Equity and justice-centered professional organizations, such as the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), often make statements about global and local political matters. Yet many of these organizations have neglected to speak out about Palestinian dispossession and claims for liberation. These silences dehumanize Palestinians and contribute to conditions that allow for genocide to occur. This article presents critical analysis of four statements related to Palestine issued by groups within NCTE to identify where power is evident in each text and how context and social structures shape texts. Analyses suggest NCTE groups presented conflicting social representations, claims to authority, and evidence. Implications to help professional organizations like NCTE move beyond rhetoric toward justice-centered praxis include: 1) limiting executive power through democratic processes; 2) building grassroots power through member organizing; and 3) grounding statements in an extensive evidentiary base.
This article presents a study investigating how Black middle school girls engaged in a design curriculum to develop sociocritical artificial intelligence (AI) literacies: the capacity to interrogate, critique, and reimagine AI systems while integrating one's own sociocultural practices. Grounded in critical race technology theory and Black feminist thought, the study foregrounds Black girls' lived experiences and epistemologies. Over eight weeks, students engaged in learning activities that combined technical skill development with sociopolitical critique. Using epistemic network analysis, we identified distinct discourse patterns across three activity phases: Interact and Critique, Critique and Reimagine, and Reimagine and Build. Findings reveal that students not only acquired technical knowledge of machine learning but also exercised agency, emotion, and creativity in resisting deficit narratives and designing technologies aligned with their identities and communities. This work advances a vision for AI education that is emotionally affirming and justice driven.
Teacher education remains a bordered institutional space in which belonging is regulated through norms that privilege whiteness, monolingualism, and middle-class professionalism. Grounded in the politics of belonging and Latina feminist epistemologies, this study examines how four Latina teacher educators of color navigate, resist, and reimagine these borders through pl & aacute;ticas-relational, dialogic engagements rooted in community knowledge and collective sense-making. Using a participatory, arts-based qualitative design, the study traces how epistemic violence is enacted through curriculum, professional standards, and institutional silencing, and how teacher educators engage in epistemic reclamation through everyday pedagogical practice. Findings reveal that inclusion in teacher education is frequently conditional, contingent upon conformity to dominant norms that reproduce impostor phenomenon and epistemic erasure. These findings position teacher education programs-not individual educators-as the primary sites of responsibility for addressing impostor phenomenon, epistemic exclusion, and the conditions that regulate professional belonging. In contrast, moments of belonging emerge when teacher educators cultivate counterspaces, redesign curriculum, and explicitly name and challenge structural exclusion. The study argues for a paradigmatic shift in teacher preparation-from retrofitting diversity into exclusionary systems toward reimagining teacher education as a site of collective well-being. Implications call for redefining program quality to include belonging, interrogating racialized and gendered standards of professionalism, centering community-rooted epistemologies, and holding institutions accountable for structural transformation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a facsimile of the human and, therefore, reflects dominant societal and cultural programming. Thus, understanding AI requires a deep interrogation of the human itself. In this article, I contextualize AI through Wynter's examination of the human in her 1994 essay "No Humans Involved" (N.H.I.). Wynter reveals the encoded hierarchical logics of the human project, which has always been exclusive through its categorical adjudication of who is self-determined and deserving of life and who is not. Through an examination of the logics, epistemologies, economics, and narratives encoded into the operating systems of both AI and the human project, I extend Wynter's thesis to examine being, whether artificial or organic. I conclude with thoughts on what it means to be, particularly as educators of conscience, grappling with how we pedagogically enshrine, refuse, and resist N.H.I. when studying and teaching through and about AI.
The "tiger parent" trope narrows public portrayals of Asian heritage families and obscures their diverse child-rearing practices. Drawing on Asian American Critical Race Theory and Community Cultural Wealth, this ethnographic case study examines how five Korean mothers with recent immigrant backgrounds conceptualize and implement family-based Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) in an emerging immigrant community. Data were collected over six months through semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, and observational field notes. Findings suggest these mothers anchor family-based SEL in moral and communal principles, seeing themselves as primary SEL facilitators at home. They also strive to balance academic success with emotional well-being, mitigating racialized expectations. Their daily SEL practices integrate multiple strategies, yet systemic barriers complicate these efforts, revealing a misalignment between institutional expectations and families' realities. Recognizing and leveraging these mothers' cultural assets can help educators design more equitable, culturally sustaining SEL partnerships with families with recent immigrant backgrounds.
