Search results for making sense of rac

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

In these times, decisions large and small can have important consequences for educators. Everything from daily curricular choices and interpersonal encounters to long-term educational aims and approaches to educator-client relations is up for careful decision-making. While not every professional decision requires careful preparation and defense, more than ever, in our increasingly polarized, distrustful, and argumentative world, many more than we might anticipate do. How should educators prepare to make careful, defensible public decisions affecting their students and themselves? An important part of that preparation involves training in a range of logical and interpersonal abilities that come before and help to make good educational decisions. A Preface to Educational Decision-Making is aimed at describing those abilities, illustrating their professional uses, and providing a starting point for increasing educators’ practical skills in applying them.

What are these abilities? For the most part, they involve common-sense attention to the ways that educators can become clearer about the nature of actual decisions they are asked to make, and aware of what must be done to make those decisions ones that all concerned can recognize as reasonable and as logically presented, even if not universally agreeable. In short, these are factors that provide, for decision-makers and their audiences, a preface to decisions that matter to those who make them and to those affected by them. A most important, though widely ignored set of those abilities center on making the nature of particular decisions clear to all concerned. Those abilities involve becoming sensitive to the ways such decisions can become or can be made to be unclear. In the give and take of public educational decision-making processes, bad decisions are often, even usually begin with confusion over what is to be decided and over what is proposed as the decision to make. The ability to get clarification, and the habit of clarifying before committing are crucial to good decision-making. A second set of preparatory abilities involve recognizing what must be done to actually decide what is true and/or advisable, as part of a decision at hand. Making what is recognized as a reasonable and well-reasoned decision depends in large part on applying those abilities clearly and often publicly.

These two large sets of abilities are crucially connected. Making clear to oneself and to others what is to be decided is part and parcel of becoming aware of how to decide an issue at hand. This book works to explain the connections and to describe the order of their application. While most of these abilities have been described in other texts on what is usually called “informal logic,” A Preface to Educational Decision-Making is especially concerned with the sorts of decision that educators are called on to make in their professional lives. Moreover, this book widens the range of abilities to clarify and support professional decisions beyond what is usually discussed. The sections on educational speech acts and on deciding what to call true or advisable provide useful additions to educators’ repertoire of decision-making abilities. Finally, the discussion of interpersonal factors in public decision-making offers useful guides to reaching decisions with other educators and with clients.

Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Education; Philosophy; Social Foundations, Methods Courses in Education; Pre-student Teaching; and most Graduate courses in Educational Theory, Curriculum, Social Issues

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 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.

2025 SPE Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention

The IMPACT of the Scholarly Practitioner Doctorate: Developing Socially-Just Leaders to Make Equitable Change is a collection of shared counternarratives between EdD alums and their supervising professor mentors, detailing their dissertation in practice (DiP) journeys as scholarly practitioners and the impact of the scholarly practitioner doctorate on their paths from doctoral students to socially-just leaders in a wide range of educational fields. The IMPACT of the Scholarly Practitioner Doctorate posits these relationships as the catalyst in bringing theory learned in course work to scholarly research that is positioned within practice, focused on contributing to equity-centered work. The book serves as an exemplar learning companion to a wide audience and diverse EdD programs looking to modify, develop, or redesign their programs to align with The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) concepts including signature pedagogy, laboratories of practice, inquiry as practice and mentoring and advising. The IMPACT of the Scholarly Practitioner Doctorate demonstrates how change in education, community, and organizations have been impacted in efficacious ways. EdD students and their supervising professors, faculty, and administrators will be able to use this book’s content as their own catalyst for building socially-just leadership knowledge, skills, and dispositions while preparing their EdD students to exhibit equitable change in the professional practice areas they are in.

Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Educational Research; Social Justice Education Foundations; Leadership for Equity and Social Change; Transformative Leadership; Foundations of Inquiry for Social Justice; Qualitative Inquiry for Social Justice; Critical Perspectives for Equity in Education; Engaging in Critical Social Theories for Designing Research for Equity and Social Justice; Reform and Change for Social Justice; Educational Leadership Development

2020 Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention from Division B (Curriculum Studies) of the American Educational Research Association

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.

