to reflect on options a practitioner could use to solve the problem. All of the cases end with an open scenario and a set of questions, allowing students to offer a wide range of opinions and participate in reflective and robust discussions.

Perfect for courses such as:
Introduction to Ethics | Introduction to Ethical Decision-Making | Principles of Ethical Leadership
Ethical Organizations: Principles and Application | Introduction to Organizational Change

This extensive overview first surveys the history of general education in the United States. It discusses how the recommendations of stakeholder groups have shaped general education in recent decades. Subsequent chapters detail best practices and findings in the assessment of student learning as it relates to the general education curriculum across institutional types. The discussion then turns to the larger impact of general education on culture and society as students navigate life beyond the undergraduate experience. The final chapters will provide insight into how various institutions are innovating through the general education curriculum, as well as a discussion on the keys to maintaining the relevancy of this curriculum throughout the 21st century and beyond.

Perfect for courses such as:
Assessment of Student Learning | Higher Education Administration
Academic Issues in Higher Education | Introduction to/Foundations of Higher Education

The Last Ten Days: Academia, Dementia, and the Choice to Die is a heartrending memoir of love, scholarship, dignity, courage, and the choices one is forced to make when given the devastating diagnosis of a terminal illness.

Spanning sixty years, this extraordinary book recounts the love story of Martha Risberg Brosio and her husband, Richard Brosio, Ph.D., a brilliant scholar and college professor whose communication skills dazzled all with whom he came in contact. Teenage sweethearts who went their separate ways after high school, Martha and Richard reconnected twenty-six years later over a friendly dinner that sparked into passionate love. They married in 1983, enjoying a vibrant life.  

Then tragedy struck. In late 2013, Richard was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia, a type of dementia similar to Alzheimer’s that affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. The disease impacted Richard’s ability to communicate. Eventually, he would lose his verbal and processing skills. There was no cure. Determined to have a dignified death at the time and in the manner of his own choosing, Richard hastened his death two years after his diagnosis by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, seeking only palliative and hospice care until the end.

Reminiscent of Still Alice, The Notebook, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Breath Becomes Air, The Last Ten Days grabs the heartstrings and gives a mighty tug.

Researching Resistance: Public Education After Neoliberalism serves two vital functions. First, it explores, explicates, and encourages critical qualitative research that engages the arts and born-digital scholarship. Second, it offers options for understanding neoliberalism, revealing its impact on communities, and resisting it as ideology, practice, and law. The book delves into

• strategies for engaging neoliberalism
• the Black feminist cyborg theoretical assumptions and intentions of the ethnographic web-based film project
• the research and arts-based methodology that walks the fault line between film and ethnography, and
• the relationships between the researcher, the activist organizations, and the activism.

While the book will focus on neoliberalism within the realm of public education, the implications extend to many other areas of public life.

This is an excellent text for classes in qualitative research and public policy. It is the companion text to the digital native ethnographic film project entitled Public Education|Participatory Democracy: After Neoliberalism. 

Perfect for courses such as: Qualitative Research, Curriculum Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Sociology of Education, Social Justice and Education, Democracy and Civics, Community Engagement, Policy Studies, Service Learning, Education Reform, and Youth Advocacy.

Womanish Black Girls/Women Resisting Contradictions of Silence and Voice is a collection of essays written by varied black women who fill spaces within the academy, public schools, civic organizations, and religious institutions. These writings are critically reflective and illuminate autobiographical storied-lives. A major theme is the notion of womanish black girls/women resisting the familial and communal expectations of being seen, rather than heard. Consequently, these memories and lived stories name contradictions between “being told what to do or say” and “knowing and deciding for herself.” Additional themes include womanism and feminism, male patriarchy, violence, cultural norms, positionality, spirituality, representation, survival, and schooling. While the aforementioned can revive painful images and feelings, the essays offer hope, joy, redemption, and the re-imagining of new ways of being in individual and communal spaces. An expectation is that middle school black girls, high school black girls, college/university black girls, and community black women will view this work as seedlings for understanding resistance, claiming voice, and healing.

