Schools have long been regarded as part of
the fabric of social justice in our American democracy as they pursue
the goal of providing a means of equal opportunity to all children. This
course asks how well the schools have accomplished this task and
presents ways leaders can do better at reaching this goal. We’ll discuss
what the saying “all children can learn” means in school practice, and
evaluate organizational and institutional policies to determine if they
support or undermine this belief. We’ll discuss how school leaders can
collaborate with parents, community agencies and other institutions to
work for social justice and we’ll examine ways leaders can assist
students to learn their role as citizens in working for social justice.
Finally, we’ll consider the ethical dilemmas faced by school leaders as
they apply policies and resources in the task of ensuring that all
children can learn.
Alicia Fedelina Chávez,
Florence Guido-DiBrito, 1999, “Racial and Ethnic
Identityand
Development”, New Directions For Adult And Continuing
Education, no. 84, available at:
http://aurora.wells.edu/~vim/Racial_Ethnic_Identity.pdf.
The following assignments are
to be completed on MyCC in the appropriate forum by the
appropriate date:
November 1, 2007: Choose
one of the authors/ideas discussed in the classes on
race and ethnicity to research further. Submit a paper
(1,000-2,000 words) that clarifies, expands, and/or
questions this author/idea. The paper must have at least
5 academic citations.
November 15, 2007: Read two
students’ papers. Provide specific and constructive
criticism on each paper (ideally through “track
changes”).
The following assignments are
to be emailed to the professor by the appropriate date
December 1, 2007: Samuel
Bowles argues in his essay that “The legacy of the
progressive education movement, like the earlier reforms
of the mid-nineteenth century, was a strengthened system
of class stratification within schooling which continues
to play an important role in the reproduction and
legitimation of the social division of labor.” What does
he mean? (500 word maximum)
December 15, 2007: Blythe
Clinchy argues in her essay that: “our educational
practice is founded upon a ‘masculine, adversarial form
of discourse,’ and defines the problem of silence not as
a deficiency in women, but as a limitation in our
educational institutions.” What does she mean? (500
word maximum)
NCES, Trends in
Educational Equity of Girls and Women, 2004.
Available at:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005016.pdf. [[READ the
Executive Summary (pp. 1-15) only]]
Clinchy, 1989, “On Critical
Thinking and Connected Knowing”.
Dorte Marie Sondergaard,
2002, “Poststructuralist approaches to empirical
analysis.” In Qualitative Studies in Education,
15(2), pp. 187 – 204.
Session VI: In-class
Sunday, January 6, 2008
MORNING Topic: Social Justice and
socio-cultural and structural determinants
Required Readings:
Phillip Jackson, Life in
Classrooms, pp. 3 – 37
Hugh Mehan, “What Time is
It, Denise?”: Asking Known Information Questions in
Classroom Discourse’, in Theory into Practice,
18(4), pp. 285-294. 1979.
AFTERNOON Topic: Synthesizing
Social Justice and Your Dissertation Focus
Presentations of Resource
List: Present a
resource list (10-20 citations), with references and
web-links, of one specific issue from this course. The topic
should be highly delimited. The references and web-links
should be minimally annotated. The list should be no more
than 1-2 pages long.
Submission of Final Paper:
Link your dissertation focus with an issue of social
justice. It is expected that this paper serves as either (a)
an initial draft of your theoretical framework and/or
literature review for your dissertation proposal; or (b) a
strengthening of one strand within your dissertation’s
literature review. There is no specific page limit (though
it should not be longer than ~10 pages). The paper should
cite a minimum of 10 academic journal or book references.
