Sarah A. Mathews

Reading without Words: Using The Arrival to Teach Visual Literacy with English Language Learners

Abstract This article highlights the use of Shaun Tans The Arrival to teach literacy to English Language Learners in social studies classrooms. The featured text is a book that displays the complexity of migration within a text that does not feature a single written word. The author describes a variety of mini-lessons geared towards supporting ELLs at all stages of language development, reinforcing geography and history content, and promoting literacy skills outlined in the Common Core State Standards.

Representing Embodiment and the Policy Implementing Principal Using Photovoice.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the many dimensions of the principals positionality by using a unique research approach to link the experiences of the policy implementing principal to embodiment.Design/methodology/approach – The researchers employed a form of critical policy analysis that utilized photovoice to examine the experience of two principals in South Carolina, USA.Findings – The findings suggest that these two principals do feel, beyond a cognitive emotional level, the experiences of being the policy implementing principal, where the multiple physically imprinted identities typified one principals experiences and the highly entropic world of her high school causes another principal to physically and metaphorically integrate situations into her physiology.Originality/value – In this paper, the authors are able to expand discussions of the principals’ engagement with policy by using a unique theoretical and methodological approach.

Examining Community with Pre-service Teachers Through the Use of Participatory Photography Projects

In this chapter we advocate for pedagogies that utilize photography to elicit observations about communities in ways that help pre-service teachers interrogate their assumptions about these spaces. The projects described in this chapter aim to help pre-service teachers think critically about the spaces and places they occupy. We hope to help students develop a spatial perspective so they can “make better theoretical and practical sense of how social justice is created, maintained, and brought into question as a target for democratic social action” (Soja, Seeking spatial justice, vol 16, p 2. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). We see photography as an important tool for conceiving of space as Soja challenges us to do, not as a static backdrop but as ever-changing and malleable. The examples we feature are intended to help elementary and secondary pre-service teachers become aware of, articulate, challenge, or disrupt how they think about communities.

Rethinking the Immigrant Paradigm: West-to-East and South-to-North Perspectives of United States History

This manuscript outlines a framework for transformative historical inquiry used to challenge the traditional immigrant paradigm in light of current debates over social studies content. Pedagogical examples show how the framework can help teachers disrupt the dominant discourse and highlight ideological resistance that prevents transformation.

Mediating the Space Between: Using Photo-Elicitation to Prompt Cultural Consciousness-Raising

This chapter outlines a process for using photographs to elicit dialogue in cross-cultural settings to develop perspective consciousness, one component of global citizenship. The research featured is part of a larger ethnographic study of American pre-service teachers participating in a student-teaching abroad program in Kenya, East Africa. Photo elicitation served as a mechanism to stimulate discussion and prompt cultural consciousness-raising. The prospective teachers were asked to view and reflect on photographs that were captured by Kenyan students as a part of a project documenting a week in their lives. The work draws on Jurgen Habermas’ (Knowledge and human interests. Beacon, Boston, 1971, The theory of communicative action: Volume one—reason and the rationalization of society. Beacon, Boston, 1981, The theory of communicative action: Volume two—lifeworld and system. Beacon, Boston, 1987) concept of mediated understanding to examine the subjective, normative-evaluative and identity claims found in participants’ dialogue. The process allowed the researcher to explore how images and cross-cultural interactions were being viewed and interpreted, as well as which social contexts influence this interpretation. The dialogue surrounding these photographs demonstrates the future teachers’ ability to take on another perspective after their experience abroad. However, these results also indicate instances where the international student teachers were reinforcing the dominant discourse when describing Kenya and did not feel they could adequately challenge the pervasive stereotypes of this region found in American schools, curriculum, and media.

Framing and Exposing Community Issues through Video Participatory Research: An Emerging Approach for Adult Education.

Videoparticipatoryresearch(VPR)isanemergentmethodologythatbridgesvisualmethodswiththe epistemologyofparticipatoryresearch.Thisapproachismotivatedbythe“crisisofrepresentation”or “reflectiveturn”(Gubrium&Harper,2013)thatpromotesresearchconductedwithorbyparticipants, conceptualizingresearchaspraxis(Lather,1991).Inthismanuscript,theauthorsarguethatVPRcan beusedtoexploreissuesdirectlyimpactingindividualsinvolvedwithadulteducationandvocational training. Primary investigators work with community co-researchers to document issues in the community,analyzethisaudio-visualmaterial,andproduceanddistributevideoprojects,exposing policymakersandkeystakeholderstoacommunity’sconcerns.WhenimplementingtheVPRprocess researchteamsaccountforintentionalityofformandcontent,applyamulti-perspectiveanalysisto thecomplexlayersofdataproducedbyvideo,andplanfordistributionofworkonthepersonaland locallevelaswellasinthepublicsphere(i.e.,atthemicroandmacrolevel). KEywoRdS Community Research, Participatory Action Research, Video, Visual Methodologies

Global Perspective Development as Sustained Micromovements over Time: Examining an International Student-Teaching Experience Five Years Later

ABSTRACT Colleges and universities incorporate international, student-teaching programs as a way to help prepare globally minded prospective teachers. This article adds to this conversation, offering insight from a multicase study analysis of three educators conducted 5 years after their experience student teaching in Kenya, East Africa. The researcher focused on evidence that related to holistic global perspective, informed by theories of cosmopolitan citizenship. Three cases are highlighted to compare the data that were gathered when the preservice teachers participated in a critical ethnography conducted between 2007 and 2008 with interview data collected 5 years later. This follow-up study demonstrated the participants’ perceptions of their student-teaching abroad experience over time. Two themes emerged when analyzing the data across cases: (1) extended post-travel reflection strengthens participants’ intrapersonal awareness, (2) individuals felt a desire to become cultural conduits “with responsibility” once returning to the United States. Finally, participants demonstrated a respect for humanity, justice, and cultural pluralism, one premise of moral cosmopolitanism. However, they did not show evidence they were willing to engage students in the second premise, democratic deliberation and moral reasoning.