Perfect for courses in: Adolescent Development, American Studies, Black Studies, Educational Anthropology, Latino Studies, Multicultural Education, Social Foundations of Education, Sociology and Women's Studies.

In 1971, corporate lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote a detailed memo that galvanized a small group of conservative philanthropists to create an organizational structure and fifty-year plan to alter the political landscape of the United States. Funded with significant “dark money,” the fruits of their labor are evident today in the current political context and sharp cultural divisions in society. Philanthropy, Hidden Strategy, and Collective Resistance examines the ideologies behind the philanthropic efforts in education from the 1970s until today. Authors examine specific strategies philanthropists have used to impact both educational policy and practice in the U.S. as well as the legal and policy context in which these initiatives have thrived. The book, aimed for a broad audience of educators, provides a depth of knowledge of philanthropic funding as well as specific strategies to incite collective resistance to the current context of hyperaccountability, privatization of schooling at all levels, and attempts to move the U.S. further away from a commitment to the collective good.

Perfect for courses such as: Critical and Contemporary Issues in Education, Education Policy, Educational Policy Analysis, Social Foundations of Education, Philanthropy, Public Policy & Community Change, Philanthropic Studies, Sociology of Education, Politics of Education, Current Issues in Education, Government and the Mass Media, Polarization of American Politics.

A Paradise to Regain: Post-Obama Insights from Women Educators of the Black Diaspora seeks to avert the likelihood of erasure of President Barack Obama’s legacy of hope and possibility that every child, regardless of race, faith, and gender affiliation, can dream big and live to see his/her dream turn into reality. As women educators of color, we all agree that the socio-political climate prevailing in the United States of America, since the aftermath of the 2016 election, requires unprecedented agency. The book provides space for Black women educators–African Americans, Naturalized Black Americans, and Foreign-born Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean Islands and South America (e.g., Guyana)–to have a candid conversation with their young children—sons and daughters, nephews and nieces—about the roadblocks they are likely to face as minority youth of color in their pursuit of greatness and the reminder that they have a role model in President Obama to look up to in moments of extreme frustration and exasperation. Voices of engaged educators of color are indispensable to make sure that children understand that that despite a-360-degree turn from eight consecutive years of a reassuring message that “change had come”, that paradise had been gained, into the threatening message of “making America white again”, we count on them to regain the paradise.

Perfect for courses such as: Racism and Education Inequality in the Lives of African-American Youth, Introduction to the African Diaspora, Equity and Diversity in Schools, Place, Language, Power and Knowledge, Global and Multicultural Education in the Secondary School, Issues in Urban Education, Culture Power and Education, Social Class Education and Pedagogy, Language, Culture, and Education, The Politics of Literacy and Race in Schools, Race and Racism in Education and Society, Race, Ethnicity and Linguistic Diversity in Classrooms and Communities, and Education and Society.

The Educational Leader’s Guide to Improvement Science: Data, Design and Cases for Reflection is a collection illustrating applied organizational problem-solving using methods of improvement science in educational leadership. Early chapters introduce improvement science and then the reader is led through a logical sequence of inquiry, presented with cases of educational dilemma matched with principles of improvement science and provided examples of research methodology applied in context. Because improvement science research is so quickly becoming a signature pedagogy and core subject area of inquiry in the field of educational leadership, the literature is still scant in its coverage of improvement science models; it is the purpose of this publication to fill the void by providing concrete examples, through case studies, of instances where improvement research methods and analyses can be embedded to enhance and strengthen efforts at organizational improvement. This text concentrates on the elements faculty, students, and administrators need; specific models where improvement science frameworks enhance the reliability and validity of improvement or quality enhancement efforts.

Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Improvement Science, Seminar/Practicum in Educational Leadership, Introduction to Program Evaluation, Educational Research for Administrators, Action Research for School Practitioners, Educational Research, School Improvement, and Teacher Leadership.

Many people believe that “education” has a disproportionately negative effect on them and those close to them. With so much wealth, technological prowess, innovation, and economic development, why do we still have marginalization, social inequalities, conflict, mass incarceration and generational poverty?

The connection to democracy, Education for Democracy (EfD) and social justice is, for Carr and Thésée, clear, and this volume interweaves a narrative within these themes based on a Freirian theoretical backdrop. This book presents a vision for transformative education and EfD, seeking to cultivate, stimulate and support political and media literacy, critical engagement and a re-conceptualization of what education is, and, importantly, how it can address entrenched, systemic and institutional problems that plague society. Based on over a decade of empirical research in a range of contexts and jurisdictions, the authors strive to link teaching and learning with agency, solidarity, action and transformative change within the conceptual framework of a critically-engaged EfD.   

Perfect for courses in: Sociology of Education; Social Justice and Education; Democracy and Civics; Community Engagement; Education Policy; Service Learning; Education Reform; Citizenship Education; Transformative Education; Politics of Education.

This volume engages researchers with the notion of critical qualitative inquiry (CQI) as a direct practice of resistance. As female educators and researchers who have (through our politically activist sister) been referred to as “Nasty Women” in the US presidential debates, we believe that it is our responsibility to respond through our inquiry to the violent reinscription of intersecting forms of injustice and marginalization. The purposes of this volume are therefore (1) to demonstrate personal actions taken by researchers to deal with thoughts/feelings of despair as well as how to move toward survival, and (2) to explore historical, new, and rethought research and activist methodologies (frameworks) as counter measures broadly and for public education specifically. Examples of CQI as resistance in response to the particular neoliberal patriarchal, whitelash presidential election event are provided by featured authors. Additionally, resources related to activist scholarship are provided. These frameworks, resources, and perspectives are also useful for future research in reaction to neoliberalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.

Perfect for courses such as: Qualitative Research, Curriculum Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Sociology of Education, Social Justice and Education, Democracy and Civics, Community Engagement, Policy Studies, Critical Race Theory, Intersectional Studies, Posthuman Inquiry, and Activism and Performance Inquiry.

Student Activism in the Academy: Its Struggles and Promise is a wide-ranging, provocative survey of student activism in America’s colleges and universities that critically analyzes the contentious problems and progress of a movement that has stirred public reaction in and out of academe. Its fundamental purpose is to engage diverse publics in both reasoned and passionate reflection and soul searching on vital issues that surround campus protest. Thus, the essays in this volume respect the need to consider how to weigh freedom, fairness, safety, and protection inside and outside the walls of ivy. Their authors ponder the big picture of student activism, including:

• strategies for student activism
• the role of social media and technology
• legal questions on campus speech
• the dilemmas of political correctness
• generational differences among student activists
• and various forms of student protest related to race, class, gender, and disabilities.

Both professional and student voices prompt us to better comprehend academic realities with more hope and wisdom. Administrators, faculty, students, and student life personnel in higher education—indeed, all those interested in today’s colleges and universities--will want to participate in the timely and productive dialogue within these pages.  

Perfect for courses in: Higher Education and Society; Foundations of Higher Education; Legal Issues in Higher Education; College Student Development Theory; Academic Issues in Higher Education.

From Myers Education Press—the publisher who brought you such titles as A School with a View, Childhoods, and Student Activism in the Academy—comes a story or rather…a series of stories that are as out of this world as its protagonist. Long before he became a renowned Critical Studies professor at Chapman University, Peter McLaren was just another Toronto native trying to survive in a conservative working-class family. His father fought in WWII while his mother put food on the table, but—like his father—Peter was caught in his own battles dodging abusive teachers and navigating through an academic roller-coaster. Sure, his home life may be ripped from a '50s sitcom on the surface; but his background and the rest of his life from that point on was far from one…or maybe it was. This book chronicles Peter’s cross-country climb up the educational ladder as a teacher steeped in the school system, his encounters with various key players in history—from the Black Panthers to Timothy Leary, and everything else in between.

