Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Thanks to Literacy Pedagogy with Whole-Earth Consciousness, teachers of young and older novice readers alike no longer have to separate structured reading instruction from meaningful, engaging, age-appropriate content. In clear language and with multiple examples drawn directly from practice – including case studies, vignettes, discourse analyses, text sets, samples of curriculum, and more – this book shows how literacy pedagogy can be merged with science-based concepts, understandings, and practices relating to caring for ourselves, caring for others, and caring for the earth as a whole. With environmental challenges pressing ever more closely on everyday life – including effects of extreme heat, flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfire, among others – Literacy Pedagogy with Whole-Earth Consciousness offers a hopeful path forward for literacy educators, science educators, elementary educators, tutors, university faculty and students, homeschooling families, and childcare providers. Readers will draw inspiration from seeing how earth-conscious literacy pedagogy unfolds in multiple educational contexts: an afterschool program, a virtual literacy tutorial, a 3-week school enrichment program, and a graduate-level literacy course. Rogers and Schaenen showcase how place-based approaches to literacy instruction can empower students and teachers alike as readers while also dramatically deepening their relationships with the environment. Uniquely, Literacy Pedagogy with Whole-Earth Consciousness merges together teacher action research, discourse analysis, literacy teacher education, and eco-justice pedagogies. What results is a timely, conceptually rich guide to an experiential and evidence-based approach to literacy teaching and learning. Experiential approaches to literacy learning can help enrich the understanding young people have about themselves, other people, and their sense of belonging on planet Earth. Literacy Pedagogy with Whole-Earth Consciousness can be a central adopted text in undergraduate and graduate classrooms: with student reading scores seemingly stuck or worsening, what’s urgently needed are innovative, thoughtful, authentic approaches to teaching literacy comprehensively at the earliest and intermediate stages, especially in classes preparing teachers for service or extending the repertoires of in-service teachers at the graduate level. It will also be a useful adopted text in graduate classes that explore discourse analysis and teacher action research. Because the book will include examples of critically oriented discourse analysis within an action research framework, Literacy Pedagogy with Whole-Earth Consciousness will appeal to fellow critical literacy researchers, as well as scholars and practitioners of discourse analysis. The book will extend approaches to critical discourse studies in educational 4 settings by engaging eco-linguistics as a pedagogical and research tool. For this reason, literacy clinic directors and their affiliated faculty will also be interested readers. As a guide to cutting-edge curriculum and instruction with regard to literacy and the environment, college, university, and public libraries will want to include this book in their collections. The authors write with clarity for the ever-growing number of homeschooling families, microschools, and indeed any caregivers of young children who are interested in merging research-based developmental literacy with environmental content in age-appropriate ways. Literacy Pedagogy with Whole-Earth Consciousness is accessible and useful to all participants in an ever-growing and collaborative community of learners. The authors made the decision to jump into the kind of work that would foreground relationships, seek continuities, embrace non-linear patterns of change, and adhere to a basic ecological principle of favoring diversity over monoculture. Through a two-year inquiry across multiple contexts, they have worked to envision and construct a conceptual and practical trellis that will support the fruits of comprehensive literacy development – phonics, comprehension, fluency, writing, spelling, curiosity, and joy – while remaining grounded in place-based content and care. Along the way, they have engaged in reflexive research, documenting, analyzing, synthesizing, and reflecting on their practice across multiple learning ecologies.Perfect for courses such as: Eco-Literacy; Action Research/Teacher Research; Foundations of Teaching Literacy; Teaching Reading and Writing in School and Community Settings; Education and Society Through Service Learning; Climate Change Narratives; Literacy and Social Justice; Discourse Analysis; Theory and Practice of Literacy Tutoring; Teaching and Learning in Environmental Education; Science Communications; Science Literacy