Adolescents' racialized experiences in school may shape their school experiences including STEM class belonging and academic coping. The present study included 377 high school students from the United States who completed questionnaires on their school racial climate (Time 1), STEM class racial composition (Time 1), STEM classroom belonging (Time 2), and academic coping (Time 3). Analyses demonstrated a positive relationship between school racial climate and STEM class belonging, and between STEM class belonging and adaptive (but not maladaptive) academic coping. Additionally, students who reported more same-race peers in their STEM classes reported better academic coping, while those who reported more same-race teachers reported higher maladaptive coping. Age and race were not significant predictors. This work provides novel information regarding the impact that racialized experiences in school have on students' belonging and academic coping, which can both shape future success.
Language deprivation among Deaf children in the United States is a consequence of institutional audism and linguicism entrenched within the country's educational, medical, and policy frameworks. These systems normalize speech and hearing while systematically limiting access to signed languages, thereby marginalizing deaf cultural identities. This article analyzes how metaphysical and institutional ideologies construct spoken language as inherently superior, generating educational inequities that are perceived as neutral or even benevolent. It employs the Deaf and Signed Language Equity Literacy (DSLEL) framework, a justice-centered approach that equips educators with five core capacities: recognizing, responding to, redressing, and cultivating equity, as well as sustaining equitable practices. Grounded in anti-oppressive pedagogy, DSLEL enables educators to identify and dismantle the ideological and structural forces perpetuating language deprivation. By reframing access to signed language as a fundamental right, this article calls for a systemic transformation affirming Deaf children's unrestricted access to signed languages.
The educational experiences of more than 20 ethnic subgroups within the Asian American category are overlooked when aggregated data reinforces racist tropes that Asians are overrepresented in STEM fields. Using a participatory action research approach, this study argues that HMoob students are pushed out of STEM disciplines in similar ways to other underrepresented minority populations. Of the 66 interviews with current or former HMoob undergraduate students, 28 experienced STEM pushout. We demonstrate that issues of equity in STEM are part of a meritocratic culture that privileges certain forms of knowledge and learning that invisibilize HMoob students through the model minority stereotype. Amplified and institutionalized by the expansion of neoliberal governmentality in US higher education, the prevalence of STEM meritocratic ideologies operationalizes rewards and punishments that drive the competitive culture of STEM through standardized testing, selective enrollment processes, and transactional advising.
This article presents the decriminalizing impacts of teacher listening and responding with compassion to Black boys in early grades. We introduce a conceptual notion of relational listening and responding with compassion in a sequence that reinforces the comprehensive mattering of Black boys and the significance of their holistic needs. Our findings reveal how, after learning about decriminalizing practices, teachers organically began student interactions with an open stance, purposefully asking Black boys to share their voice. Teachers then engaged in relational listening, being purposeful and authentic in that moment. With a strong emphasis on social-emotional well-being, teachers then responded with compassion. We discuss how this sequence works to reduce the punishment of Black boys in the school-prison nexus and uplift their long-term well-being, while introducing the concept of messy contradictions to make space for tensions present while enacting this sequence. Finally, we provide recommendations for practitioners and future research.
This study explores the intersections of race, language, and equity within a university-community tutoring partnership for bilingual middle schoolers. Stemming from the university's history as a predominantly white institution (PWI), the tutor-student pairings routinely consisted of a white bilingual tutor paired with a bilingual student of Color. In this article, we explore racialized dynamics that manifested among these pairings through interviews and observations. Drawing on the framework of raciolinguistic ideologies, we document how both individual and institutional ideologies played key roles in tutor-student interactions through raciolinguistic enregisterment and linguistic (de)legitimization. We argue that these dynamics illustrate the co-constructed nature of raciolinguistic ideologies that subsequently produce inequitable power structures of white linguistic saviorism, even within a program designed to disrupt such dynamics. These findings have implications for disrupting racialized power dynamics within tutoring programming and education systems more broadly.