Perfect for courses such as: History of Education, Race and Ethnic Studies, Sociology of Education, Social Justice and Education, Democracy and Civics, Community Engagement, Policy Studies, and Critical Race Theory.

This new release of the classic text Pragmatism is absolutely timely. James' seminal statement of pragmatism's underpinnings and its treatment of essential philosophical questions (the nature of truth; the one and the many; free will; etc.) could not come at a more appropriate time. In a “post-truth” era of fake news, alternative facts, and a belief that "truth isn't truth," James' presentation of pragmatism as a method of adjudicating truth-claims is a must-read.

Perfect for courses in: Philosophy of Education (Graduate Level), American Philosophy (Graduate and Upper-Level Undergraduate), American Studies, Special topics class on William James or Pragmatism, Sociology of Education (Graduate Level), Religious Studies.

Contemporary political and socioeconomic conditions largely characterized by corruption and inequity have added new urgency to recurring calls for reorienting American public schools to their historic purpose: educating a citizenry both equipped and motivated to serve as the ultimate guardians of democracy.

While the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson, as well as the founders of public schools, including Horace Mann, explicitly stated that rationale, perhaps no one has done more than John Dewey to detail the inextricable relationship between education and democratic society. In Moral Principles in Education and My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey reminds readers of public schools’ original purpose, identifying specific educational principles and practices that either promote or undermine their essential democratic goals.

“There cannot be two sets of ethical principles,” he says, “one for life in the school, and the other for life outside of the school.” In these works and through such caveats, Dewey offers readers both the motivation to engage in the struggle for a new emphasis on educating for democratic citizenship and the guidance necessary to translate his theory into effective practice. 

Perfect for courses such as: Philosophy of Education, Teaching Methods, Principles of Teaching and Learning, Education Policy, Education Leadership, Education Foundations, Curriculum Theory and History, Curriculum Design, The Philosophy of John Dewey, and School Change/Reform.

The New Henry Giroux Reader presents Henry Giroux’s evolving body of work. The book articulates a crucial shift in his analyses after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attack, when his writing took on more expansive articulations of power, politics, and pedagogy that addressed education and culture in forms that could no longer be contained via isolated reviews of media, schooling, or pedagogical practice. Instead, Giroux locates these discourses as a constellation of neoliberal influences on cultural practices, with education as the engine of their reproduction and their cessation.

The New Henry Giroux Reader also takes up Giroux’s proclivity for using metaphors articulating death as the inevitable effect of neoliberalism and its invasion of cultural policy. Zombies, entropy, and violence permeate his work, coalescing around the central notion that market ideologies are anathema to human life. His early pieces signal an unnatural state of affairs seeping through the fabric of social life, and his work in cultural studies and public pedagogy signals the escalation of this unease across educative spaces. The next sections take up the fallout of 9/11 as an eruption of these horrific practices into all facets of human life, within traditional understandings of education and culture’s broader pedagogical imperatives. The book concludes with Giroux’s writings on education's vitalist capacity, demonstrating an unerring capacity for hope in the face of abject horror.

Perfect for courses such as: History and Philosophy of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Policy Issues in American Education, African American Education, Social Justice Research in Education, Marginality and the Politics of Resistance, Equity and Anti-Oppression, Cultural Studies and Public Pedagogy.

