Critical Scholars Project @ Critical Theories in the 21st Century: "The Dictatorship of the Marketplace," and Academia

Critical Scholars Project @ Critical Theories in the 21st Century: "The Dictatorship of the Marketplace," and Academia

2nd Annual Critical Theories in the Twenty-First Century Conference

The New Politics of the Textbook: Critical Analysis in the Core Content Areas

The New Politics of the Textbook: Critical Analysis in the Core Content Areas

Sense Publishers

Heather Hickman and Brad J. Porfilio (Eds.)

In an era when corporate and political leaders are using their power to control every aspect of the schooling process in North America, there has been surprisingly little research on the impact of textbook content on students. The contributors of this volume and its partner (The New Politics of the Textbook: Problematizing the Portrayal of Marginalized Groups in Textbooks) guide educators, school administrators, academics, and other concerned citizens to unpack the political, social, and cultural influences inherent in the textbooks of core content areas such as math, science, English, and social science. They urge readers to reconsider the role textbooks play in the creation of students’ political, social, and moral development and in perpetuating asymmetrical social and economic relationships, where social actors are bestowed unearned privileges and entitlements based upon their race, gender, sexuality, class, religion and linguistic background. Finally, they suggest ways to resist the hegemony of those texts through critical analyses, critical questioning, and critical pedagogies.

Constructing Knowledge: Curriculum Studies in Action Volume 2

ISBN 978-94-6091-929-9 hardback USD99/EUR90

ISBN 978-94-6091-928-2 paperback USD49/EUR45

July 2012, 368 pages

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Book Signing: Critical Qualitative Research Reader | Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy, Urban Education, Media Literacy, Indigenous Knowledges, Social Justice, Academic Community

Book Signing: Critical Qualitative Research Reader | Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy, Urban Education, Media Literacy, Indigenous Knowledges, Social Justice, Academic Community

Featured at Truthout

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here to view it online. Saturday 25 February 2012 Bill Moyers | How Pop Culture Influences Political Expectations Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: "Film historian and culture critic Neal Gabler joins Bill Moyers to discuss how representations of heroism in movies shape our expectations of a U.S. president, and how our real-world candidates are packaged into superficial, two-dimensional personas designed to appeal to both the electorate and the media. As a result, says Gabler, we never get to the true pressing questions and issues of America." Read the Article and Watch the Video Remembering the Context of War Crimes: The Crime of War Itself Camillo "Mac" Bica, Truthout: "War cannot be understood, rationally or intellectually, by watching a film or by reading a book. To ‘know’ war, you have to experience it, live it, feel it in your gut - the anxiety, fear, frustration, boredom, hopelessness, despair, anger, rage, etcetera. In truth, warriors exist in a world totally incomprehensible to those who have never had the misfortune of experiencing the horrors of the battlefield." Read the Article Neither Stimulus Nor Austerity Will Solve This Crisis: A Third Way? Steven Hill, Truthout: "Few subjects have so bitterly divided our insecure times than the double-edged saber of stimulus vs. austerity. Consensus over which course will lift the current economic malaise has eluded the dueling experts. Without clearer signals of success, many nations have tried a confused mix of both - let’s call it ‘aust-imulus.’" Read the Article A Woman's Womb: America's New Sports Arena Connie Schultz, Truthout: "I always have thought my birth control was a whole lot of nobody's business. However, Santorum and that all-male panel of pontificates at the recent congressional hearing make clear that silence is not an option. Not if I - not if we - want subsequent generations of women to live long, healthy lives." Read the Article Top Five Initiatives to Watch Ahead of California's November Election Rene Ciria-Cruz, New America Media: "Thus far, voters will have two ballot initiatives to decide on in the June primary and three in November. However, deadlines are looming to get other initiatives on the ballot and people are quickly gathering signatures for the 65 petitions so far in circulation. [Here] are five contentious petitions that would have far-reaching impacts on ethnic communities if they make it onto the November ballot." Read the Article How Economists Tally Unemployment - and Its Affect on the Black Jobless Rate Shani O. Hilton and Hatty Lee, ColorLines: "When the black unemployment numbers dropped so steeply in January - from 15.7 to 12.7 percent - a lot of analysts were scratching their heads to figure out why. One told us that it was ‘quite surprising,’ but there would be no way to know what the numbers meant or whether they were accurate until we saw if the trend continued in later months. But why is that? We dug a little deeper into the process of tracking joblessness to find out." Read the Article The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science - and Reality Chris Mooney, AlterNet: "I can still remember when I first realized how naïve I was in thinking - hoping -that laying out the ‘facts’ would suffice to change politicized minds, and especially Republican ones. It was a typically wonkish, liberal revelation: One based on statistics and data. Only this time, the data were showing, rather awkwardly, that people ignore data and evidence - and often, knowledge and education only make the problem worse." Read the Article Cash of the Titans: Against the Noxious Fantasy of Limitless Growth Phil Rockstroh, Pacific Free Press: "The concept of endless economic growth, accepted as sacrosanct by both U.S. mainstream political parties, and internalized as the dominant mode of mind by the general population of the corporate/consumer state is mirrored in the exponential mathematics of a malignancy. Cancer, if given voice, would proclaim itself to be a believer in ‘free market values’…devoted to the principle of endless growth…until, of course, it would silence its own voice by killing its host." Read the Article Debt of Gratitude: Less Earning, More Learning Randall Amster, New Clear Vision: "I’d like to share a story, a personal story, a common story, an American story. For nearly two decades, I have carried the burden of a crushing student loan debt, well over six figures and impossible for me to fathom paying off in this lifetime…. I suspect that many people burdened by debt feel similarly and are often constrained to bear the pressures silently." Read the Article Does College Make Us Less Equipped to Change the World? Sara Robinson, AlterNet: "In this great meritocracy of ours, those of us who’ve made it through college are encouraged to feel like we’re something special…. It sounds weird and counterintuitive, but in my work with progressive organizations, I’ve noticed some specific ways in which the kind of thinking we learned in our classrooms actually makes us kinda dumb politically. Here are a few places college grads often seem to get led astray by their own educations." Read the Article Education as "Politically Contested Spaces" Paul Thomas, The Daily Censored: "Teachers have long been prone to being the tool of other people’s actions … To pretend to be objective, to wave off or deny the politics of teaching and learning, to shrug off our voices because we must do as we are told are all political concessions to those in power who are the ones using their politics to beg for our silence and inaction." Read the Article Click here for more Truthout articles BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return soon. 10 Reasons the GOP Wants to Ditch the Constitution Read the Blog at BuzzFlash Two Americans Killed as Afghan Unrest Enters Fifth Day Read the Article at The New York Times Gay Judge Refuses to Marry Straight People? Four Ways Sane Lawmakers Are Fighting Back in the Culture Wars Read the Article at Alternet Santorum: Obama "a Snob" for Wanting Everyone to Go to College Read the Article at Talking Points Memo The Two Sides of Rick Santorum Read the Article at the Los Angeles Times American Households Not as Reckless as You Think Read the Article at Mother Jones Romney Fails His Own "Moral Responsibility" Test, Can’t Balance His Campaign’s Budget Read the Article at ThinkProgress Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines ---------- Support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation by clicking here. To ensure you receive our messages please add the following address to your email address book: messenger@truthout.org Click here to Subscribe Our Privacy Policy Click here to Unsubscribe Truthout is a proud member of the Newspaper Guild/CWA, Local 36047

