University of North Carolina at Greensboro | School of Education | Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations

Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer

Dodie — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:21:48 +0000

On June 25-26, Elon’s Center for Engaged Learning will host an international conference on “Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer.” The conference will feature multi-instutional research conducted by faculty from around the world and will include plenary speakers Etienne Wenger (author of books including Situated Learning and also Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity) and Graham Smart (author of titles including Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre, and Technology in the World of Banking). The conference is one of the products of the 2011-2013 Elon Research Seminar, which has been facilitated by Jessie Moore (Elon), Randy Bass (Georgetown), and Chris Anson (NC State).Information about the conference, including registration details, can be found at this link

ELC Potluck Gathering

Dodie — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:57:01 +0000

ELC Potluck gathering photo by Gail Bretan.

SAPES 2013 Call for Papers

Dodie — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:58:36 +0000

The 58th Annual Meeting of the South Atlantic Philosophy of Education Society (SAPES) will be held at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 11- Oct. 12, 2013. The conference theme is “Resistance, Resilience, and Recovery – Retaining a Place for Education in Teacher Preparation”. The submission deadline is June 1, 2013.

SAPES 2013

As public funding for education decreases and economic pressures play a powerful role
in associating the value of schooling with job preparation and global competition, alternative
discourses about the aims and purposes of education are increasingly marginalized and ignored.
This state of affairs extends to teacher preparation programs as prescriptive standards and
requirements continue to narrow the scope of study available to degree-seeking pre- and in-
service teachers. The 58th annual SAPES conference would like to create a space for a broader
range of narratives concerning what education can and should entail, particularly as it relates to
the preparation and ongoing professional development of P-12 teachers. We invite you to locate
and explore forms and sources of resistance and resilience in the face of such mounting pressures
to conform to narrow conceptions of teaching and learning, and we hope to share with one
another how our educational practices might recover from these damaging trends.

While we invite proposals for papers to be submitted for presentation at the annual
SAPES meeting that address the conference theme, we also welcome papers that focus on other
philosophical topics and questions. The program committee welcomes proposals in the field of
philosophy of education, social foundations of education, as well as related conceptual and
theoretical work. We particularly invite practitioners to join us to explore the theoretical aspects
and implications of their work. Presented papers will be eligible for publication in the society’s
yearbook. Recent yearbooks can be viewed online at http://sapes.org/publications.html.
Graduate students are especially encouraged to submit proposals. Limited stipends for graduate
student travel are available.

Conference Submissions:
Please submit all proposals via an email attachment in Word or PDF format to Laura DeSisto,
SAPES President, at desistola@appstate.edu by Saturday, June 1.

Individual Paper Proposals: Proposals must not exceed 250 words. Please be sure to include the
author’s name, institutional affiliation, and a tentative title for the paper – these details will not
count against the 250 word limit.

Panel Session Proposals: Please supply a description of the session’s theme in 250 words or less,
as well as a proposal of 250 words from each individual panelist. Along with identifying each of
the panel’s participants, please also be sure to indicate who will serve as the session chair.

ELC Alumni Recognized

Dodie — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:51:31 +0000

Dr. Craig Peck, Dr. Ann Davis, Dr. Larry Coble and Dr. Rick Reitzug

ELC Alumni were honored at the UNCG Alumni Awards Celebration this past week! (Photo: Ted Richardson Media)

Critical Race Theory & Humor in High School

Dodie — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:17:59 +0000

ELC faculty, graduate/alumni and doctoral students have published 2 new articles:

J. Ako Barnes (alumnus), Carol Mullen (faculty), and Sheryl J. Lieb (doctoral student):
Barnes, J. A., Mullen, C. A., & Lieb, S. J. (2013, in press). Critical race theory in action: The freshman educational experience for students of color. Education Leadership Review.

Bonnie Kosiczky (alumnus) and Carol Mullen (faculty):
Kosiczky, B., & Mullen, C. A. (2013, in press). Humor in high school and the role of teacher leaders in school public relations. Journal of School Public Relations, 34(1).

Web 2.0 Tool and Resource Guide 2013

Dodie — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:13:50 +0000

ELC’s Dr. Ann Davis has just released an updated version of her Web 2.0 Tool and Resource Guide. This one includes iPad applications and has the most up-to-date tools categorized. Download here: WEB 2.0 Tool & Resource Guide 2013 (PDF)

ELC Faculty & Student Spotlight

Dodie — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 01:16:26 +0000

In a recent SOE Newsletter, Dr. Bettez and Kathleen Edwards from ELC are featured in this month’s faculty/student spotlight! Read about their stories below:

Silvia Bettez, professor in the Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations Department at the UNCG School of Education, discusses her recent publication and the importance of social justice activist teaching.