These are certainly troubled times in which neoliberal capitalist patriarchy and the tyranny of racism and domination are continually reinscribed on the bodies and lives of so many. However, critical researchers understand the necessity for, as well as the difficulty of, using research to facilitate public transformations that lead to increased justice and equity. The authors contributing to Making Research Public in Troubled Times: Pedagogy, Activism, and the Critical Obligations recognize the importance of diverse pedagogies, activism, and ethical choices regarding an environment that supports critical research in oppressive times. Diverse pedagogies that can facilitate the education of critical public researchers across disciplines are illustrated in the first set of chapters addressing questions like: What is important in teaching critical qualitative inquiry? How do students, materials, histories, and the public influence this teaching? What have we learned over years of attempting to teach critical qualitative research methods? The authors in the second section are activist local scholars sharing their projects and explaining what this work means for critical qualitative inquiry. This work includes methods used to incorporate critical qualitative inquiry into community activism. Finally, chapters in the last section focus on future steps and most important actions for the ways critical qualitative inquiry can be conceptualized to address concerns in these troubled times.

Perfect for courses such as: Qualitative Research, Curriculum Studies, Women and Gender Studies, International Studies, Social Work, Sociology, Higher Education, Community Engagement, Policy Studies, Service Learning, and Social Justice.

Some students enter classrooms with an “I dare you try to teach me” look on their faces, and others bounce into class excited to learn and anxious to please the teacher. We know we can’t automatically blame teachers or schools when students don’t want to learn. But we also know that sometimes teachers and schools don’t always set students up for success, and they don’t always help them love what they’re learning.

Why Kids Love (and Hate) School: Reflections on Practice investigates some of the school and classroom practices that help students love school—and some that send students in the opposite direction. Intended for classroom teachers, teacher education students, and school administrators, chapters in the book investigate a variety of topics: how schools can build effective school cultures, the “struggle” students encounter in learning, practices of other countries that help students love school, testing practices that cause students to hate school—and much more.  

Perfect for courses in: Introduction to Education, General Methods, Management/Assessment, Educational Research, Educational Administration/Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Curriculum Theory, Curriculum Development.

2019 SPE Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention

From the home of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project and non-profit community organization Padres Unidos, the Chapman University Padres Unidos Partnership presents this truly unique coffee table textbook, Let’s Chat: Cultivating Community University Dialogue – A Coffee Table Textbook on Partnerships. The volume presents a collection of community stories, concepts and analyses that highlight the journey of border crossings between two co-existing neighbors: a non-profit community organization and a university. Stories from community residents and faculty members represent how they disrupted the barriers that typically divide us by reconceptualizing how universities and communities can work together to reshape the intellectual landscape and reconfigure power differentials.

Written with and by the community, this book represents a break-away genre that privileges the “voices of the people” (Freire), accompanied by academic voices, in a format that is accessible, aesthetic and attractive to both community and university audiences. Cafecitos punctuate each chapter to elicit dialogue, reflection and action towards defining and developing community university partnerships.

This book will be useful to:
• academics interested in partnerships, public pedagogy, and community-based research
• students involved in community engagement/service learning
• community organizations
• immigrant families who reveal their wisdom in stories about self, others, and community building within the Chapman University Padres Unidos partnership

Let’s Chat presents valuable content in a new and unique format that makes it perfect for courses in: Service in Action; Leadership, Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility; Community-Based Research Methods; Introduction to Asset-Based Community Development; Community Service Internship; Community Leadership of Tomorrow; Becoming and Agent of Change; Cultural Diversity in American Education; Diversity and Equity in Education; Social and Philosophical Aspects of Education; Education and Economic Development.

Perfect for courses such as: Service in Action Practicum, Leadership, Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility, Community-Based Research Methods, Introduction to Asset-Based Community Development, Community Service Internship, Community Leadership of Tomorrow, Becoming an Agent of Change, Cultural Diversity in American Education, Diversity and Equity in Education, Social and Philosophical Aspects of Education, and Education and Economic Development.

