Education And Social Justice In A Digital Age

In many countries, the focus of school curriculum shifts back and forth between traditional subjects (such as mathematics and history) and the development of skills (such as problem solving). Rosamund Sutherland argues here that skills-focused curriculum--often seen as preparing students to work in our digital age--can actually exacerbate existing social inequalities. Arguing from a social justice perspective, she contends that schools should prioritize instruction in traditional subjects, which can provide disadvantaged students with formal knowledge they are not likely to learn outside school. Sutherland's theoretical and practical insights point toward changes in policy and practice that could help improve student's lives.

Technology, Activism, and Social Justice in a Digital Age offers a close look at both the present nature and future prospects for social change. In particular, the text explores the cutting edge of technology and social change, while discussing developments in social media, civic technology, and leaderless organizations -- as well as more traditional approaches to social change. It effectively assembles a rich variety of perspectives to the issue of technology and social change; the featured authors are academics and practitioners (representing both new voices and experienced researchers) who share a common devotion to a future that is just, fair, and supportive of human potential. They come from the fields of social work, public administration, journalism, law, philanthropy, urban affairs, planning, and education, and their work builds upon 30-plus years of research. The authors' efforts to examine changing nature of social change organizations and the issues they face will help readers reflect upon modern advocacy, social change, and the potential to utilize technology in making a difference.

This book presents a wide-ranging and critical exploration of a topic that lies at the heart of contemporary education. The use of digital technology is now a key feature of schools and schooling around the world. Yet despite its prominence, technology use continues to be an area of education that rarely receives sustained critical attention and thought, especially from those people who are most involved and affected by it. Technology tends to be something that many teachers, learners, parents, policy-makers and even academics approach as a routine rather than reflective matter. Tackling the wider picture, addressing the social, cultural, economic, political and commercial aspects of schools and schooling in the digital age, this book offers to make sense of what happens, and what does not happen, when the digital and the educational come together in the guise of schools technology. In particular, the book examines contemporary schooling in terms of social justice, equality and participatory democracy. Seeking to re-politicise an increasingly depoliticised area of educational debate and analysis, setting out to challenge the many contradictions that characterise the field of education technology today, the author concludes by suggesting what forms schools and schooling in the digital age could, and should, take. This is the perfect volume for anyone interested in the application and use of technology in education, as well as the education policy and politics that surround it; many will also find its innovative proposals for technology use an inspiration for their own teaching and learning.

This book serves as a platform for educators and researchers to unite educational technology and social justice. While educational technology is a rapidly changing and progressive field of research and practice, it remains largely separate from education for social justice. Current literature about educational technology is often approached from a technical, how-to perspective that emphasizes ways to implement technology into the classroom. Technology is often viewed as inevitable, yet neutral and value-free. Educational technology, however, is anything but neutral. The contributors collectively advance a hopeful discourse by exploring the potential of technology as a vehicle to transform and emancipate, while not forgoing a critically reflective measure of self-conscious critique of our own role as educators, students, or scholars in oppressive silences, constraints and conditions. This edited collection makes an important and unique contribution to the field, as it will be the first published volume to detail research, theory, and practice regarding student use of technology in achieving liberatory aims since IAP’s 2009 publication, ICT for Education, Development and Social Justice. The fields of educational technology and social justice are vast and applicable in many domains, including teacher education, graduate programs, and K-12 education. This work is intended to appeal to a diverse academic and professional audience of K-12 teachers, teacher educators, educational technology and social justice scholars, and policy makers. Scholars and academics instructing graduate-level educational technology courses can reference this edited collection as the most current text on socially just educational technology. Educational practitioners from teacher education programs and the K-12 sector may use this book as a source of ideas and inspiration to incorporate student use of technology toward emancipatory aims. This title could be adopted as a course text for both undergraduate and graduate education courses in: media literacy, digital literacy, distance education, education for social justice, and teacher preparation, and educational technology courses. Readers will also be able to use the book as a guide when critically analyzing their own professional practice, whether it is in research, working with K-12 students, or preparing future educators or scholars.

Challenging the current understandings of equity and social justice in the field of online education, The Hidden Curriculum of Online Learning analyses how cultural hegemony creates unfair learning experiences through cultural differences. It argues that such inequitable learning experiences are not random acts but rather represent the existing inequities in society at large through cultural reproduction. Based on an ethnographic work, the book discusses the concept of social absence (in relation to social presence) to discuss how individuals perform their identities within group contexts and to create awareness of social justice issues in online education. It draws upon critical pedagogy and cultural studies to show that while online learning spaces are frequently promoted by local or federal governments and higher education institutions as overwhelmingly inclusive and democratic, these premises do not operate with uniformity across all student cohorts. The Hidden Curriculum of Online Learning It will be of great interest to academics, post-graduate students, and researchers in the fields of digital learning and inclusion, education research, and cultural studies.

