Rural communities -- as well as other marginalized communities -- see their access to legal infrastructure declining, so much so that they feel disconnected from the rule of law. Current complex law and legal infrastructure focus on big "I" innovation, which is hyper-transactional and benefits the few. Rural communities, and others,…

The distinguished US philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, who teaches at the University of Michigan, answers questions put to her by John White about educational aspects of her work in moral and political philosophy. She begins by describing her indebtedness to Dewey in his views on developing students' capacities for intelligent enquiry and as…

Cross-sector collaborations can generate the resources and political will necessary to tackle urgent, complex issues. Because these partnerships involve local leaders, they are typically responsive to their surrounding communities, addressing local concerns, and capitalizing upon local assets. These strengths-oriented, locally driven…

This article briefly reviews the contributions to this volume and revisits the original focus of the Civil Rights Act (CRA). It considers how much progress has been made in addressing the original concerns regarding ethnic and racial discrimination that the act was intended to address and the intersection of language issues with them. The article…

In this letter, I respond to comments from David Gabbard regarding my article on the Broad Superintendents Academy. Energized by Gabbard's critique, my letter points toward a position for educational leaders that works both within and against dominant systems. I ask: How can we model in our own communities the kind of caring, inclusion, and…

Frustration, anxiety, and loneliness define too many high school experiences. For students with mental illness or other disabilities, this characterization is almost universal. Students with disabilities begin their high school careers immediately labeled as "special" and soon are ostracized from the larger student community. In high…

This comment was given to an international panel on the economics of education at the invitation of the Beijing Forum, China, on 3 November 2012. It was published in Chinese in Volume 11, 2013, of the "Peking University Education Review". It considers the connections between ethics, economics and policy towards higher education, using a…

Contemplating my graduate student experience overseas, I constantly viewed myself as an isolate, one who did not belong in the new community of practice. I encountered numerous lingua-cultural, academic and social challenges which led to my lack of community and belonging. This paper is a reflection of my experiences as an international graduate…

Cara Hoffman's work enacts George Orwell's imperative to "pay attention to the obvious" (an idea that several sympathetic characters repeat in her 2011 novel "So Much Pretty"), probing aspects of twenty-first century life in the United States that have become so accepted as to be unremarkable, such as epidemic levels of…

In his contribution to this special issue of this journal, Scot Danforth uses the lens of history to challenge contemporary scholars in the field of learning disabilities (LD) to think critically about their implicit epistemology and methods of inquiry. Using the specific case of Hammill and colleagues' critical reviews of the process training…

Ongoing globalization and immigration bring diversity and rich cultural elements to American organizations at all levels. An educational environment with faculty and leaders from people of colors will set a good example for all students, especially for students of color who are eager to explore ideas and arguments at a thoughtful level to rethink…

Comments on the original article, "Rethinking the concept of acculturation: Implications for theory and research," by S. J. Schwartz, J. B. Unger, B. L. Zamboanga, and J. Szapocznik. Schwartz et al are to be commended for their attempts "to propose an expanded, multidimensional model of acculturation and of the demographic and contextual forces…

This paper presents the authors' comments on "Dreams Fulfilled, Dreams Shattered: Determinants of Segmented Assimilation in the Second Generation" by William Haller, Alejandro Portes and Scott M. Lynch. The overall well-being and integration of second-generation immigrant youth constitute an important topic for researchers and policy makers, one…

University access programmes inherently and inevitably provide students with a "label". Firstly, students are generally segregated and stigmatised as they are treated as a separate group that accessed university somewhat "illegitimately". Access programmes generally place more emphasis on academic development and in so doing…

Much of the work in youth violence prevention has been based in a public health model and guided by a developmental-ecological perspective on risk and prevention (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1988). A central tenet of developmental-ecological theory is that individual development is influenced by the ongoing qualities of the social settings in which the…