Policy & Research

Resisting Divide-and-Conquer Strategies in Education: Pathways and Possibilities examines the ways in which divide-and-conquer strategies operate in the American public education system. In U.S. education, these mechanisms are endemic and enduring, if not always evident. Coordinated, strategic, well-funded, politically-viable campaigns continue to stoke fear, othering, villainization, and dehumanization of minoritized groups, pushing false and problematic narratives that inhibit progress toward social justice. Weaponizing hegemony and leveraging misinformation, reactionary agents and institutions seek to suppress truth, block access to democratic participation, and dismantle education and other sites of emancipatory possibility through the strength of divide-and-conquer mechanisms, pitting relatively disempowered groups against one another to preserve the dominant social order. Readers of this book will encounter conceptual and critical interrogations of divide and conquer. The text will help facilitate inquiry and engagement into how divide and conquer operates and how it can be resisted. It looks at the history of the phenomenon, as well as its current state, especially as it relates to education. What insights and lessons might we learn from a focused examination of divide and conquer, and what strategies of resistance are both possible and necessary for challenging it? This text is designed for undergraduate and graduate classrooms in education and social sciences. Part I, Ideology and Sociopolitical Contexts, dissects how divide-and-conquer mechanisms operate ideologically and sociopolitically. Part II, Policies and Practices, focuses on how divide-and-conquer mechanisms shape exclusionary U.S. educational policies and practices. Part III, Resistance and Liberation, documents efforts of liberatory communicative, curricular, and pedagogical possibilities. Each chapter concludes with a set of critical questions for reflection and engagement.Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Education; Schools and Society; Schooling in America; History of Education; Philosophy of Education; Sociology of Education; Social Studies; Critical Theory in Education

For the last few decades, teacher preparation has increasingly aligned itself with “best practices,” standards, and accountability, and such policies became mandatory in P-12 schooling nationwide. Technical skills instruction and methods have become the common practice of teacher preparation and accreditation of programs. Teacher candidates are encouraged to be unquestioning servants of a school system rather than educators who govern the meaning of schooling. The purpose of this book is to present a view of how we got to where we are today and to offer strategies to bring the job of teaching back to its roots. It seeks to identify the conservative influences that treat students as a commodity rather than future citizen scholars. For teacher candidates, this has meant the excision of social foundations of education courses and any further explorations of the philosophy of education or the history of schooling in their curricula. The Commodification of American Education looks at ways to re-establish teachers as professionals rather than mere technicians, and to take back public education to transform schools into places that educate while eliminating inequality and oppression.Perfect for courses such as: Social Foundations of Education | General Methods

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.Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Social and Cultural Analysis of Education | Agency, Resistance, and Identity in Education | Critical and Postmodern Pedagogies | Culture, Cognition, and Power Issues in Education | Modernity and Postmodernity in Social Thought and Education | Integrating Research and Practice in Social Justice Education | Cultural Studies in Education | Science, Technology, and Social Research after Eurocentrism | Critical Pedagogy | Language, Performance, and Power | Sociology of Education | Ideology, Racial Politics, and Public Policy: Sociology of Knowledge | Seminar in Cross National Studies of Educational Problems | Participatory Action Research and Programming

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.

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.