“Playing school”

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Bryan ◽  
Christopher C. Jett

PurposeMuch of the extant research literature on the initiatives to attract, inspire and recruit Black males to the teaching profession has focused on middle and high school students. Black boys’ socialization into dominant narratives regarding who can and cannot become teachers occurs as early as in early childhood classrooms; however, little attention has been given to ways to attract, inspire and recruit them to the professional teaching ranks where a paltry 2 per cent are Black men.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explores the concept of imaginative play experiences with respect to Black boys and unearths possibilities for future Black male teachers through culturally relevant play.FindingsBased on findings from the literature, this conceptual paper makes connections between the early childhood play literature and the Black male teacher recruitment and retention literature to create possibilities to inspire Black boys to enter the teaching profession.Originality/valueThis paper presents a nuanced integration of imaginative play and culturally relevant pedagogy with specific attention to Black males.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Ernest Black ◽  
Ed Rice

Black male teachers are less than two percent of all current teachers in the United States. However, there has been an effort to recruit and retain Black men into the teaching profession for a number of reasons. All student benefit when they have a Black male teacher. Black boys, in particular, have markedly higher test scores and improved discipline when they have a Black male teacher. Black male adults in educational settings is essential for enhancing Black boys’ academic and social development. There is a need for Black male teachers in education. Even with nationwide recruitment efforts like My Brother's Keeper, the numbers of Black male teacher remain small. Additionally, Black male teachers leave the profession at a higher rate than other subgroups. This paper will examine one teacher preparation program's effort to increase retention of Black males in the teacher preparation program and the teaching profession. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1_part_4) ◽  
pp. 2156759X2110400
Author(s):  
Marc A. Grimmett ◽  
Alishea Rowley ◽  
Regina Gavin Williams ◽  
Cory Clark

The education of Black male high school students is presently occurring in the context of the #MeToo movement. Recent reports of inappropriate sexual conduct by high profile men, including Black men, have generated heightened awareness, confusion, anxiety, and ambivalence among Black males regarding what behavior is acceptable toward girls and women and related consequences of such behavior. In high school, when identity and interpersonal relationship skills are still relatively early in development, this apparent ambiguity potentially interferes with learning processes, helping to undermine educational equity for Black males. With this mixed-methods documentary intervention research study, we assessed the impact of the short, educational documentary My Masculinity Helps (MMH) on Black male high school students in reducing rape myth acceptance and affirming active bystander attitudes and behaviors. MMH explores the role of Black men and boys in the prevention of sexual violence. Findings suggest that participants developed a more accurate understanding of consent and sexual assault, and more affirmative attitudes toward active bystander behavior, such as helping someone who has been sexually assaulted or wanting to engage in prevention strategies. We provide implications for school counselors using the American School Counselor Association National Model.


Author(s):  
Nathaniel Bryan

Black male teachers represent 2% of the teaching profession. When grade level and area of specialization are added, for example early childhood education, even fewer Black males are visibly present in classrooms. Because of the underrepresentation of Black male teachers, clarion calls have been made in extant research, media, and popular press for racial and gender equity at and above the early childhood level. Black male teacher recruitment and retention initiatives including Call Me Mister have played an instrumental role in attempting to diversify early childhood classrooms by bolstering the percentage of Black male teachers who teach young children, and by illuminating the importance and benefits of the pedagogies and schooling practices of Black male teachers in supporting Black boys in classrooms. Black boys are often misperceived as disinterested in school, and Black male teachers are summoned to classrooms to serve as role models, father figures, and pedagogues who can meet the academic and social needs of Black boys at all grade levels. However, persistent challenges to the recruitment and retention of Black male teachers to classrooms remain daunting tasks in the teaching profession. More than 85% of teachers are White, middle-class, and female, and this overwhelmingly White female majority has concretized the idea that early childhood teaching is essentially women’s work. In doing so, White female teachers are socially constructed as the hallmark of early childhood education, possessing the White hegemonic feminine characteristics and dispositions essential to teaching young children. To that end, anti-Black misandric normative discourses such as early childhood teaching as women’s work have created barriers for and has stymied the recruitment and retention of men, regardless of race and ethnicity, but especially Black men who desire to teach young children.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Angel Trejo-Rangel ◽  
Adriano Mota Ferreira ◽  
Victor Marchezini ◽  
Daniel Andres Rodriguez ◽  
Melissa da Silva Oliveira ◽  
...  