International Advances in Education: Global Initiatives for Equity and Social Justice is an international research monograph series of scholarly works that focuses primarily on empowering children, adolescents, and young adults from diverse educational, socio-cultural, linguistic, religious, racial, ethnic, and socio-economic settings to become non-exploited/non-exploitive contributing members of the global community. The series draws on the international community of investigators, academics, and community organizers that have contributed to the evidence base for developing sound educational policies, practices, and innovative programs to optimize the potential of all students. Each themed volume includes multi-disciplinary theory, research, and practice that provides an enriched understanding of the drivers of human potential via education to assist readers in exploring, adapting, and replicating innovative strategies that enable ALL students to realize their full potential. Among these strategies are the integration of digital technologies (DT) and information and communication technologies (ICT) into contemporary education platforms. However, technology must be more than just a tool to deliver content and stimulate engagement; it must become a means to broaden access to learning, advance equity, promote social justice, and encourage social inclusion. Especially reaching out to address the academic and social needs of rural, impoverished, marginalized, and displaced populations. Though the digital divide continues to hinder educational attainment for underprivileged populations, ICTs are providing significant opportunities to deliver literacy and basic skills instruction to disadvantaged segments of the global population as well as engage, motivate, and customize learning to address local needs. Nonetheless, the availability of ICT is not a deterministic process. Other societal, cultural, political and contextual factors are of fundamental importance to acceptance and integration that enables people to benefit from technology. The relationship between educational access, instructional delivery, and ICT should be considered in more complex terms. In particular, digital technologies should be viewed as instructional tools that improve access to educational opportunities, strengthen cultural resources, promote social and economic equity, and provide students with the knowledge and competencies to prepare them for a future that cannot be predicted. Therefore, developing ICT and media capabilities that instill citizenship and stewardship in today’s students is crucial to gleaning the social and cultural advantages of a contemporary global society that encourages full and equal citizenship. Citizenship education refers to two understandings of citizenship: as belonging and as engagement. The first is focused on national identity and valorizes the values of justice and democracy, as well as language and culture as the roots bridging the personality of children to the community of solidarity and shared norms. The second understanding of citizenship complements the ‘roots’ with ‘roads’, with the choices made by the individual, with the capacity to form and develop the child’s personality into the actor and author of his/her educational, professional, and life projects. The adolescent prepares to become an active, committed, and engaged citizen with the intellectual capacity for critical thinking that leads to responsible actions. Digital citizenship expresses the transformations of both belonging to and engaging in the information society and contributes to the development of generation “Y” with the aspiration to innovate and experiment, to explore the possibilities of the new digital world, to question authorities and instances of knowledge and power. Education addresses digital citizenship by opening more avenues for the intersection of Internet, imagination, and exploration. Volume 10, E-learning & Social Media: Education and Citizenship for the Digital 21st Century, addresses the use of technology in: developing and expanding educational delivery systems to reach rural populations, providing access to equitable education opportunities for disadvantaged and marginalized populations, and encouraging student civic engagement. The volume evaluates e-learning programs (distributed through the Internet, via satellite and hosted on social media) that promote equitable education for disadvantaged populations; examines the challenges and benefits of social media on student self-identity, collaboration, and academic engagement; shares promising practices associated with technology in education and e-citizenship in the 21st century, and advances the discussion on blending global citizenship education and social media that raises student awareness, accountability and social justice involvement.

The authors draw from their work with teachers and students to address issues of social justice through the regular curriculum and everyday school life. This book illustrates an approach that integrates social justice education with contemporary research on students’ development of moral understandings and concerns for human welfare in order to critically address societal conventions, norms, and institutions. The authors provide a clear roadmap for differentiating moral education from religious beliefs and offer age-appropriate guidance for creating healthy school and classroom environments. Demonstrating how to engage students in critical thinking and community activism, the book includes proven-effective lessons that promote academic learning and moral growth for the early grades through adolescence. The text also incorporates recent work with social-emotional learning and restorative justice to nurture students’ ethical awareness and disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. Book Features: Guidance to help teachers move from classroom moral discourse to engage students in community action. Age-specific lesson plans developed with classroom teachers for integration with regular academic curricula.Detailed overview of moral growth with examples of student reasoning.Connections between moral development and critical pedagogy.Connections between moral development and digital literacy.Connections among classroom management, school rules, restorative justice, and students’ social development.Insights drawn from research conducted within the Oakland Public School system.

This book explores the problematic relationship between education, social justice and the State, against the background of comparative education research. The book critiques the status quo of stratified school systems, and the unequal distribution of cultural capital and value added schooling. The authors address one of today’s most pressing questions: Are social, economic and cultural divisions between the nations, between school sectors, between schools and between students growing or declining?