Search results for making sense of rac

“Who’s Gonna Water My Tomatoes?”: School Gardens, Kitchens, and the Search for Educational Authenticity updates an old concept for our modern age, utilizing school gardens and culinary kitchens where students grow, prepare, and eat their own food. Over a century ago, the educational philosopher John Dewey proposed reforming education around the needs of the whole child, emphasizing academic learning and the child's social needs for effective participation in a democratic society. In Dewey’s view, children would best learn by engaging in authentic experiences that would introduce, complement, and complete their regular classroom experiences. Dewey talked about school gardens and kitchens as two specific laboratories where children could apply what they were learning in school in daily life. Today, the tensions between experiential learning and the more rote learning often found in regular classrooms remain. Educators increasingly find themselves accountable to the narrow performance pressures imposed by standardized testing, pressures that often squeeze out the joys and possibilities for more authentic and engaging learning found in real-world experiences. This book explores Dewey’s philosophy with particular attention given to experiential learning’s relationship to gardens and kitchens. The school garden and kitchen movement itself has ebbed and flowed over the last hundred years in response to changing societal and educational pressures. This history leads to the present day, where the edible schoolyard movement is experiencing a new spring as educators, parents, and school communities find value in edible schoolyard’s possibilities for providing more wholistic education that better meets the academic, social, and emotional needs of students. The book focuses on a network of edible schoolyards by introducing educators, teachers, principals, and staff who are making edible schoolyards happen today. Their vision and motivations form in their favorite lessons and in the connections between garden and kitchen experiences to the more traditional subject matter favored on state tests. Suggestions and resources for starting new edible schoolyards, including suggested recipes, are provided for those who want to get growing with their own edible schoolyards.Perfect for courses such as: Educational Reform; Educational History; Educational Philosophy; Educational Leadership; Curriculum Development and Transformation; Experiential Learning; Project Based Learning; and Educational Policy Environments

Qualitative Research in the Time of COVID: Lessons Learned and Opportunities Presented During a Pandemic focuses broadly upon educational issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters make note of how contextual understandings are important for the future of researchers, especially when those contexts involve inequality made more acute since the pandemic. The chapters illustrate the importance of creating a climate of care based upon the principles of care ethics, and also examine projects that could be taken in the context of necessary self-care during challenging times. Chapters address the climate of caring in both in-person and online educational spaces and what it means to support students in an expanded conception of classroom space. In discussions ranging from exemplars of arts-based, personal narrative to completing a dissertation during a pandemic, chapters share both the immensity of the challenges and the rewards of productive and meaningful work both domestically and internationally. In the context of the living taking place after the pandemic’s coming into being as an event, this volume humbly offers writings as documents of remembrance of our historical present, offering with the hope that the historical may continue to move forward with an ethics of care ever in the foreground. Qualitative Research in the Time of COVID is perfect for such courses as Qualitative Research, Qualitative Inquiry, Ethnography, Teacher Education, Action Research, and Educational Research.

A 2022 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner Opening Third Spaces for Research in Education challenges dominant educational research methods. It rejects the reductive binaries normalized in social science research—theory/practice, objective/subjective, quantitative/qualitative. Drawing from multiple fields and eras, the book opens third spaces between these artificial poles to help researchers expand interpretations and possibilities for research. Critiquing the current focus on the measurement of “student learning outcomes” and high-stakes assessment, the book offers conceptual tools and case examples to support educators in reconceptualizing research. The book critiques the modernist notion that learning is an individual mental process of acquiring knowledge or skills. It argues instead that learning is inextricably entangled with social relations and cannot be isolated or controlled no matter how scientifically rigorous researchers try to be in their study designs. This challenges the current goal of educational research instruction to design “valid and reliable” studies that provide evidence for “best practices,” and reimagines it as opening third spaces to expand opportunities and approaches for inquiry.

