In this paper, we raise questions about the role of student empathy and compassion when engaging with social and environmental justice issues -- significant in a world where challenges associated with such disruptions are faced daily. We draw on data from a larger, nationally funded study on enabling students' critical mathematical thinking. These…

Research review articles over the years have established that studies on teaching critical thinking suffer from methodological and theoretical deficiencies, making results unreliable. The methods have been criticized for not handling threats to internal validity (designs without control groups or proper randomization) and the theories have been…

The study examines the application of the collaborative learning model to improve 21st-century civic skills. The 21st century presents a number of unique challenges in the world of education. Rapid changes in technology, economics, and politics have placed new demands on individual learning and development. One of the key aspects of preparing…

"Transformative Science Teaching" reveals Daniel Morales-Doyle's vision for science education that supports meaningful learning in the sciences. In this sensible and sensitive assessment of science instruction in the United States, Morales-Doyle outlines both what science education is and what it could be. He suggests that a judicious…

Education that covers topics such as climate change is critical to developing future scientists and researchers. Facilitating students' recognition of climate change as it occurs in their community can strengthen engagement with the content. Here, we highlight our work in developing a large-scale activity that introduced many facets of climate…

This quantitative study examined Lebanese secondary school students' attitudes toward socio-scientific issues (SSIs), focusing on climate change as a representative topic due to its social, economic, and political complexities. A sample of 130 students from grades 10 to 12 in Lebanese private schools completed the Attitudes Toward Socio-scientific…

Authenticity is critical to meaningful civic learning, from understanding history and exploring current issues to discovering how government works and engaging with diverse forms of civic participation. This article explores authenticity in student-led civics through three dimensions: (1) being authentically connected to the self (culturally…

Young people's ongoing, necessary confrontation with painful and distressing realities exacerbated by ecological precarity in diverse contexts has profound implications for formal education systems. Additionally, educational policy in many contexts has been slow to respond to the urgency of addressing climate change, nor has most policy robustly…

Despite the recent increase in the study of critical consciousness among racially minoritized youth, the process by which youth analyze social issues and their root causes (i.e., critical social analysis) remains obscure. In the current study, we examined youth's process of critical social analysis and identified factors that contributed to this…

This study examines whether community-level social disorganization and community engagement initiatives are associated with public high school performance. Analyzing data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS), a latent variable measuring community-level social disorganization is examined…

This study investigated the effect of using socioscientific issues (SSI)-based learning modules in enhancing physics knowledge. Three SSI-based learning modules were developed in this study and obtained a "Very Satisfactory" rating after the expert's evaluation, electromagnetic (EM) waves module (M = 3.82, standard deviation [SD] =…

In this article, we illustrate the experience of three literacy educators who harnessed online, collaborative platforms to cultivate community within their classrooms and with their colleagues. Through the use of creative practices including digital poetry, selfie collage, and curriculum sharing through video conferencing, the authors invited…

This dissertation was developed in response to a significant rise in stress, anxiety, and depression within the adolescent population during 2019-2021. The research was exploratory in nature to determine the feasibility of utilizing targeted social emotional mobile applications with high school students. A single case study design with changing…

This paper considers the social role of collaborative ethnographic research amid our current intersecting social, political and ecological crises. It investigates how the multi-sited, arts-based, ethnographic study, "Global Youth (Digital) Citizen-Artists and their Publics: Performing for Socio-Ecological Justice (2019-2024)," adopts…

The problem addressed in this study was that non-traditional high school students at the study site were not being provided with in-school intervention and support programs to assist them with academic achievement. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore what in-school programs are offered to non-traditional students at the study…