A 2023 SPE Outstanding Book Honorable Mention

According to the American Psychological Association (APA, 2015), trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event, which can lead to difficulties with emotional regulation, social relationships, and the development of physical symptoms. Traumatic experiences may include physical or sexual abuse, neglect, experiencing or witnessing violence, war, suicides, and disasters. Because of the prevalence of students with traumatic experiences in K-12 schools, development and use of trauma-informed practices (TIP) is currently increasing in educational spaces across the United States as educators and others who work with children become more aware of how socio-emotional development and exposure to trauma places children on a pathway through adulthood. Because of growth in these areas, it is important for educators and others who work with children to have a resource to consult. Children and Trauma: Critical Perspectives for Meeting the Needs of Diverse Educational Communities provides teachers, administrators, and others involved in education with an understanding of trauma-informed practices and explains how they can be used in the classroom. Additionally, school districts could utilize this text to implement professional development, particularly if they are considering creating a districtwide trauma-informed system.

Perfect for courses such as: Trauma-Informed Educational Practice | Psychology | Educational Psychology | Foundations of Education | Pedagogy | Methods of Emotional or Behavioral Disorders | Teaching Methods | Diversity in Education | Social Work | Human Development

Implementation Science: A Playbook for Instructional Leaders offers a practical approach to driving sustainable, impactful change in educational settings. Grounded in research-to-practice methodology, this essential guide is designed for district and school instructional leaders committed to elevating student outcomes through strategic, evidence-informed decisions. Dr. Carlson draws on decades of experience in teaching, leadership, curriculum development, and literacy research to deliver a step-by-step framework that empowers leaders to effectively plan, implement, monitor, and assess initiatives.

In clear, accessible language, Implementation Science demystifies the core principles of implementation and bridges concepts to turnaround. It offers actionable strategies and tools for tackling complex challenges in today’s educational landscape. From curriculum selection to fostering an engaged, capable team, this playbook navigates the nuances of change management, helping leaders make data-driven decisions that stick. Each chapter culminates with key takeaways and questions for reflection, supporting instructional leaders in aligning their work with broader district goals.

Perfect for superintendents, principals, curriculum directors, and aspiring leaders, Implementation Science is more than a guide—it’s a hands-on resource for building a sustainable, student-centered culture of continuous improvement. The book can also be adopted for a variety of courses such as Educational Leadership and Administration; Curriculum and Instructional Design; Data-Driven Decision Making in Education; Change Management in Education; and many more.

The purpose of Pedagogy of Humanization: Preparing Teachers for Culturally Sustaining Classrooms is to build a critical mass of educators who know how to employ the principles of critical pedagogy in elementary classrooms. This includes attention to the various knowledge, skills, and dispositions required of critical pedagogues in their curricula, instruction, assessment, classroom environment, and relationships. From Critical Race Theory (CRT) to restorative justice-oriented classroom management, the theoretical is made practical. Moreover, the structure of the book follows the curriculum of a traditional teacher education program, making it complementary to any teacher education course.

The Pedagogy of Humanization is the first book to bring together the practice (how) and theory (what and why) of inclusive and asset-based teaching. In this book, a group of teacher-educators across disciplines explore their personal and professional identities to reveal the potential for applying each tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy in their respective fields. Filled with anecdotes, exercises, user-friendly theories and examples, readers will learn how teachers can humanize themselves to have the capacity to be effective teachers of children who have been dehumanized and underserved by traditional teaching and schooling.

Pre-service teachers will read this book so that they can connect the material they study in teacher education courses to the daily work of being an educator who aims to be justice-oriented. However, this is not a “foolproof” guide or “how-to” manual that could be completed without direct support from mentors and colleagues. Instead, readers will practice the sort of engagement in individual and community growth that ignites the possibility of teaching as a force for social change. In many ways, chapters of the text could be used through a flipped classroom approach whereby faculty invert the typical cycle of content acquisition and application. The book will prove to be a valuable resource as a teaching text in classrooms devoted to critical pedagogy, Critical Race Theory, social justice, and other topics necessary to produce teachers who are prepared to maximize their effectiveness in educating today’s students.