Citizen Teacher

The first book-length biography of Margaret Haley (1861–1939) focuses on her political vision, her activities as a public school activist, and her life as a charismatic woman leader.

Finalist for the 2006 History of Education Society's Outstanding Book Award Winner of the 2005 Critics' Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies Association Citizen Teacher is the first book-length biography of Margaret Haley (1861–1939), the founder of the first American teachers' union, and a dynamic leader, civic activist, and school reformer. The daughter of Irish immigrants, this Chicago elementary school teacher exploded onto the national stage in 1900, leading women teachers into a national battle to secure resources for public schools and enhance teachers' professional stature. This book centers on Haley's political vision, activities as a public school activist, and her life as a charismatic leader. In the more than forty years of her political life, Haley was constantly in the news, butting heads with captains of industry, challenging autocracy in urban bureaucracy and school buildings alike, arguing legal doctrine and tax reform in state courts, and urging her constituents into action. An extraordinary figure in American history, Haley's contemporaries praised her as one of the nation's great orators and called her the Joan of Arc of the classroom teacher movement. Haley's belief that well-funded, well-respected teachers were the key to the development of a positive civic community remains a central tenet in American education. Her guiding vision of the democratic role of the public school and the responsibility of teachers as activist citizens is relevant and inspirational for educators today.

This book explores how citizen teachers can expand our capacities to generate more equitable and just spaces with families by working as community organizers. Paying particular attention to community organizing work in one elementary school, the book weaves stories and examples with theoretical understandings to support emerging citizen teachers in creating more democratic spaces. Each chapter provides key community organizing concepts and skills and offers lessons learned to identify what worked and what did not. By building solidarity with families, citizen teachers can effectively activate more powerful practices grounded in the lives of students, their families, and their communities while articulating a broader response to the conditions impacting educators.

This book examines the importance, and potential, of citizenship education, using extensive qualitative data from England and Sweden. The authors draw on the work of Nira Yuval-Davis and other prominent scholars in the field to frame citizenship as membership of numerous communities, for example disability, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and social class. This intersectional approach enables a rich understanding of the experiences and capabilities of young people, and bridges the gap between the formal meaning and real experiences of citizenship. The book presents case studies from England and Sweden, two contexts that have similar societies and school systems but very different approaches to citizenship education. Using this rich data, the authors illuminate the perspectives of young learners and their teachers to understand how learners can uphold their rights and responsibilities as citizens. This book will be of interest and value to scholars of social justice and citizenship education.

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Focusing on the relationship between gender, education and citizenship, this book explores, from a feminist perspective, how the concept of citizenship has been used in relation to gender, and how young people are being prepared for male and female forms of citizenship.