Communities have their own set of cultural values that make their way into their classrooms and serve as criteria for the labeling of "insider" or "outsider." This article describes how critical empathy can allow the barriers between these constructs to be broken down as students are given the chance not only to listen but to…

Self-advocacy skills enable active student involvement in the Individualized Education Program (IEP) planning process. However, some students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) lack appropriate self-advocacy skills and may require specific instruction in how to prepare for and participate in their own IEP. Special educators may have…

This qualitative phenomenological study used narrative research to investigate the diversity gaps in teachers' preparedness and their perceptions of diverse teaching methods in multicultural middle school classrooms. The student population became diverse in the last years. To close the diversity gaps, create equity and social justice it was…

Recent research suggests that many environmental education (EE) programs for youth in the United States focus on meeting educational standards rather than using civic engagement and advocacy techniques to promote environmental literacy. We distributed a survey to members of several EE organizations to identify which civic engagement, advocacy, and…

In this paper, we propose a teaching approach centered on community and care, aimed at fostering a democratic classroom environment. We highlight the communal co-creation of the Rights of the Learner (RoTL) as the foundation for establishing a shared responsibility atmosphere. Our interpretation of the RoTL challenges traditional power dynamics,…

The presented challenge in education revolves around the effective utilization of differentiated and individualized instruction by special education teachers, aiming to address the unique needs of students with learning disabilities. This study's purpose was to identify ways to use these instructional methods to develop methods that create better…

Background/Context: Despite its emphasis on pluralism, empirical research on asset-based pedagogies has typically focused on culturally, linguistically, or racially homogeneous groups of students. The rise of interest in culturally relevant pedagogy in the 1990s coincided with the resegregation of many school districts. As a result, few scholars…

From newcomers and novices, to cautious censors and seasoned advocates, pre-service teachers and in-service teachers who use critical literacy approaches to advocate for justice walk an imagined precarious line between courageously engaging in difficult, critical conversations about risky texts, navigating obstacles, and getting burned by…

Classroom engagement can be problematic for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH), but is essential to ensure that they can reach their best educational and postschool outcomes. This study used semi-structured interviews to explore the self-perceived barriers and facilitators to classroom engagement for 16 DHH students educated in…

Many educators use the "Me! Lessons" to teach high school students with disabilities self-advocacy and self-awareness knowledge and skills. We conducted a mixed-methods study to examine the usefulness of the lessons, obtain student and parent perceptions of the lessons and to examine the lessons' impact on student knowledge. This study…

This qualitative study aimed to explore ESL teachers' and school leaders' perspectives of K-8 social studies content. Specifically, this study sought to answer the following guiding research questions: What are English as a Second Language teachers and school leaders' perspectives of self-efficacy among their English language learners? What are…

There are significant apertures between the history told within historians' scholarship and teachers' curricular resources. The Civil Rights Movement (hereafter, CRM) of the 1950s and 1960s did not start with Rosa Parks' arrest in Montgomery, though it was a spark that inflamed a long-smoldering fire. Nor did it end with Dr. King's dream in…

English Language Arts has historically been tied to the civic purposes of schools, and this qualitative study of a social design-based project (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010) examines the intersection of language and literacy learning and youth civic engagement, a problem space I call "Civics English." In this dissertation, I describe…

In this article, the authors discuss how to explore the agency of ordinary citizens using local institutions to combat Jim Crow segregation laws during Freedom Summer. Primary sources from Miami (OH) University website about Freedom Summer and Susan Goldman Rubin's trade book ground the inquiry. Through the series of activities discussed, middle…

Schools that teach within the context of the International Baccalaureate® (IB) Middle Years Program approach learning through a global lens. They focus on how subjects relate to a larger, international context and connect topics together so that students can have a deeper understanding of knowledge. To further support and promote this approach to…