Hauntings, Remembering, and Aesthetics offers an intimate, artful exploration of what is lost—and what remains—when schools are closed. Grounded in the stories of two shuttered public schools in Chicago, it weaves together research, narrative, memory, and visual art to honor the communities shaped by these institutions and reckon with the systemic forces that led to their closure. Drawing from archival research, local records, personal memories, and conversations with former students, educators, and community members, the author—who has a personal connection to each school—reconstructs the histories left behind by braiding their voices with collages and photographs. The book makes visible the deep ties between school communities and the neighborhoods they served. This powerful storytelling serves as a prompt for reflection and reconsideration of school closures.The portraits that emerge tell of schools that operated under immense financial strain but built strong, nurturing environments through resourcefulness and relationships. Participants recall staff who shaped their lives, naming teachers and leaders as transformative figures in their youth. They speak openly about the racism, classism, and broken promises surrounding public education in gentrifying neighborhoods—where public housing was demolished and communities were displaced. In their words, school closures were not isolated policy decisions but outcomes of a broader inequality and disinvestment. Far from passive witnesses, these community members critically examine the past, theorizing their experiences and naming the systemic failures that framed them. They express a desire to pause, reflect, and remember—to reclaim the memory of their schools as spaces of resilience, joy, and collective resistance. As one participant shared, “There’s so much history in us.” That history, the book argues, is too often erased in mainstream narratives about school closures. By presenting these stories through both visual and literary forms, the book creates a new kind of archive—one grounded in lived experiences and presented through aesthetics. It invites educators, parents, policymakers, journalists, and anyone invested in public education to listen differently: to hear what was lost when the schools closed, and to recognize what still echoes in the voices of those who remember.This is not just a story of the past—it is a call to action in the present through stories that have always been here. These acts of remembering resist the dominant, data-driven narratives that often justify school closures. It reveals the human cost of policies disconnected from community realities and asks us to imagine more just futures for public education in our cities. This book asks us to see and hear stories anew, through the haunting beauty of memory, artwork, and collective reflection.Perfect for courses such as: Social Foundations of Education; Educational Policy Studies; History of Urban Education; Sociology of Education; Teacher Education in Urban Education; Historical and Cultural Contexts of Urban Education; Qualitative Research Methods; Arts-based Research Methods; Visual Research Methods

Novice and early career researchers often have difficulty with understanding how theory, data analysis and interpretation of findings “hang together” in a well-designed and theorized qualitative research investigation and with learning how to draw on such understanding to conduct rigorous data analysis and interpretation of their analytic results. Data Analysis, Interpretation, and Theory in Literacy Studies Research demonstrates how to design, conduct and analyze a well put together qualitative research project. Using their own successful studies, chapter authors spell out a problem area, research question, and theoretical framing, carefully explaining their choices and decisions. They then show in detail how they analyzed their data, and why they took this approach. Finally, they demonstrate how they interpreted the results of their analysis, to make them meaningful in research terms. Approaches include interactional sociolinguistics, microethnographic discourse analysis, multimodal analysis, iterative coding, conversation analysis, and multimediated discourse analysis, among others. This book will appeal to beginning researchers and to literacy researchers responsible for teaching qualitative literacy studies research design at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Cartographies of Blackness and Black Indigeneities acknowledges the saliency of Blackness in contemporary social formations, insisting that how bodies are read is extremely important. The contributors to this volume elicit or produce both tangible and intangible social, political, material, spiritual and emotional effects and consequences on Black and African bodies, globally. It is a call to celebrate Blackness in all its complexities, including race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, spiritualities, and geographies. Understanding Blackness is to insist on Black and African political and cultural appreciation of the phenomenon outside of Euro-colonial attempts to regulate and define how Black and African bodies are perceived. This book intersperses discussions of Blackness with Black racial identity and cultural politics and the required responsibilities for the Global Black and African populations to build viable communities utilizing our differences—knowledges, cultures, politics, identities, histories—as strengths.

In what ways can performance be mobilized to resist? This is the question that the present volume explores from within the context of qualitative research. From an arts-based approach, authors suggest methods on how artistic practice resists. The volume addresses how critical performance autoethnography might retain its ethical and democratic potential without falling into dogmatism or hegemony. This vision for democracy can even be accomplished through improvised, process-centered pieces that weave together thoughts from several key scholars, all to give us a critical perspective on how performative autoethnography is paradigmatically situated. The performance texts collected here question and resist, showing how the experience of art-making can move us through political and public spaces with liberatory potential, challenging social and ideological hegemonies and to generate social movements. Imaginative arts-based practices allow us access to emotional and embodied phenomena that remain otherwise foreclosed by traditional forms of inquiry. From poetics to public performances, subversive interventions, and more, these chapters bring a radical performative discourse to the fore. In so doing, the chapters work to create a framework for just performance, showing us how we might live performance as resistance.

Photovoice research is a participatory qualitative research method where participants photograph themselves, then analyzing them to document and reflect upon their experiences and perspectives on a specific topic, often with the goal of raising awareness and advocating for change. It empowers participants by giving them control over the research process and their own narratives.Photovoice: Using Words and Images in Qualitative Research is a collection of essays from the field that focuses on educators’ implementation of photovoice in a myriad of settings. This methodology crosses disciplines and offers a powerful way to combine visual methods with social research, making it adaptable to many areas where understanding and representing marginalized voices are important.Photovoice is the perfect text for use in a variety of classrooms and courses, including:Introduction to Qualitative Research MethodsCommunity Studies (understanding how visual methods like photovoice can help researchers gain insight into the lived experiences of people within a community)Public Health (photovoice is a valuable method for understanding health disparities, the impact of the environment on health)Education (when studying participatory learning, student engagement, or community-based education. It would also be useful in teacher training programs focusing on inclusive and culturally responsive teaching.)Anthropology (courses on qualitative research or ethnography, photovoice allows for a deeper understanding of cultural and social dynamics through the visual representation of people's lived experiences)Selected topics in Educational ResearchPlace-Based Education