This article examines the integration of an Indigenous paradigm within the cultural landscape of education amidst the challenges posed by colonisation. It explores pathways towards more equitable futures, highlighting the unique aspects of a research design grounded in Indigenous Knowledge and Respectful Design principles. The article emphasises relational pedagogy and strength-based education, showcasing the importance of including Aboriginal perspectives in the curriculum. Informed directly by Australian Aboriginal elders, the approach ensures ethical conduct and the incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge into contemporary education, defined here as the current mainstream educational practices and policies. The article underscores the necessity of privileging elders' voices within mainstream Australian education, aligning Indigenous Knowledge Systems with the predominant Western Knowledge System. It discusses the lasting impact of the Doctrine of Discovery on education and advocates for a balanced integration of Indigenous perspectives. By showcasing strength-based cultural practices, the article aims to foster reciprocal relationships with local places, peoples, and ancestry, ultimately enhancing educational outcomes for Indigenous students.
In this qualitative study, the authors interviewed 25 social studies teachers across 5 different states (i.e. California, Florida, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Tennessee) to examine their experiences teaching during a political climate involving attacks on their profession through discriminatory censorship laws (DCLs). The teachers explained the various ways that DCLs were impacting students, colleagues, and themselves. Many educators engaged in resistance to these laws and the researchers captured the forms that their resistance took in practice. These acts of resistance outline different ways that educators can potentially respond to DCLs.
This article advocates for Indigenous-led mobile experiences in teacher education as an effective strategy for preparing teachers to disrupt settler colonialism. Using qualitative methods, we analyze a summer institute that took 25 in-service teachers on a journey led by Indigenous educators along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. The teachers' embodied movement across diverse urban, rural, and reservation landscapes connected past and present settler-colonialisms and revealed the endurance, complexity, and creativity of Indigenous life. The institute exposed teachers to Indigenous traditions of mobile learning that they drew upon to redesign their curriculum and pedagogy after the institute: Teachers guided students in recognizing colonial bias in textbooks; created new lessons on contemporary Indigenous art, culture, and political resistance; designed mobile experiences for their own students, such as field trips and games; and began to challenge settler colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism in their school districts and professional associations.
This study examines how an affinity group can serve as a Black Educational Fugitive Space, offering refuge for Black male PK-12 administrators experiencing the enduring impact of The Weather. The Weather is a metaphor for persistent anti-Blackness, violence, and systemic disregard facing Black communities. For Black male administrators, The Weather appears in anti-Black interpersonal interactions and organizational practices that contribute to burnout, dissatisfaction, and isolation. Using Culturally Sustaining Leadership and Wake Work as theoretical lenses, this study investigates how Black Educational Fugitive Space (BEFS) can offer refuge from these conditions. Through organizational autoethnography, including reflective journaling, document analysis, and artifact review, I analyze my experience co-facilitating a BEFS. Findings indicate the emergence of a Black Male Administrator Fugitive Space that provided refuge through intentional learning and relationship building. This study expands the BEFS framework to include Black male administrators and offers insights to support their professional growth, well-being, and retention.
In 2023, a social and emotional learning (SEL) program developer described SEL as the equivalent to "eating your daily fruits and vegetables." This comment is situated within a larger discourse of SEL as unquestionably beneficial, even amidst right-wing backlash against SEL as "liberal indoctrination." Our purpose in this analytical essay is to acknowledge the ways in which SEL is indeed political, but often toward colonial means (even if unintentionally). We draw on literature critiquing the coloniality of nutritional guidelines to argue that there is a similar issue with SEL, which must be reimagined or even set aside if it is to promote "being well" for marginalized peoples. Attempting to codify social and emotional personhood into a formal set of skills and standards can be dangerous and can reproduce coloniality. Wellbeing must be about more than quantifiable and standardized understandings of "nutrients" if it is to be authentic, anti-oppressive, and liberatory.
