An essential guide to incorporating critical research into higher education scholarship. Winner of the Outstanding Publication Award of the Post-secondary Education Division of the American Educational Research Association Critical theory has much to teach us about higher education. By linking critical models, methods, and research tools with an advocacy-driven vision of the central challenges facing postsecondary researchers and staff, Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education makes a significant—and long overdue—contribution to the development of the field. The contributors argue that, far from being overly abstract, critical tools and methods are central to contemporary scholarship and can have practical policy implications when brought to the study of higher education. They argue that critical research design and critical theories help scholars see beyond the normative models and frameworks that have long limited our understanding of students, faculty, institutions, the organization and governance of higher education, and the policies that shape the postsecondary arena. A rigorous and invaluable guide for researchers seeking innovative approaches to higher education and the morass of traditionally functionalist, rational, and neoliberal thinking that mars the field, this book is also essential for instructors who wish to incorporate the lessons of critical scholarship into their course development, curriculum, and pedagogy.

Critical Literacy and Urban Youth offers an interrogation of critical theory developed from the author’s work with young people in classrooms, neighborhoods, and institutions of power. Through cases, an articulated process, and a theory of literacy education and social change, Morrell extends the conversation among literacy educators about what constitutes critical literacy while also examining implications for practice in secondary and postsecondary American educational contexts. This book is distinguished by its weaving together of theory and practice. Morrell begins by arguing for a broader definition of the "critical" in critical literacy – one that encapsulates the entire Western philosophical tradition as well as several important "Othered" traditions ranging from postcolonialism to the African-American tradition. Next, he looks at four cases of critical literacy pedagogy with urban youth: teaching popular culture in a high school English classroom; conducting community-based critical research; engaging in cyber-activism; and doing critical media literacy education. Lastly, he returns to theory, first considering two areas of critical literacy pedagogy that are still relatively unexplored: the importance of critical reading and writing in constituting and reconstituting the self, and critical writing that is not just about coming to a critical understanding of the world but that plays an explicit and self-referential role in changing the world. Morrell concludes by outlining a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy and considering its implications for literacy research, teacher education, classroom practice, and advocacy work for social change.

“All too often,” wrote disabled architect Ronald Mace, “designers don’t take the needs of disabled and elderly people into account.” Building Access investigates twentieth-century strategies for designing the world with disability in mind. Commonly understood in terms of curb cuts, automatic doors, Braille signs, and flexible kitchens, Universal Design purported to create a built environment for everyone, not only the average citizen. But who counts as “everyone,” Aimi Hamraie asks, and how can designers know? Blending technoscience studies and design history with critical disability, race, and feminist theories, Building Access interrogates the historical, cultural, and theoretical contexts for these questions, offering a groundbreaking critical history of Universal Design. Hamraie reveals that the twentieth-century shift from “design for the average” to “design for all” took place through liberal political, economic, and scientific structures concerned with defining the disabled user and designing in its name. Tracing the co-evolution of accessible design for disabled veterans, a radical disability maker movement, disability rights law, and strategies for diversifying the architecture profession, Hamraie shows that Universal Design was not just an approach to creating new products or spaces, but also a sustained, understated activist movement challenging dominant understandings of disability in architecture, medicine, and society. Illustrated with a wealth of rare archival materials, Building Access brings together scientific, social, and political histories in what is not only the pioneering critical account of Universal Design but also a deep engagement with the politics of knowing, making, and belonging in twentieth-century United States.

Why does a public high school, despite having resources and educators with good intentions, end up graduating English learners (ELs) without preparing them for college and career? This book answers this question through a longitudinal ethnographic case study of a diverse high school in Pennsylvania. The author takes the reader on a journey with seven EL students through their last two years of high school, exploring how and why none of them reached the postsecondary destinations they originally aspired to. This book provides a sobering look into the systemic undereducation of high school ELs and the role of high schools in limiting their postsecondary options.

This important volume brings together key writings from one of the most influential education scholars of our time. In this collection of her seminal essays on critical race theory (CRT), Gloria Ladson-Billings seeks to clear up some of the confusion and misconceptions that education researchers have around race and inequality. Beginning with her groundbreaking work with William Tate in the mid-1990s up to the present day, this book discloses both a personal and intellectual history of CRT in education. The essays are divided into three areas: Critical Race Theory, Issues of Inequality, and Epistemology and Methodologies. Ladson-Billings ends with an afterword that looks back at her journey and considers what is on the horizon for other scholars of education. Having these widely cited essays in one volume will be invaluable to everyone interested in understanding how inequality operates in our society and how race affects educational outcomes. Featured Essays: Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education with William F. Tate IVCritical Race Theory: What It Is Not!From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Inequality in U.S. SchoolsThrough a Glass Darkly: The Persistence of Race in Education Research and ScholarshipNew Directions in Multicultural Education: Complexities, Boundaries, and Critical Race TheoryLanding on the Wrong Note: The Price We Paid for BrownRacialized Discourses and Ethnic EpistemologiesCritical Race Theory and the Post-Racial Imaginary with Jamel K. Donner

This book represents the contributions of prominent researchers, teacher educators, policy makers, teachers, and parents on current and emerging issues facing the field of special education, and their critical thinking on how to ensure that students with disabilities receive free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. The authors present divergent perspectives on the issues and concerns, including: (a) the emergence of more constructivistic instruction approaches that focus increasingly on higher order thinking; (b) new organization structures for administering schools; (c) standards-based reform and the use of high stakes testing for evaluating students; (d) the changing population and the increasingly diverse demographics of the students served in the public schools; (e) the onset of the information age and the increasingly visible role of technology in the schools and the workplace; (f) concerns about student discipline and violence in schools; (g) the continuing shortage of qualified and certified special education teachers, and (h) trends in higher education focused on the reform of teacher education such as changing standards for knowledge and skills, preparing teachers for changing roles as mentors, and changes in the teacher education process that may have precipitated or influenced issues in the field. For special education providers such as parents and teachers and for anyone interested in the field of special education.

Now the largest and fastest-growing ethnic population in the U.S., Latino students face many challenges and complexities when it comes to college choice and access. This edited volume provides much needed theoretical and empirical data on how the schooling experiences of Latino students shape their educational aspirations and access to higher education. It explores how the individual and collective influence of the home, school and policy shape the college decision-making process. This unique collection of original scholarly articles offers critical insight on educational pathways that will help families, educators and policy makers intervene in ways that foster and sustain college access and participation for Latino students. It considers destination preferences and enrollment selections, elementary and secondary school experiences, and intervention programs that shed light on how practitioners can promote participation and retention. This multi-conceptual, multi-methodological volume offers directions for future research, programming and policy in Latino education.