A 2023 SPE Outstanding Book Honorable MentionTransformative Critical Service-Learning offers hands-on tools for implementing, reflecting on, and assessing critical service-learning in classrooms and community spaces. Answering a need from practitioners for a practical tool for making sense of critical service-learning, the authors introduce the Critical Service-Learning Implementation Model as a way to encourage conversations among stakeholders. Materials include specific criteria to examine, examples of application and context, and ways to incorporate the model into reflective practices. Valuing partnerships, reflection, and analysis of power dynamics, the research and strategies offered here provide an entry point for faculty new to critical service-learning, while also offering new ideas and tools for long-time practitioners. Chapters offer particular attention to strategies for engaging students, syllabus development, and reflective cycles. Additionally, the authors offer a model for faculty development in the area of critical service-learning at the institutional level, including suggestions for faculty and administrators interested in increasing engagement with social justice and community spaces. As institutions of higher education are focusing more on the ways in which they can meet the needs of the communities surrounding their campuses, The Carnegie Foundation’s Elective Classification for Community Engagement provides a special-purpose designation for higher education institutions with commitments in the area of community engagement. Universities must commit to institutional change in order to improve the outcomes for the communities surrounding the campus. The classification framework represents best practices in the field and encourages continuous improvement through periodic re-classification. Service-learning has been identified as one of the more effective methods for engaging undergraduate and graduate students in community engaged scholarship, which facilitates development of critical inquiry, understanding needs assessment, and deep reflection on inequality. The authors intend this book to benefit university faculty endeavoring to begin or develop service-learning courses, higher education administrators who want to train and engage university faculty in adopting a more community engaged teaching model, and P-12 teachers, who often serve as community partners with higher education institutions to facilitate justice-oriented approaches to teaching their diverse students.Perfect for courses such as: Critical Thinking and Communication/Service-Learning │ Service-Learning Capstone │ Pathways to Effective Community Engagement │ School and Community Collaboration │ Teaching to Transform Society │ Food, Environment, and Sustainability │ Race and the Right to Vote in the US │ Education and Society │ Environmental Education │ Race, Place, and Memory

Light a Fire and Watch It Burn: Disruptive Qualitative Methods in Education Research revolutionizes how qualitative research is conceptualized, taught, and practiced. Edited by Michael L. Boucher, Jr., Ph.D., this groundbreaking collection of essays by emerging and established scholars introduces equity-centered, justice-oriented methodologies designed to challenge entrenched systems of power and privilege. With a focus on amplifying marginalized voices and fostering transformative social action, this book serves as an inspiring, accessible resource for educators, researchers, and graduate students.Traditional qualitative research texts provide invaluable foundations for understanding methods such as participant observation, coding, and analysis. Yet, they often fail to address innovative approaches that challenge oppressive norms and center lived experiences of marginalized communities. Light a Fire and Watch It Burn fills this critical gap, presenting 15 concise, practice-oriented chapters on disruptive methods, including photovoice, duoethnography, feminist critical discourse analysis, and arts-based research like ethnodrama. These approaches reimagine qualitative inquiry as a vehicle for equity, inclusion, and justice, equipping readers with tools to create meaningful change.Each chapter follows a consistent structure, making the book an ideal classroom text for qualitative research courses. Readers will find clear explanations of the methodologies, their theoretical foundations, and how they disrupt systems of oppression while empowering participants. Practical examples, discussion questions, and curated lists of further readings encourage deep reflection and active engagement. This structure ensures seamless integration into weekly lessons for master’s and doctoral students, while also serving as a reference for scholars seeking to expand their methodological repertoire.From exploring anticolonial ethics to embracing culturally responsive frameworks like ʻŌiwi methodologies and Pláticas, the book highlights the potential of qualitative research to humanize and transform. Contributors share personal narratives and research experiences that illuminate how these methodologies foster trust, amplify silenced voices, and dismantle academic hierarchies. The metaphor of “lighting a fire” reflects the catalytic potential of these methods to spark curiosity, disrupt traditional paradigms, and ignite transformative social action, while “watching it burn” underscores the boldness and urgency of these practices in reimagining education research.Accessible, inspiring, and deeply rooted in critical theory, Light a Fire and Watch It Burn is an essential companion for students and educators who dare to confront power and reimagine research as a tool for justice. It challenges readers to move beyond the safe confines of traditional methods and embrace innovative practices that center humanity, equity, and resilience. Whether you are a graduate student beginning your journey, a scholar seeking to disrupt academic norms, or an educator looking for practical tools to inspire your students, this book provides the guidance and vision needed to reshape qualitative research—and, ultimately, the world it seeks to understand. Light a Fire and Watch It Burn is not just a book; it is a call to action for those ready to create a more inclusive, equitable future through research.Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods; Critical Theory in Education; Advanced Qualitative Research Design; Participatory Research in Education; Feminist Research in Social Sciences; Decolonizing Research Practices; Arts and Humanities-Based Inquiry; Social Justice in Education; Education Policy and Practice; Research Ethics and Methodologies