James S. Damico, Alexandra Panos and Mark Baildon
This study was designed to be an agonistic encounter between two pre-service teachers from different academic disciplines and with opposing climate change beliefs. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study was designed to be an agonistic encounter between two pre-service teachers from different academic disciplines and with opposing climate change beliefs. The purpose of this study was to create an opportunity for this pair of future educators to voice, acknowledge and engage their differences, rather than avoid or skirt them.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a paired interview approach, two pre-service teachers discussed online sources about climate change. The analysis focuses on critical literacy practices of textual critique and reader reflexivity, considering how students from different beliefs and perspectives engage in agonism and negotiated practices.
Findings
While there was evidence of the two students engaged in critical literacy practices of textual critique, most of this engagement with the sources remained more at a surface level with somewhat superficial criteria to evaluate the sources. The two students engaged reflexively during the interview discussion in terms of their academic disciplines and climate change beliefs. This reflexive work produced the most compelling exchanges during the interview discussion and pointed to two rich sites for agonistic engagement: their differing conceptions of reliability and their competing perspectives about the intersection of science and politics.
Originality/value
Agonism offers a lens that helps ensure we understand that all pursuits toward facts and truth are necessarily contested as we engage with respected adversaries, not enemies we need to vanquish. There is an urgent need for dialogue across difference, especially for people in the increasingly polarized USA with complex topics and challenges such as climate change.
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James S. Damico, Mark Baildon and Daniel Greenstone
This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between structural forces and individual actions. We then describe general features of…
Abstract
This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between structural forces and individual actions. We then describe general features of historical fiction and consider ways of using this type of text in classrooms. Using the concept of historical agency, we examine three historical fiction texts for upper elementary or middle level readers (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Fighting Ground, and Dragon's Gate). The analysis reveals the similarities and differences in the ways the authors construct historical agency. The paper concludes with a set of four key questions that teachers and students can apply to historical fiction to help students refigure the ways in which they construct knowledge about the past.
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James S. Damico, Alexandra Panos and Michelle Myers
Purpose – To consider the ways two pre-service teachers evaluated digital information sources about climate change in order to highlight the challenges and possibilities of an…
Abstract
Structured Abstract
Purpose – To consider the ways two pre-service teachers evaluated digital information sources about climate change in order to highlight the challenges and possibilities of an instructional approach aimed at cultivating digital literacies about climate change among pre-service teachers.
Design – The qualitative research design focuses on two pre-service teachers’ written reflections and participation during class discussions across two sessions in a content literacy course. The theoretical framework that guided the analysis was civic media literacy.
Findings – Findings of this study highlight conceptions of reliability that two participants held (reliability as relative or as evidentiary support) as they worked with web sources about climate change. These conceptions reflected a denialist orientation to climate change science.
Practical Implications – This study contributes to the literature that considers the ways pre-service teachers work with websites about socioscientific topics. It highlights how an instructional model can help promote digital literacy practices that center on evaluating the reliability of websites about climate change. It also includes a companion framework called fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, and conspiracy theories (FLICC) that can be used to guide students to better understand techniques and practices of science denial.
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James S. Damico, Mark Baildon and Karen L. Lowenstein
This article examines the ways in which the authors of a text set of children’s literature constructed the United States government’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima…
Abstract
This article examines the ways in which the authors of a text set of children’s literature constructed the United States government’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Analysis of this text set reveals the ways agency is mostly absent, displaced, or obscured through the grammatical devices of nominalization and passivization. Nominalization refers to an author’s use of verbs as nouns, and passivization refers to an author’s use of passive verbs without the presence of agents. To support teachers and students toward investigations of how authors use nominalization and passivization to construct historical events in different ways, five guiding questions about agency are presented. Grappling with these kinds of questions can engender critical reading practices of which readers can more actively enact their own agency as readers of history and as citizens in a democracy.
The use of six non-fiction graphic novels to teach historical agency in a social studies methods course was examined in a critical action research study. Pre-service social…
Abstract
The use of six non-fiction graphic novels to teach historical agency in a social studies methods course was examined in a critical action research study. Pre-service social studies teachers were asked to read one graphic novel and to discuss it with classmates, first in literature circles, then as a whole class. Data revealed graphic novels engaged pre-service teachers in thinking about historical agency, and helped them make connections between historical agency and their own agency. There were three overlapping ways pre-service teachers connected to historical agency in all six graphic novels: upbringing and personal experience, unpredictability of historical situations, and injustice. The findings highlight the value of graphic novels for teaching about historical agency in social studies courses because of their focus on historical agents’ positionality.
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Dawn L. Rothe and Victoria E. Collins
The inherent violence of the patriarchal spectacle is at times decried through mass social movements such as the #MeToo or black lives matter movements in response to overt…
Abstract
The inherent violence of the patriarchal spectacle is at times decried through mass social movements such as the #MeToo or black lives matter movements in response to overt political displays of power or policies reinforcing inequalities of gender, race and ethnicity. While critical criminologists and feminists have spent decades on topics such as these, what is, more often than not, ignored is the banal patriarchal oppression women across the globe endure during their everyday lives. Moreover, women, most notably in the Global North and the United States in particular, assent to their oppression through the willingness of allowing the innate violence of an unequal patriarchal system of harm and violence. Our specific focus is on the routinisation of everyday life women participate in reinforcing the status quo of the patriarchal carceral state. We also suggest that social change must be more than reactions and demands for processes of change within the social structure that maintain the overall patriarchal state and structure of society: rather resistance must equal revulsion and rejection for a revolutionary social change to the innate violent system.
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Thespina J. Yamanis, Ana María del Río-González, Laura Rapoport, Christopher Norton, Cristiana Little, Suyanna Linhales Barker and India J. Ornelas
Purpose: Fear of deportation and its relationship to healthcare access has been less studied among immigrant Latinx men who have sex with men (MSM), a population at risk for HIV…
Abstract
Purpose: Fear of deportation and its relationship to healthcare access has been less studied among immigrant Latinx men who have sex with men (MSM), a population at risk for HIV and characterized by their multiple minority statuses. The first step is to accurately measure their fear of deportation.
Approach: We used an exploratory sequential mixed methods design. Eligibility criteria were that research participants be ages 18–34 years; Latinx; cisgender male; having had sex with another male; residing in the District of Columbia metro area; and not a US citizen or legal permanent resident. In Study 1, we used in-depth interviews and thematic analysis. Using participants' interview responses, we inductively generated 15 items for a fear of deportation scale. In Study 2, we used survey data to assess the scale's psychometric properties. We conducted independent samples t-test on the associations between scale scores and barriers to healthcare access.
Findings: For the 20 participants in Study 1, fear of deportation resulted in chronic anxiety. Participants managed their fear through vigilance, and behaviors restricting their movement and social network engagement. In Study 2, we used data from 86 mostly undocumented participants. The scale was internally consistent (α = 0.89) and had a single factor. Those with higher fear of deportation scores were significantly more likely to report avoiding healthcare because they were worried about their immigration status (p = 0.007).
Originality: We described how fear of deportation limits healthcare access for immigrant Latinx MSM.
Research implications: Future research should examine fear of deportation and HIV risk among immigrant Latinx MSM.