A 2018 AESA Critic's Choice Award Winner
A 2019 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner

Teacher moonlighting has been studied and documented since at least the early 1960s, and yet, it can be easily argued that the phenomenon is still not understood. Teachers moonlight in higher numbers than other professions, and while most teachers claim that they do it for the money, increases in their compensation have not reduced the practice.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon is the first book to provide a thorough review of the research on the topic, looking deeply into the intricate workings of a profession that is at least imperiled or, in the best of scenarios, a profession that is in transition. Teachers play a critical role in society, so teaching needs to be a sustainable profession where teachers may still moonlight, but the opportunities to expand the status as well as the content and context of their work are unlimited. This book will fill an important gap in the literature by bringing together the research and situating it within a broader conversation about teachers’ work.

Perfect for courses such as: All undergraduate and graduate Foundations of Education courses, Introduction to Education, History and Philosophy of Education, and Teacher Leadership.

2019 SPE Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention

To be able to promote effective anti-colonial and decolonial education, it is imperative that educators employ indigenous epistemologies that seek to threaten, replace and reimagine colonial thinking and practice. Indigeneity and Decolonial Resistance hopes to contribute to the search for a more radical decolonial education and practice that allows for the coexistence of, and conversation among, “multiple-epistemes.” The book approaches the topics from three perspectives:
• the thought that our epistemological frameworks must consider the body of the knowledge producer, place, history, politics and contexts within which knowledge is produced,
• that the anti-colonial is intimately connected to decolonization, and by extension, decolonization cannot happen solely through Western science scholarship, and
• that the complex problems and challenges facing the world today defy universalist solutions, but can still be remedied.

Indigeneity and Decolonial Resistance is an excellent text for use in a variety of upper-division undergraduate and graduate classrooms. It is also a valuable addition to the libraries of writers and researchers interested in indigenous studies and decolonialism.

Perfect for courses such as: Anti-Colonial Thought, Indigenous Knowledges, and Decolonization, Education, Social Development, and Social Justice Research in Education, Race, Indigeneity, and the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Marginality and the Politics of Resistance, Indigenous Settler Relations Issues for Teachers, Education Leadership, Reform, and Curriculum Innovation, Leadership in Social-Change Organizations, Adaptive Leadership: Power, Identity, and Social Change, Equity & Anti-Oppression in Practice and the Promise of Diversity: Addressing Race and Power in Education Settings, Strategies and Policies for Narrowing Racial Achievement, and Major Concepts and Issues in Education.

This collection consists of theoretical discussions, personal reflections, research reports, and policy suggestions sourced in the experiences of our most vulnerable students with an eye to making schools places all students might love rather than hate. The essays take up these issues from the perspectives of poverty, gender, race, ethnicity, ability, language, and religion among others.

These essays also provide practical advice for teachers and administrators—both practicing and pre-service—for making classrooms and schools spaces that would encourage our students to say, “I love school.”  

Perfect for courses in: Introduction to Education, General Methods, Social Foundations of Education, Diversity, Management/Assessment, Philosophy of Education, Sociology of Education, Educational Research, Educational Administration/Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Curriculum Theory, and Curriculum Development.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, not only captures the experience of African Americans in the years following the Civil War but also speaks to contemporary conditions. At a time when American public schools are increasingly re-segregating, are increasingly underfunded, and are perhaps nearly as separate and unequal as they were in earlier decades, this classic can help readers grasp links between a slavery past and a dismal present for too many young people of color. Disagreeing with Booker T. Washington, Du Bois analyzes the restrictiveness of education as a simple tool to prepare for work in pursuit of wealth (a trend still very much alive and well, especially in schools serving economically disadvantaged students). He also, however, demonstrates the challenges racism presents to individuals who embrace education as a tool for liberation. Du Bois’s accounts of how racism affected specific individuals allow readers to see philosophical issues in human terms. It can also help them think deeply about what kind of moral, social, educational and economic changes are necessary to provide all of America’s young people the equal opportunity promised to them inside and outside of schools.