1. Your first book, But Don’t Call Me White: Mixed Race Women Exposing Nuances of Privilege and Oppression Politicswas published a year ago. Could you please talk about your research behind this publication and what inspired you to write on this subject matter?

I address the answer to this question in the opening to my book, so I will share that here: I believe that the more intimately interconnected people feel—the more we take the time to learn about and connect with people across cultural differences—the less separation, segregation, and oppression there will be. Connecting with others in a way that has the potential to minimize oppression, however, requires striving to understand the complex operations of privilege related to race, class, gender, and sexuality. My beliefs about the importance of cross-cultural connections, my desire to do work that dismantles oppression, and my personal mixed race identity, led me to seek out life stories by mixed race women, individuals who simultaneously embody racially/ethnically oppressed and privileged identities and thus could speak directly to the challenges of deconstructing hierarchies built on emphasizing inequity in differences. For this project, I conducted extensive interviews with 16 biracial women in three parts of the United States; each has one White parent and one parent who is a person of color. I approached this research with a sociological lens searching for meaning related to issues of social justice: What can these women’s stories tell us about how to better communicate cross culturally? How do their multiple positionalities – of gender, race, class, and sexuality – affect the ways in which they claim agency and are limited by structure? What do their stories reveal about racial politics?

2. Could you describe ‘social justice activist teaching’ and why this topic is important to you?

When I was a graduate student I wrote a book chapter in which I identified seven skills, practices, and dispositions of activist social justice education. The list includes:

Promoting a mind/body connection
Conducting artful facilitation that promotes critical thinking
Engaging in explicit discussions of power, privilege, and oppression
Maintaining compassion for students
Believing that change toward social justice is possible
Exercising self-care
Building critical communities

As I state in my chapter, these are not meant to be all-inclusive, but to engender critical discussions about activist teaching in hopes of promoting a more conscious connection between theory, politics, and practice. Several years have passed since I originally wrote this manuscript, but I still believe in this type of activist teaching and strive to enact and embody it as an educator. Having taught this chapter a few times now, what fascinates me is how the topic of exercising self-care seems to be what most students want to discuss; often they share stories of how little self care they have done since beginning graduate school, struggling to balance the high expectations of school, work, and family. I feel passionate about modeling self-care and encouraging others to practice self-care, which I believe can be aided by engaging in critical communities. Thus, I consciously strive to engage with students to promote community building.

3. What do you enjoy most about the ELC program at UNCG?

The first line of our department statement of commitments reads: “The Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations is committed to the development of a just and caring democratic society in which schools serve as centers of inquiry and forces for social transformation.” I am honored to be a part of a group of committed faculty and students striving to promote justice and equity in education and beyond. Having a background in community education, it was difficult for me to make the decision to remain in academia; however, I am inspired by the work of the students with whom I work. I see that the work we do together, as teachers and learners, has a direct impact on their lives as students and on the lives of the people with whom they work. As they share stories of implementing what they learn, I know my work is making a difference far beyond the walls of the university. This inspires me to be an increasingly better professor, mentor, and researcher.

4. You actively mentor doctoral students in submitting conference proposals and preparing conference presentations at UNCG. What do you find most rewarding about this process?

When I was a graduate student, regularly attending conferences and engaging in every aspect of that process—writing proposals, preparing and conducting presentations, writing scholarly papers, working collaboratively with co-presenters, being offered opportunities to publish, engaging with peers across the country, connecting with people who became mentors—assisted in my preparation to become a successful scholar and faculty member. My hope is that students with whom I work also gain valuable skills and experiences from attending conferences. Furthermore, I envision the process of engaging in conferences as ripe with potential for critical community building. When I began this mentoring process, it entailed a tremendous amount of work because students required significant guidance; however, over the years students have increasingly supported each other in preparing for and presenting at conferences, and I now have the pleasure of being one of many participants in this critical community building process.

5. Can you share some highlights of your scholarly work over the past year or two?

My research revolves around work for the promotion of social justice. I choose projects that push me, and hopefully those engaged with my work, to better understand the theory and practice of education for social justice; ideally this understanding will inspire equity-promoting practices. It is also important to me to engage in scholarly endeavors with other colleagues, both faculty and students. One accomplishment that relates to my commitment to mentoring is that in 2012 I co-edited a special issue of the peer-reviewed journal, The Urban Review, on the topic of the educational and social significance of HBCUs in which four students from our department have single-authored publications. I also co-authored a presentation and publication with a student from another department on the role of social media in the coming out process for individuals who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or queer.

Currently, I am preparing for a presentation at American Educational Research Association and am about to submit a related manuscript for publication that I co-wrote, with colleagues in the Teacher Education department, that is based upon research with refugees and immigrants to learn about their experiences, needs, and expectations of the United States school system. This project came about as a result of my involvement in the Coalition for Diverse Language Communities.

