Christine Sleeter

In this article Sleeter details how Patricia Leavy pioneered the genre of social fiction. She details the method and the publication of the landmark Social Fictions book series, the first and only series of its kind. Sleeter reviews a handful of Leavy’s acclaimed novels, her own fiction, and other titles in the series. She explains how and why social fiction is significant for the qualitative research community.

ExtractChristine Sleeter Howard Ryan rightly argues for a theory that identifies the main drivers of the school reform movement and the forms of power that undergird those drivers, in order to understand how to address them at their root. The problem he sees with posing race as the primary driver is that class then recedes into the background. While he acknowledges that race must be taken seriously, he argues that a class analysis most directly identifies the drivers of the school reform movement of the past three decades. Through utilizing such a class analysis, Ryan identifies the business sector as the main driver and their central motive as being control over the curriculum in order to produce workers for the capitalist economy. In this chapter, I will argue that a class analysis is hindered by blinders that serve to obscure the important roles played by racism, inevitably so, given that...

Editorial Introduction and Invited CommentariesKo tōku reo, tōku ohooho; tōku reo, tōku māpihi maurea; tōku reo, tōku whakakai mārihi.This whakataukī (proverbial saying) was coined by Sir Tīmoti Kā...

Because of historical amnesia reinforced through schooling, peoples who are marginalized on the basis of race, ethnicity, and immigration have often learned to accept rather than challenge that marginalization. This chapter shows how ethnic studies in U.S. elementary and secondary schools attempts to combat the historical amnesia schooling perpetuates regarding colonialism and racism. The chapter reviews processes that diluted how many people understand multicultural education, and how that diluted understanding is reflected in white-dominant curricula. After discussing ethnic studies as a decolonial project, the chapter presents two examples, highlighting their impact on students. The chapter concludes with implications.

Critical family history challenges historians to ask about their ancestors. Who else (what other groups) was around, what were the power relationships among groups, how were these relationships maintained or challenged over time, and what does all this have to do with our lives now? These are different questions from the questions most family historians ask. This introductory essay elaborates on what critical family history is and where the concept came from, then provides a brief overview of the articles included in this Special Issue.

(2019). Introduction to “Emerging From Standardization: Learning to Teach for Cultural, Cognitive, and Community Relevance”. The Educational Forum: Vol. 83, Emerging From Standardization: Learning to Teach for Cultural, Cognitive, and Community Relevance, pp. 231-236.

El artículo presenta la investigación de tesis doctoral que se ha desarrollado en cuatro espacios de participación ciudadana de la ciudad de Madrid durante tres años (2015/2017). Consideramos que la ciudadanía se aprende ejerciéndola y que los espacios de participación son escuelas de ciudadanía. La finalidad del estudio es formular propuestas educativas para el aprendizaje de la ciudadanía activa a partir del análisis de lo que sucede en dichos espacios. El texto se estructura en torno a estos apartados: 1) reflexiones y premisas en relación a la participación y la educación para la ciudadanía; 2) antecedentes directos de la investigación y las continuidades que se dan en este trabajo; 3) enfoque intercultural desde el que comprendemos la participación ciudadana; 4) estudio etnográfico realizado mediante observación participante y entrevistas dirigidas a 30 informantes clave. Se describen los cuatro casos de estudio y el proceso de análisis a través de la definición categorial; 5) resultados organizados en tres grandes bloques temáticos: diversidad y complejidad, visión relacional y prácticas educativas; 6) propuestas educativas derivadas de los resultados y dirigidas tanto a profesionales de la educación como a personas implicadas en los espacios de participación ciudadana.

Using Kymlicka’s analysis of conflicts between “imperatives of state control” and “objectives of social movements,” I draw on my experiences with multicultural education to extrapolate some trends from the past and present that may inform the future. After briefly describing the origins of multicultural education (mainly within the United States), I situate struggles over education in the context of the global expansion of neoliberalism, critique “neoliberal multicultural education,” then briefly describe some efforts that push back. This essay concludes with four recommendations for moving forward.

Christine Sleeter wrote this essay in response to the topic “Even Laureates Were Beginners Once: Lessons Learned Along the Way,” which was the title of the Laureate Panel at the Kappa Delta Pi Convocation in October 2017.