YouTube is a mess. YouTube is for amateurs. YouTube dissolves the real. YouTube is host to inconceivable combos. YouTube is best for corporate-made community. YouTube is badly baked. These are a few of the things Media Studies professor Alexandra Juhasz (and her class) learned about YouTube when she set out to investigate what actually happens…

Academic freedom has been a principle that undergirds the university since 1915. Beyond this, it also protects a spirit of free inquiry essential to a democratic society. But in the post-9/11 present, the basic principles of academic freedom have been deeply challenged. There have been many startling instances where the rhetoric of national…

This article presents an interview with Juan Sepulveda. Sepulveda was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the position of Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics on May 19, 2009. In this capacity, Sepulveda is responsible for directing the efforts of the White House Initiative in…

The field of media literacy education is maturing, as evidenced by the quality of presentations of research and practice shared at the 2010 World Summit on Children and Media in Karlstad. In this article, we offer our reflections on the opportunities and challenges faced by media literacy educators as we build our global community network, develop…

This article focuses on developing a progressive philosophy of praxis that challenges, what the author argues is, a post-racial resistance to teaching about racial injustice. Post-racial resistance to teaching can lead to forms of enlightened racism and sexism in the classroom. In this essay, the author develops and extends the use of the metaphor…

This article reflects on some of the challenges and opportunities presented when working in partnership in the highly politicised and contested Fijian Civil Society environment over the past five years. The authors are practitioners who specialise in working with communities which experience conflict. The paper discusses and analyses the genesis…

When it comes to dealing with his fellow students at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Warner, a 21-year-old aerospace engineering major, says the fact that he comes from a group of farmers known as the Pallar community means nothing. But when it comes to his enrollment status as a student at IIT, it makes all the difference in the world.…

The doctorate is an educative process for students but what is its impact on supervisors' learning about the practice of doctoral supervision? Internationally, there is an increased emphasis on formal training, monitoring and accountability of doctoral supervisors. Yet there is a striking silence about what doctoral supervisors learn through…

Domestic and international tourists have major impacts on Aotearoa/New Zealand, both positive and negative. In 2010, tourism was the biggest export earner and continues to grow. Environmental consequences of tourism are also growing. Ways of addressing the environmental impacts caused by a mobile society continue to be debated from a variety of…

Technology is always changing, always improving, and always pushing the envelope for how one works in education. In this increasingly connected age, people have seen rapid growth in social network tools such as Twitter and Facebook. These sites are representative of Web 2.0 resources where users contribute content. Other examples of Web 2.0 sites…

Our feminist cross-national comparative study explored the informal and nonformal education and learning of women politicians in Canada and India. Using individual interviews, focus groups, surveys and observations of training sessions we compared and contrasted socio-cultural contexts, challenges, education and learning philosophies, and diverse…

In contrast to educational policies in the U.S., which assume an individualistic path of success and promote the assimilation of students, this essay argues for pedagogies where teachers focus upon facilitating the development of strong relationships en route to creating exciting educational environments and fertile contexts for social justice…

Four months after President Barack Obama made education a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, lawmakers charged with reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act are beginning to sketch out their own visions for aspects of the law's renewal. The prospects that Congress will meet the president's goal--a comprehensive,…

Community organizing for school reform offers an urgently needed alternative to traditional approaches to school change. Many current reforms fail to thrive due to lack of trust, understanding, or cultural relevance to the community being targeted. The high turnover of reformers (superintendents, principals, or outside organizations) in high-need…

Are direct democratic ballot initiatives a just way to make education policy, especially when the policy disproportionately affects members of underrepresented groups? This is the broad question taken up in this article, related in particular to how education policy decided through the ballot initiative process affects minorities. The authors use…