In addition, I have been continuing my work on social justice activist teaching; I recently published an article titled “Navigating the guilt vs. innocence dichotomy in teaching for social justice.” This year I was also invited to give two keynote addresses on the topic of social justice. These experiences were particularly meaningful to me, and I hope I inspired action and raised critical conscious related to social justice. I am passionate about my pedagogy, and writing and speaking about this topic is important to me. Relatedly, I have continued my work on critical community building. Just last month, an article I co-authored was published in Educational Studies titled “Community building in social justice work: A critical approach.” Continuing with this line of research, last semester I embarked upon a qualitative research project in which I worked with students asking them what their thoughts and experiences are about community building. I identify strongly as a qualitative researcher and I take a critical approach to my work, but for this project, I shifted to engage in collaborative, participatory, community engaged research. With student participants, now co-researchers, we are submitting proposals and working on a collaboratively written manuscript to submit to a journal. I am excited about this new shift to community-engaged research; working collaboratively with people fits best with who I am. Recently, thanks to an invitation to from a colleague, and a Fellowship from the Coalition for Diverse Language Communities, I have embarked upon a new community-engaged project. Although I enjoy writing and conducting research on my own, the process is much more enriching when done with others. I look forward to increased reciprocal exchanges as I continue with my scholarly work.—-

Student Spotlight

Kathleen Edwards, a PhD student in the Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations in the UNCG School of Education, discusses her experiences during her service-learning course at the Interactive Resource Center of Greensboro.

1). You currently are teaching a service-learning course entitled “The Institution of Education” (ELC-301) with the Interactive Resource Center (IRC) of Greensboro this semester – can you describe what students have experienced during this semester while working at the IRC? Have any memorable ‘a-ha’ moments stood out this semester for your students while working at the IRC?

The Interactive Resource Center (IRC) is Greensboro’s only daytime center for people experiencing homelessness. With the help of the guests and staff at the IRC, students are learning about the wide range of experiences that people have had with regard to education, whether that is their own education—past or current—or their children’s education. As often as we can, we hold class at the IRC and guests join us in the discussions. I believe this is important because of how it alters the learning environment. In later conversations with students I hear them refer to guests by their names and describe follow up conversations they’ve had while completing their service hours. And similarly, guests at the IRC remark on how they’ve continued discussing the concepts and sharing stories with the students.

Additionally, this semester we are emphasizing the importance of community and community building in our class and the IRC, as well as within any educational space. At the end of March during class at the IRC a group of about 20 of us—UNCG and A & T students, guests, staff members—gathered to discuss how we wanted to encourage more community building and engagement within and between service-learning students, community volunteers, guests, and staff. It was a very exciting way to collaborate and emphasize how we are all co-teachers, co-learners, and co-generators of knowledge and action. It was powerful to watch different people initiate questions, facilitate portions of the conversation, take notes, write on the dry erase board, and share resources with one another. We identified goals and action steps, and guests and students are now paired together with specific tasks to accomplish in the next few weeks before we come back together.

2). What has been the most rewarding aspect of teaching service-learning classes at UNCG?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of teaching service-learning classes is helping to destabilize the status quo ideas people have about what knowledge, skills, and values are important to learn; where learning can happen; how we learn and for what purpose(s); who is allowed to learn; and from whom we learn. The guests and staff at the IRC are educators, teaching and learning alongside and with us in our service-learning class. The guests and staff, their stories and ideas, have deeply shaped the content and structure of the course, as have the students and their interests. It hasn’t been only content and processes that have been redesigned though, my very outlook on what I teach has shifted. I used to describe the course as being about power, privilege, and oppression, however, now I explain it as being about power, privilege, oppression, and resistance. It’s the concept of resistance that I believe is most important for all of us to be reminded of and to participate in, and that concept is what is practiced everyday at the IRC, so we are all able to get firsthand, collective experience of it.

3). In addition to being a student and a teaching assistant, you presented at several conferences this year, as well as had your work published in a top tier journal. Can you talk a little about these presentations and publication, and what you enjoy about presenting and writing?

What I enjoy about presenting and writing is the opportunity to work with other people, to really think through and wrestle with ideas, and learn from the multiple perspectives that are a part of the process, whether that is in planning a presentation, writing an article, or facilitating a conference session.

The article, “Reciprocity: Saying what we mean and meaning what we say,” (Dostilio, Brackman, Edwards, Harrison, Kliewer, & Clayton, 2012) was a result of meeting a few graduate students from across the US and Canada at a conference and realizing that we, along with a close senior scholar in the field, were asking similar questions. It was a two-year process of community building, perspective sharing, and asking ourselves tough questions about the meaning of reciprocity in service-learning and community engagement, in addition to the deeply collaborative writing process that occurred, which happened through skype calls and google docs.