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

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

“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

Written by scholars from three generations of qualitative methodologists, Qualitative Research Design and Methods: An Introduction situates qualitative research within the history of the field and integrates this history within discussions of specific research designs. This novel approach allows readers to come to know the genealogy of the field and how previous generations of scholars have informed what we know today as qualitative research. The text reflects these more traditional as well as emerging qualitative research approaches, providing a theoretically grounded approach to designing and implementing qualitative research studies. While some introductory research texts focus on the specific methods of qualitative research with little attention to the role of theory, this book forefronts theory in qualitative research. The authors speak to students new to qualitative research with clear discussions of theory and theoretical concepts and how those notions must be considered throughout all aspects of research design, implementation, and representation of findings. Each chapter integrates discussion of theory. In addition, the book highlights the role of ethics in the same way with a chapter at the beginning as well as discussions of ethics threaded throughout each of the design chapters. Qualitative Research Design and Methods is THE introductory textbook for students taking introductory masters and doctoral courses in qualitative research. Instructors in those classes will appreciate the straightforward language and concepts provided by the authors.Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Qualitative Research and Qualitative Research Design

Social studies education over its hundred-year history has often focused on predominantly white and male narratives. This has not only been detrimental to the increasingly diverse population of the U.S., but it has also meant that social studies as a field of scholarship has systematically excluded and marginalized the voices, teaching, and research of women, scholars of color, queer scholars, and scholars whose politics challenge the dominant traditions of history, geography, economics, and civics education. Insurgent Social Studies intervenes in the field of social studies education by highlighting those whose work has often been deemed “too radical.” Insurgent Social Studies is essential reading to all researchers and practitioners in social studies, and is perfect as an adopted text in the social studies curriculum at Colleges of Education.Perfect for courses such as:  Foundations of Education │ Social Studies Methods │ Multicultural Education │ Critical Studies of Education │ Culturally Relevant Pedagogy │ Social Education

Improvement Science as a Tool for School Enhancement is a collection of equity-focused improvement science-in-action, school-based case studies led by practitioners. Chapter authors tell us how and why improvement science principles make system-wide improvements in classroom practice, how they learned from the problems encountered and further, how they were then able to make changes within a school or district. A core principle of improvement science is variability in context (what works for whom and under what conditions), a critical concept for improvement in each of the case studies. How to use improvement science to address education disparities system-wide with urgency, commitment, and a belief in the success of every child, of every race, every ethnicity, gender, ability, and cultural identity, is the essence of this book.

In a decidedly anti-intellectual moment, exemplified by such recent phenomena as denials of science, defunding of universities, and distrust of “facts,” Intra-Public Intellectualism examines the relationships among qualitative inquiry, truth telling and social activism.  With contributions from scholars and activists around the world, the book addresses three key tensions in the field of social inquiry. The first tension concerns the proliferation of digital environments and virtual spaces, exploring how the “public” in public intellectualism might be reconsidered. The second tension concerns the ongoing critiques of truth and subjectivity, exploring how these disruptions change the work of the intellectual. The third tension concerns the growing scientific and philosophical rejection of static material worlds, exploring what becomes of social responsibility and justice when agency extends beyond human subjects.  Intra-Public Intellectualism will be a must read for those interested in the roles of the intellectual in the academy and beyond and those keen on rethinking critical social inquiry for the twenty-first century. Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Qualitative Research | Critical Qualitative Inquiry and Critical Theory | Social Context and Education | Foundations of Education | Cultural Studies and Public Pedagogy | Curriculum Theory | Social Justice and Education | Advanced Qualitative Methodology | Interpretivist Inquiry | Posthumanist Inquiry | New Materialist Inquiry | Arts-Based Inquiry

John Dewey's Imaginative Vision of Teaching explores key philosophical topics in John Dewey’s work, including epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics, and relates them to teacher practice and education policy. Each chapter begins with theory and ends with practical implications. While there are numerous books on Dewey, there are relatively few that connect his philosophy of education to actual practice. By linking primary fields of philosophy with classroom teaching and education policy, Boyles suggests that the binary between theory and practice is a false chasm that can and should be bridged if teaching and learning are to change into more dynamic, reflexive, and authentic interactions.Perfect for courses such as: Becoming a Teacher | Applying Theory to Practice | John Dewey and U.S. Schools | Historical and Philosophical Ideas In Practice | Progressive Teaching

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.