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to encourage graduate students to facilitate a participatory mapping activity with high school students, to have their voices heard in the disaster risk reduction (DRR) agenda.Design/methodology/approachA participatory mapping, youth-led session, was conducted with 22 high school students, where they had to identify flood and landslide-prone areas. Then, they were asked to propose and plan DRR measures in collaboration with local partners in São Luiz do Paraitinga, Brazil.FindingsThe participatory method engaged the graduate students and the high school students in the DRR debate, allowing them to map hazards and vulnerabilities, and to discuss five incubation projects for enhancing DRR in the city.Originality/valueThis research highlights the importance of involving young people in DRR formulation and planning to build local capacities in younger generations. The outputs were shared with the local civil defense and a local non-governmental organization (NGO), who suggested recommendations to improve the five incubation projects.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Rugh ◽  
Donald J. Beyette ◽  
Mary Margaret Capraro ◽  
Robert M. Capraro

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine a week-long science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) activity that integrates a new educational technology and the engineering design process to teach middle and high school students the concepts involved in rotational physics. The technology and teaching method described in this paper can be applied to a wide variety of STEM content areas. Design/methodology/approach As an educational technology, the dynamic and interactive mathematical expressions (DIME) map system automatically generates an interactive, connected concept map of mathematically based concepts extracted from a portable document format textbook chapter. Over five days, students used DIME maps to engage in meaningful self-guided learning within the engineering design process and STEM PBL. Findings Using DIME maps within a STEM PBL activity, students explored the physics behind spinning objects, proposed multiple creative designs and built a variety of spinners to meet specified criteria and constraints. Practical implications STEM teachers can use DIME maps and STEM PBL to support their students in making connections between what they learn in the classroom and real-world scenarios. Social implications For any classroom with computers, tablets or phones and an internet connection, DIME maps are an accessible educational technology that provides an alternative representation of knowledge for learners who are underserved by traditional methods of instruction. Originality/value For STEM teachers and education researchers, the activity described in this paper uses advances in technology (DIME maps and slow-motion video capture on cell phones) and pedagogy (STEM PBL and the engineering design process) to enable students to engage in meaningful learning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 544-555
Author(s):  
Sheine Peart

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the lived educational realities of black male students studying in further education (FE) colleges to understand how these experiences compare to their experiences of statutory education. It describes the way in which students perceived and received education in both sectors and highlights the similarities and variations between the two.Design/methodology/approachEthnographic methods including focus groups, individual interviews and naturalistic observations were used to investigate black male students’ perceptions of FE. These accounts were compared to their memories of compulsory schooling experiences to establish differences and similarities between sectors and to determine which educational approaches black male students identified as most useful.FindingsThe research established black males perceived there were significant differences between the two sectors and these differences had impacted on their ability to learn. These findings provide a useful reference point for educators seeking to evaluate their organisation’s education provision for black male students.Social implicationsThis paper provides suggestions on what sorts of educational opportunities are appropriate and accessible for black males and which approaches help to support their educational achievement.Originality/valueThere are little research data which specifically discuss black male students’ experience of the FE sector. This paper will help teachers and managers at all organisational levels in FE (and in schools) review their provision and consider adopting approaches that may help to enhance black students’ educational journeys.