A very meaningful part of my learning this year has been the opportunity to collaborate more closely with Tiffany Dumas, the Volunteer Coordinator at the IRC. She and I have been working together for more than three years and teaching a service-learning course with the IRC has deepened our partnership. We submitted a few conference proposals that explored some of the ways we’ve tried to develop more authentic service-learning relationships—students, community members, community organizations, and faculty—by moving away from framing service-learning as what we do and, instead, moving toward service-learning as how we are in relation to each other. In February we presented at the Gulf South Summit, in Louisville, KY, and the Institute for Civic Engagement, at Elon University. We were one of very few community-academic partner pairs at either conference. It deepened my commitment, as well as Tiffany’s, to working toward more inclusive spaces that emphasize the importance of co-constructed, reciprocal, and social justice oriented community engagement.

4). What have you valued about your experience in the Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations department at the UNCG School of Education

I am motivated and deeply inspired by my involvement with communities, and my scholarly interests are focused on the cultural foundations of popular education and the radical potential of community engagement. In this program I’ve been able to explore social justice issues I see enacted in various communities; interrogate forms of power, privilege and oppression; and imagine new ways of being in this world. I’ve had the flexibility to shape my own studies and the support, both within and beyond the department, to pursue critical community engaged research and practices. Most importantly I value being in a place where faculty and students proudly identify themselves as both scholars and activists.

Beyond the ELC department, what I have valued about my experience at UNCG has been the opportunity to collaborate with, support, and learn from so many students, faculty, and staff. My commitment to critical community engaged research and practice is strengthened by these partnerships, particularly the Public Scholarship Graduate Network, the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, and the Office of Leadership and Service-Learning.

The Interactive Resource Center is a major service-learning partner for UNCG. If you are interested in learning more about the organization and the folks that spend time there, please visit www.gsodaycenter.org

R.O.O.T.S Institute

Dodie — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:53:56 +0000

We invite you to apply to be a part of the first annual R.O.O.T.S Institute 2.0, scheduled for April 12th to the 14th, 2013! The event is a partnership between Human Development and Family Studies, Team QUEST and the Office of Multicultural Affairs at UNCG. R.O.O.T.S., which stands for Reclaiming Ourselves, Organizing Together for Social Justice, is an interactive educational leadership experience focusing on issues of social justice. We aim to examine the dynamics of living in a multicultural society, deepen our understanding of the struggles and experiences of diverse communities and to develop skills to deal with oppressive behavior in our own lives.

Diversity and multiculturalism have become increasingly significant aspects our society. Individuals with the tools to create inclusiveness and the skills to address oppression are highly valued in all work settings. Graduate students are the future of the academy and many world industries and institutions and it is essential for them to develop the ability to create and manage diverse teams, negotiate intercultural conflict and see the world from different perspectives.

People of all races, sexual orientations, genders, nationalities, religious or spiritual beliefs, and ability status are invited to apply and it is free for current UNCG graduate students. The Institute is not open to undergraduate students.

APPLICATION (.DOC)

Retreat Details

Begin: Friday, April 12, 2012, 4pm

End: Sunday, April 14, 2012, 3pm

**Partial participation is not allowed.

Where: The Summit Center, Haw River State Park, Brown Summit, NC

Cost: Free for current UNCG graduate students

Application is due on Monday, April 1^st by 5:00pm to Lucia Vidable (lavidabl@uncg.edu).

Conversations in Urban Education at UNC Charlotte

Dodie — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:50:06 +0000

Proposals for poster presentations are now being accepted for Conversations in Urban Education: A Graduate Student Poster Session Symposium hosted by the Urban Education Collaborative & Urban Educators for Change. Doctoral-level students are encouraged to submit the following information to be selected to participate in this event. Poster submissions should describe recently completed work and be highly relevant to current issues in Urban Education. Examples of topics could include: racial disparities, culturally relevant pedagogy, policy vs. practice, achievement ratings, English language learners, alternative school models, etc. Full Details: Conversations in Urban Education Call for Proposals (PDF)

Topic:

Location: UNC Charlotte

Submission Deadline: April 1, 2013

Poster Session Symposium: April 17 from 3:45-5:00

ELC Community Potluck

Dodie — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:23:12 +0000

April 17th, 5:30 – 7pm in SOEB Room 401 at UNCG

Join us for an ELC Community gathering, inviting students, faculty, alumni, and family to share stories, food and ideas with peers and friends. We’ll be organizing a StorySlam activity where you’ll be able to share your story of schooling and education – the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in-between. If you can, please bring a small dish or treat to share with all. If you can’t make it, but want to share something with the group – email me and I can make an announcement!