Education as “Politically Contested Spaces” | Truthout

Education as “Politically Contested Spaces” | Truthout

Journal of Educational Controversy - Article: Universal Public Education—Our (Contradictory) Missions

Journal of Educational Controversy - Article: Universal Public Education—Our (Contradictory) Missions

NOW AVAILABLE: Politics, Participation & Power Relations

Politics, Participation & Power Relations: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Critical Citizenship in the Classroom and Community

Richard C. Mitchell
Brock University, Canada

and

Shannon A. Moore (Eds.)
Brock University, Canada

Until recently, youth have become the great absence regarding matters of citizenship, justice, and democracy. Rarely are young people taken up with the important discourses of freedom and citizenship, especially discourses that transcend national boundaries and academic disciplines.

Richard Mitchell and Shannon Moore have put together a brilliant book that not only fills this void, but makes one of the most powerful cases I have read for addressing young people in terms that not only allow them to talk back, be heard, but also to enjoy those rights and freedoms that give democracy a real claim on its ideals and promises. Every educator, parent, student, and all those young people now making their voices heard all over the world should read this book.

Henry A. Giroux

This diverse collection will appeal to students in senior undergraduate and graduate courses looking into the new cosmopolitanism in social policy, citizenship or cultural studies, in child and youth studies, and in post-colonial approaches to education, sociology, and political science.

Critical Issues in the Future of Learning and Teaching Volume 4

ISBN 978-94-6091-742-4 hardback USD99/EUR90

ISBN 978-94-6091-741-7 paperback USD39/EUR35

January 2012, 215 pages

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Call For Manuscript Proposals: Critical Literacy Teaching Series

Call For Manuscripts

Critical Literacy Teaching Series: 

Challenging Authors and Genres

Series Editor: P. L. Thomas, EdD, Furman University

Publisher: Sense

Kincheloe (2005) offers a foundational argument about the role of critical pedagogy in our classrooms:

[P]roponents of critical pedagogy understand that every dimension of schooling and every form of educational practice are politically contested spaces. Shaped by history and challenged by a wide range of interest groups, educational practice is a fuzzy concept as it takes place in numerous settings, is shaped by a plethora of often-invisible forces, and can operate even in the name of democracy and justice to be totalitarian and oppressive. (p. 2)

This series will explore major authors and genres through a critical literacy lens that seeks to offer students opportunities as readers and writers to embrace and act upon their own empowerment. Further, the volumes in this series are guided by Freire (2005) as well:

One of the violences perpetuated by illiteracy is the suffocation of the consciousness and the expressiveness of men and women who are forbidden from reading and writing, thus limiting their capacity to write about their reading of the world so they can rethink about their original reading of it. (p. 2)

We are seeking book-length manuscript proposals for volumes in this new series. Volumes may address individual authors or genres/media/modes of literature/texts; and may be either edited or single-author volumes.

Volume proposals may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Authors:
Sandra Cisneros (being drafted)
Louise Erdrich
Rachel Carson (in press)
Alice Walker
James Baldwin (under consideration)

Genres:
Comics/ graphic novels (published)
Young adult literature (being drafted)
Science fiction (in process)
Children’s literature
Poetry
Novels
Nonfiction

Send proposal ideas or questions about potential volumes to the series editor, P. L. Thomas, by email
(paul.thomas[at]furman.edu).

Series Editorial Board:
Karen Stein, PhD, University of Rhode Island
Shirley Steinberg, PhD, McGill University
Jeanne Gerlach, EdD, University of Texas-Arlington
Leila Christenbury, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University
Renita Schmidt, PhD, University of Iowa
Ken Lindblom, PhD, Stony Brook University