Additive Schooling In Subtractive Times

Documents the unusually successful efforts of one New York City high school to educate Domincan immigrant youth, at a time when Latino immigrants constitute a growing and vulnerable population in the nation's secondary schools.

An unusually successful approach to bilingual education for Dominican immigrant teens in a New York City high school

Comparative case studies are an effective qualitative tool for researching the impact of policy and practice in various fields of social research, including education. Developed in response to the inadequacy of traditional case study approaches, comparative case studies are highly effective because of their ability to synthesize information across time and space. In Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach, the authors describe, explain, and illustrate the horizontal, vertical, and transversal axes of comparative case studies in order to help readers develop their own comparative case study research designs. In six concise chapters, two experts employ geographically distinct case studies—from Tanzania to Guatemala to the U.S.—to show how this innovative approach applies to the operation of policy and practice across multiple social fields. With examples and activities from anthropology, development studies, and policy studies, this volume is written for researchers, especially graduate students, in the fields of education and the interpretive social sciences.

Do street children go to school, and if not, why not? What kind of education can be 'meaningful' to young people affected by conflict? The contributors explore groups of children and young people who have no, or very limited, educational opportunities in various contexts, including Vietnam, Ukraine, the UK, the USA, and India. They explore a number of educational initiatives that have contributed to improving the lives of disadvantaged children, drawing on the perceptions and experiences of disadvantaged children and young people themselves. Each chapter contains contemporary questions to encourage active engagement with the material and an annotated list of suggested reading to support further exploration.

With increasing mobility of people across the world, there is a pressing need to develop evidence-based teaching practices that lead to high-quality education, which serves the needs of inclusive societies and social and epistemic justice. This book presents cutting-edge qualitative case-study research across a range of educational contexts, research-method contributions and theory-oriented chapters by distinguished multilingual education scholars. These take stock of the field of translanguaging in relation to the education of multilingual individuals in today’s globalized world. The volume breaks new ground in that all chapters share a focus on teachers as ‘knowledge generators’ and many on teacher-researcher collaboration. Together, the chapters provide comprehensive and up-to-date applications of the concept of pedagogical translanguaging and present recent research in educational contexts that have hitherto received scant attention, namely secondary-level education, education for adult immigrants and the school-wide introduction of pedagogical translanguaging in primary school. Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 8 are free to download as open access publications. They can be downloaded from our website: https://www.channelviewpublications.com/page/open-access/.

Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original small schools movement——which are rooted in community participation, innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice——have become obscured by an educational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increased popularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on ‘‘size only’’ has resulted in a bifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced the democratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end are schools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices. This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them ““critical small schools.”” By documenting the practices that take place in various critical small schools in New York City, we show how these schools have narrowed the achievement gap and increased graduation and college acceptance rates. Although smallness is an essential feature in the design of these schools, it is certainly not the only one and this volume illuminates the other elements that contribute to these schools’’ successes and shortcomings. Critical Small Schools also challenges the recent emphasis on charter schools as a panacea for urban educational reform. By featuring research about the inner workings of public schools, this volume challenges this new direction that steers successful school development away from public education. Moreover, as every site is fraught with some tension, Critical Small Schools not only offers glimpses into intellectually vibrant and democratic learning communities, but also acknowledges that these concepts are not static and necessitate continual reflection and renewal. At this pivotal moment in educational reform, this volume provides keen insight into the challenges and possibilities of the small schools movement and is indispensable for anyone interested in comprehensive public school reform.

The perceived lack of understanding of cultural diversity in the American learning community has led instructors to challenge assumptions and stereotypes while addressing misconceptions. Teachers of foreign languages and cultural studies, in particular, feel the need to redesign curricula and lesson plans to better serve the learning community of the twenty-first century. The common starting point resides in the paradox that exists in today’s connected world; while global access to information makes learners aware of the infinite variety of cultural diversity, it does not, however, make them critical thinkers. For this reason, there is opportunity to reshape critical thinking within a more global perspective, while enhancing the tools to identify, interpret, and compare the different cultural models that learners encounter. The book demonstrates the theories and practical applications by which instructors use contemporary film to provide insightful readings on diverse local communities, communities that form the basis of global culture. This collection of essays will serve as a pedagogical tool and resource, offering methods and examples of a communicative approach to analyze and integrate cultural diversities, similarities, and problems in the second language curricula, methods that expose students to different cultural models while scaffolding their critical approach to multiple layers of common and specific values. This work will encourage a dialogue and long-lasting conversation on methodologies and teaching strategies rethought, reapplied, and remolded to the new learning environments.

For many students in urban public schools, the routines of standards-based instruction and frequent testing remove the possibilities for sustained inquiry and critical engagement in school and with the larger world. Restoring Dignity in Public Schools demonstrates how urban public schools can create thriving, authentic centers of learning. Drawing from rich narratives of human rights education (HRE) in action, the author shows how school leaders can create an environment in which a culture of dignity, respect, tolerance, and democracy ?ourishes. The book examines the dynamics of HRE in practice, defines its constituent elements, and explains how these components work in tandem to produce schooling that encourages young people to critically interact with the world around them and imagine different alternatives for the future. This timely book provides a viable alternative to the currently favored strategies of increased testing, privatization, and disciplinary control. Book Features: A counternarrative to the mainstream discourses of “failing” public schools in the United States. Policies and practices of human rights education in action, including the experiences of students and teachers. A framework for school leaders to create a climate of dignity for marginalized students. Ethnographic research conducted at Humanities Preparatory Academy, a public high school in New York City. “This book provides what most of us don’t have: hope that a school based on human rights can actually exist in urban education. It will inspire grassroots activists and educators alike to envision something tangible to fight for.” —Sally Lee, executive director, Teachers Unite “The testimonies in this book remind us that schools can, in fact, be transformational communities. This is a work of head and heart, a call to reimagine schools as sites of critique and collaboration, purpose and possibility.” —Bill Bigelow, Rethinking Schools