Many teachers have known of (or been members of) departments in which all of the potentially successful chairs--after having proven themselves by running subunits or graduate programs--have decided to devote themselves solely to research or teaching, and to leave department administration to whoever is willing to do it or whoever can be talked…

Discussions of multilingualism in education, as exemplified by the articles in this issue, can be critically reevaluated using perspectives available from poststructuralism. These perspectives focus on the potential ambiguity of language and language practices. This, in turn, encourages us to question simple notions of the relationship of learners…

Health reportage in New Zealand's popular and professional media regularly features large, avowedly inactive, indigenous and/or "poor" people failing to nurture their children properly on account of their size. While well-meaning government and school-based initiatives explicitly target these so-called "high-need" communities,…

Becoming a culturally responsive educator has been at the forefront of the movement to reduce inappropriate referrals to special education and disproportionate representation of students of color within special education. However, for many educators, working with a diverse student population can be more difficult when the student comes from a…

The study of the identity processes of women of color in science-based fields helps us (a) find ways to support similar women, and (b) study the dynamics of inequity, within and beyond science. Participants in this study (a Black woman, a Latina, and an American Indian woman) survived inadequate high schools and discouraging college science…

A school subject leader (SL) is formally considered to make a difference in the educational system as a leader of a professional learning community, being responsible for the efficient and effective performance of the subject department. Since the department entails frequent and significant interactions among teachers, and organizational…

Isaac Prilleltensky (this issue, pp. 116-136) seeks to make community psychology a more effective force for social justice. His discussion of psychopolitical validity raises a number of questions: How perfect must the theoretical framework be to usefully oppose unjust power? In what way is the notion of "psychopolitical validity" most useful? How…

In this commentary, the author discusses power as a useful concept for community psychology. Although Prilleltensky's analysis of power (this issue, pp. 116-136) has the potential to shift the ideological foundation of the field, the author notes that he focuses primarily on the ability to coerce and/or resist coercion. The author argues that…

The author argues that greater attention should be paid to different levels of authority in the study of globalization and higher education, especially the understructure or disciplinary units. Using Marginson and Rhoades' concept of "Glonacal," he argues that universities operate on local, national, and global dimensions, but also that the…

Reconstructed fairy tales provide a different point of view and challenge the assumptions of a common set of values; for that reason, these stories provide a medium in which to examine power relationships in texts by applying a critical multicultural analysis (Botelho & Rudman, forthcoming, 2008, "A critical multicultural analysis of children's…

The present study was designed to examine the ways power relations influence politeness strategies in disagreement. The study was an attempt to find out whether different power status of people influences the the choice of appropriate politeness strategies and speech act of disagreement by Iranian EFL learners, in a university setting. A Discourse…

It's a challenge for schools in every country: How to provide the right kind of discipline and create a climate that nurtures learning. This challenge may look different in different countries. A school's disciplinary climate not only is the product of educators' beliefs and actions, students' beliefs and actions, and the interaction of these, but…

This article focuses on how critical race theory informed the author's epistemological perspective and methodological approach as she analyzed Mexican American educational narratives and formulated her identity as a scholar. Using a storytelling technique employed in CRT, the author weaves together her position as the translator of participants'…

Despite the importance of postsecondary education to the economic and social vitality of the U.S. and the individuals who pursue this academic goal, the educational pipeline to and through college is broken for communities of color, the fastest-growing segment of the population. This report offers a revealing glimpse of the American system of…

This dissertation explores the role of classroom discourse in balancing teacher control over lesson content and student participation in educational interactions. The results of a discourse analysis of teacher-student interactions in video-recordings of eight third-grade math and language arts lessons reveal that the role of discourse in this…