2015 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Healy ◽  
Elana Joram ◽  
Oksana Matvienko ◽  
Suzanne Woolf ◽  
Kimberly Knesting

Purpose – There is a growing need for school-based nutritional educational programs that promote healthy eating attitudes without increasing an unhealthy focus on restrictive eating or promoting a poor body image. Research suggests that intuitive eating (IE) approaches, which encourage individuals to focus on internal body signals as a guide for eating, have had a positive impact on eating-related psychological outcomes in adults. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects an IE education program on the eating attitudes of high school students. Design/methodology/approach – In a quasi-experimental study, 48 high school students (30 females) in a Midwest town in the USA received instruction on IE or a comparison program over seven days during health classes. Repeated measures analyses of covariance were conducted to examine changes in eating attitudes in sexes across conditions. Findings – Students who received the IE program made significantly greater gains in overall positive eating attitudes on the Intuitive Eating Scale than students in the comparison program (p=0.045), as well as on the Unconditional Permission to Eat subscale (p=0.02). There were no significant effects of sex on any of the analyses. Research limitations/implications – Because of the relatively small sample size and short duration of the program, the results should be generalized with caution. Practical implications – The results suggest that IE instruction may encourage the development of healthy eating attitudes in high school students, and health teachers may wish to consider including IE instruction in the health curriculum. Originality/value – This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of an IE program in a K-12 population, with instruction provided in the context of the school. The results are promising and suggest that this may be a fruitful area for future research in nutrition education.


1973 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Lerner ◽  
Michael Karson

406 white, lower-middle class junior high school students served as Ss in a study of racial attitudes. Ss were asked to attribute each of 48 items from a verbal checklist to a picture of either a white or a black male. The results indicated that Ss held a predominantly unfavorable view of the black figure and a preponderantly positive view of the white figure.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Storm ◽  
Karis Jones

Purpose This paper aims to describe the critical literacies of high school students engaged in a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project focused on a roleplaying game, Dungeons and Dragons, in a queer-led afterschool space. The paper illustrates how youth critique and resist unjust societal norms while simultaneously envisioning queer utopian futures. Using a queer theory framework, the authors consider how youth performed disidentifications and queer futurity. Design/methodology/approach This study is a discourse analysis of approximately 85 hours of audio collected over one year. Findings Youth engaged in deconstructive critique, disidentifications and queer futurity in powerful enactments of critical literacies that involved simultaneous resistance, subversion, imagination and hope as youth envisioned queer utopian world-building through their fantasy storytelling. Youth acknowledged the injustice of the present while radically envisioning a utopian future. Originality/value This study offers an empirical grounding for critical literacies centered in queer theory and explores how youth engage with critical literacies in collaboratively co-authored texts. The authors argue that queering critical literacies potentially moves beyond deconstructive critique while simultaneously opening spaces for resistance, imagination and utopian world-making through linguistic and narrative-based tools.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Higgs ◽  
Grace MyHyun Kim

Purpose Research on nonschool settings suggests young people benefit from digital multimodal composition. Less is known about how digital composing can support students as they interpret required literary class texts. To understand the potential benefits and challenges of digitally composing for literary analysis, design interviews with two high school students were conducted to examine their processes as they designed digital multimodal compositions to interpret Anglo-Saxon poems. Grounded in the social semiotic theory of multimodality, this study aims to examine how students engaged in literary analysis and interpretive digital composition within secondary ELA. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative classroom data were collected through digital means over a six-week period: a whole-class student survey, focal student semistructured design interviews, emails, field notes, analytic memos and student-created digital artifacts. Findings Students’ print-based literary engagements and digital multimodal composition processes were mutually shaped. Additionally, digital multimodal composition offered entry points into challenging print-based literary texts, resulting in understandings enacted across multiple forms of mediation. Research limitations/implications The study focused on one cycle of multimodal composition. Additional studies of students’ digital multimodal composition processes in ELA classrooms over time could be beneficial to the field. Practical implications The study identifies an approach to digital multimodal composition that may help teachers address and integrate core disciplinary objectives. Originality/value This study contributes to scholarship concerned with how “new” technologies and “old” literacies co-exist in contexts requiring students to engage in expanded communication modes alongside specific academic literacies.


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