This article reports findings from a study of the motivations of college students to choose or not choose a career as a K-12 teacher. Five hundred-seventeen college students majoring in education and non-education programs enrolled in undergraduate courses were surveyed as to their motivations for choosing/not choosing a career in K-12. If they…

One of the growing interests in teacher education lies in how and what teachers learn across time and space in the complex ecologies and technologies of today's society. Teacher research has been implemented in teacher education programs as a powerful, exploratory tool for teacher candidates to inquire about educational problems and to improve…

The contributors to this special issue of "The Journal of Inquiry and Action" provide insight into why the Obama administration's educational policies manifest the dominance of neoliberal ideology over most elements of social life. The articles presented in this issue build on the work originally presented in "The Phenomenon of…

This article demonstrates how media coverage employs dominant neoliberal narratives and discourses to blame public education for societal ills. The authors examine how the media's use of neoliberal narrative and discourse has hegemonically become the "new normal" of public education and school reform. Utilizing data from media coverage…

Education "reform" is unfolding at an unprecedented rate, with little public input. The most discussed factor driving this transformation is the nearly $5 billion in discretionary funding provided to the United States Department of Education (USDOE) by the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" (ARRA), known as Race…

This article aims to illuminate how and why public schools have been sustained and/or strengthened as hierarchical, inequitable, and undemocratic sites that serve the corporate capitalist state. In doing so, the author draws on three theoretical ideas: the "shock doctrine," described vividly by Naomi Klein (2007); "critical…

Beginning with the Reagan administration and perpetuated by Obama's presidency are patterns of public speeches--crisis discourse and Utopian expectations--and educational policy that began with 1983's "A Nation at Risk," accelerated through Goals 2000, and codified without much critical concern as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) under George…

This paper analyzes President Obama's education policies as they relate to charter schools. The authors first show how his policies continue previous neoconservative and neoliberal educational initiatives that marketize schooling. Arne Duncan's role in charter schools, both in his capacity as former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and in his…

Many who would define themselves as liberal progressives were heartened by the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. However, perhaps almost as many have been disappointed by Obama's policies as president. In this paper the author seeks to understand and explain the seeming reversal in Obama's policies, especially regarding education. He…

Despite the enactment of No Child Left Behind (2002), many urban school districts continue to battle the achievement gap and struggle with low literacy rates. Authentic writing instruction, a main component of literacy, is being cut in those districts that struggle most to accommodate other demands made by the nation and state. The primary purpose…

Six pre-service teacher candidates TCs, each engaged in field experiences in Kindergarten or First Grade classrooms at an urban based elementary school compared the impact of interactive read alouds and simple read alouds on children's Tier two vocabulary meaning acquisition and usage. Each TC read a different trade book that contained at least 8…

Multidisciplinary programs have begun to complement traditional models of graduate and professional education. The development of these programs has begun to reflect the change in graduate student advisement. Multidisciplinary programs necessitate the need for quality advisement approaches. This study assessed faculty satisfaction and commitment…

This paper argues that educators interested in sustainability should look to complexity science for guiding principles. When we view our classrooms and campuses as living, dynamic ecologies, we can, as insiders, make sense of what might otherwise seem chaotic or meaningless. This perspective enables us not only to describe and explain what is…

The term pedagogy has been appropriated in education discourse as simply strategies of instruction. This instrumental understanding of pedagogy has reified the term both in the vernacular of education and in research of teaching and teacher education, leading the scientific pursuit of pedagogy to exclude the relationship between pedagogy and…

This essay is a response to a question about school desegregation in Nova Scotia, Canada posed by my sister in 2008. I argue that the question itself illustrates the extent to which critical analysis of the politics of race in Canadian schools, particularly in rural areas, is seldom taken up. This feeds into a persistent mythology of a racially…