Perfect for courses in: Social Foundations of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Foundations of American Education, Foundations of Education, Introduction to Education Theory and Policy, Philosophy and Education, History of American Education, and African American Education. 

Some hundred years after John Dewey worked to illuminate what it means to educate and how public education serves as the bedrock of democracy, his seminal Democracy and Education speaks urgently not only to critical contemporary educational issues but to contemporary political issues as well. As mania for testing forces a steadily narrowing curriculum, Dewey explains why democracy cannot “flourish” if “the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses.” As such utilitarian subject matter is increasingly placed online, isolating individual students and their electronic screens, he insists that education happens not through direct instruction but “indirectly by means of the environment” where members of a community engage in meaningful tasks. As the American population appears increasingly subject to rhetorical manipulation and ideological extremism, Dewey imagines the possibility of education cultivating “habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder.” Insightful and inspiring, Dewey’s classic reintroduces readers to educational and political possibilities hard to remember as political and corporate forces to work reshape American public schools in the service of global profit rather than democratic life.

Myers Education Press’s Timely Classics in Education offer readers the opportunity to return to the original works of giants whose influence on education have persisted through the years. Critical introductions to each work offer information on the context of the original work as well as insights into current relevance. For readers unfamiliar with each text, the introductions provide entrée to the work; for experienced readers, the series offers an opportunity to return to original works untainted by the distortions of decades of interpretation. Unlike poorly produced facsimile editions, Timely Classics are high-quality products. They can be adopted for use in many types of education classes.

Perfect for courses in: Social Foundations of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Foundations of American Education, Foundations of Education, Introduction to Education Theory and Policy, Philosophy and Education, History of American Education, and The Philosophy of John Dewey. 

For scholars interested in the intersection of writing and online instruction, Writing in Online Courses: How the Online Environment Shapes Writing and Practice examines both the theoretical and practical implications of writing in online courses. The essays in this collection reflect upon what the authors have learned about the synergistic way that writing helps to shape online instruction and how online instruction helps to shape the writing process.

While many educators continue to question the reasons for teaching online, these essays demonstrate the useful ways in which it enhances and informs student writing and learning. From the vantage point of different disciplines, the authors examine how the writing process is revealed and changed when it is placed at the center of an online learning environment. These scholars and practitioners attest to the multiple ways that teaching online has enabled them to rethink how writing functions in their classes, allowing them to pursue educational goals and student outcomes that may have been more difficult or even impossible to pursue in the traditional classroom. 

Perfect for courses in: Writing and Emerging Technologies, English Online, Topics in Composition and Rhetoric, Approaches to Teaching Writing, Technology in the Classroom, Educational Technology for Teaching and Learning, Foundations of Distance Education, Composition Theory, Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition, Writing and the Teaching of Writing. 

A 2018 AESA Critic's Choice Award Winner
A 2019 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner

How is it, this text asks, that given such good intentions among education professionals, things in schools can go so very wrong?

The problem, Hinchey and Konkol posit, is that unspoken and misleading assumptions result in choices, decisions and policies with disastrous consequences for kids. They tease out those assumptions on the key issues of school goals, curriculum, education for citizenship, discipline, and school reform, inviting readers to think again, to question the taken-for-granted, in the hope of better aligning intentions and outcomes.

This book is the perfect text for both undergraduate and graduate classrooms devoted to the study of public education. Questions at the end of each chapter point to ways for preservice and inservice teachers, as well as administrators and other education personnel, to advance their thinking about choices in their own contexts. In addition, suggested readings, websites and videos offer more food for thought.

Perfect for courses such as: Social Foundations of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Foundations of American Education, Policy Issues in American Education, Political Issues in American Education, Educational Policy Studies, Foundations of Education, Foundations of Education Policy, Intro to Curriculum Issues/Policy, American Education Policy and Reform, Introduction to American Education, Introduction to Education Theory and Policy, Contemporary Issues in American Education.