Category Archives: Special Education

Call for Manuscripts for Themed Issue

The Educational Forum

Volume 82, No. 3

Educator Activism in Politically Polarized Times

Editors: Alan Amtzis, Tabitha Dell’Angelo, and Ryan Flessner

Due date: November 1, 2017

What is the impact of political polarization on curricula, pedagogy, funding, and other imposed policies across the educational landscape? How are P-16+ educators and school leaders responding to politically motivated intellectual and policy challenges at the school level? In what ways are teacher educators revising their materials and methods in response to political strife? How are educators negotiating political conflicts with government and community stakeholders at all levels?

For example, some educators in the UK hope to revive political education at the school level as a means to create a more civically literate society. Similarly, in the US, where the federal administration has taken controversial stances on climate change, civil rights, and immigration, many teachers are adjusting curricula and pedagogy to emphasize and retain access to social and scientific knowledge important to a just and inclusive democracy. In many countries and cultures around the globe, educational processes are being mediated by state-sponsored mandates. This themed issue seeks to explore and highlight the educational advocacy and activist work being done in the name of global literacy, social justice, and resistance in a political climate where new filters on knowledge may seek to dismantle public education and affiliated social institutions by limiting critical perspectives in students’ educational experience.

Research articles, essays, and policy briefs might address questions or ideas such as:

• the ways schools and communities are implementing strategies that recognize and respond to conditions that contribute to (or address) education inequity
• the methods educators are taking to actualize and maintain strong social justice stances in and out of the classroom
• the approaches educators, students, and communities are taking to organize as participants in the growing movement to resist political agendas
• the individual or local pedagogic practices and wide-scale reforms being implemented to ensure student access to all knowledge

These questions suggest topic areas but are not exhaustive. We encourage submissions not only from scholars and researchers but also from students, teachers, and community members.

Submissions should not exceed 7,000 words, including all references.

We seek previously unpublished thematic essays or empirical research. For full instructions, please visit: http://www.kdp.org/publications/theeducationalforum/authorguidelines.php

Submission deadline: November 1, 2017. Submissions must be made at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/utef

Please include the code “823” at the beginning of your manuscript title.

For more information, please contact the issue co-editors:

Dr. Alan Amtzis (amtzis@tcnj.edu),

Dr. Tabitha Dell’Angelo (dellange@tcnj.edu), or Dr. Ryan Flessner (rflessne@butler.edu).