Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teacher advocacy is a particular skillset within STEM teacher leadership, but little is known about how STEM teacher leaders develop their identity as advocates for STEM education. To glean a more nuanced and deeper understanding of developing advocate identity among STEM teacher leaders, we…

This paper based on the opening address for the 2023-2024 School Psychology Futures Conference, reflects on contemporary inequities in school psychology practice, research, and graduate education. Challenges as the profession reckons with its oppressive past are highlighted. Drawing on concepts from liberation psychology, critical school…

Students and teachers with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and other marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities (LGBTQ+) experience harsh discrimination in schools and society. This discrimination has fueled attacks on their humanity and threatened their safety in mathematics classrooms. Consequently, advocacy…

The abolitionist movement is gaining momentum in the United States and the United Kingdom and calls to shrink the carceral state have become a staple of grassroots movements and activist groups fighting for a more just world in the 21st century. The role played by higher education (HE) educators in this struggle for a world without prisons is an…

Co-Curricular LGBTQ+ Social Justice Educational Interventions (SJEIs), commonly called Safe Zones, aim to improve the climate for LGBTQ+ individuals. Less than 5% of campuses have a LGBTQ+ resource center across the United States, which means institutions must rely on volunteer facilitators, including faculty. Using narrative inquiry, this article…

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned reproductive, health, and abortion rights for women. Using the NASW Code of Ethics, a course assignment is offered for students to examine the professional, ethical commitment and responsibility of social workers to advocate for these rights and…

Alternative education programs or schools can be defined in several ways, and individuals may have various perspectives on what alternative programs are expected to be. For some, alternative placements may be seen as a setting for students who experience difficulty within public schools, some may think of an exclusive boarding school, or some…

Many of the conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education rightly focus on the experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students and how to support them on their educational journey. Fewer of the conversations involve naming and interrogating the oppressive systems that cause these students to need…

Purpose: In recent years, issues related to body image, fat shaming, and societal perceptions of weight have gained more attention in educational discourse (Carmona-Márquez, "et al.," 2023; Dark and Aphramor, 2023; Nutter, Ireland, Alberga, "et al.," 2019; Schorb, 2022). The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of…

Social media serves as a virtual platform for young people to foster community and amplify marginalized voices, allowing them to actively engage with societal issues and take on roles as activists, advocates, and allies. A 2021 study (McDaniel, 2022) on teens revealed diverse literacy practices employed to address social justice, civil unrest,…

Though advocacy and activism have been frequent topics of research, few studies explore this work across campus roles, meaning inclusive of students, faculty, and staff. A more holistic understanding of advocacy would pave the way for more effective social justice efforts. Researchers used hermeneutic phenomenology to engage with 26 advocates…

As "divisive concepts" educational policies continue to be implemented across the United States, it is important to consider how preservice teachers (PSTs) are being prepared for this teaching landscape. Within an upper-level undergraduate education foundations course at a public university in Iowa, this critical case study (Dyson &…

Within the discipline of school psychology, social justice is a fundamental concept and an aspiration of practitioners. Recently, a myriad of pleas has been made for school psychologists to act as agents of social justice change. Further, bullying, which is a prevalent issue in schools, has been identified as a school-based social justice…

This article will describe the work of the Cultural Leadership Institute (CLI), a one-day institute with interactive workshops designed to facilitate students' understanding of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice to explore leadership within a diverse society.

The notion of inert benevolence has been written about in the context of primary school teachers working with "languages beyond English" (Cunningham and Little, 2022). However, the concept has a broader relevance for those working in education and this paper seeks to explore it more fully, through the use of the metaphor of a…