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This reflective essay draws on the personal experiences of the author in negotiating various tensions of engaged research and raises several troubling questions about research with immigrant populations, particularly concerning engagement, ethics, and educational contexts. Three "lenses" (or, three theoretical framings) serve as springboards for this analysis--the paradoxes of activism, the promises of mutuality, and the privileges of "ethics"--with concluding reflections about the power of framing and reframing our work.

This article analyzes current debates on education reform, paying particular attention to the ways that scapegoating public school teachers, teacher unions and teacher education masks more fundamental, systemic problems. It further demonstrates how reducing the problems in education to the level of individual ("bad") teachers coincides with the sorting of both teachers and students. The article concludes with a call to engage in movement building as we reclaim public education and advance equitable education for all children.

For years, critics have pointed to the decreasing ability of health-care professionals to make decisions and provide services because of the demands of insurance companies and health-management organizations to sustain profits. Health-care decisions are increasingly being made by the wrong people and for the wrong reasons. So, too, with public education. Current reforms are allowing certain individuals with neither scholarly nor practical expertise in education to exert significant influence over educational policy for communities and children other than their own. They, the millionaires and billionaires from the philanthropic and corporate sectors, are experimenting in urban school districts with educational reform initiatives that are not grounded in sound research and often fail to produce results. And yet, with funding for public education shrinking, the influence of these wealthy reformers is growing. The roles of business and philanthropy have shifted, reconfigured, and converged over the past century, and therefore seeing the bigger picture of public education requires understanding the interrelated histories of philanthropic and corporate influence. As the United States neared the end of the twentieth century, the globalizing economy provided fertile ground for an unprecedented accumulation of wealth by the corporate elite. Taking this new wealth and the lessons learned about leveraging wealth for both increased profits and political influence, several millionaires and billionaires transformed the landscape of philanthropy, developing new organizations that operate much more like the conservative foundations than traditional philanthropies. These are the venture philanthropists that push for the privatization of public education. (Contains 7 notes.)

Movements to end teacher education by framing it as irrelevant have deep historical roots and, in recent years, have become quite commonsensical, so much so that even teacher educators struggle to reframe the debate and to make the case for their role in improving public education. This article examines three ways that social movements have worked to stratify public education over the past century, with each movement experiencing an ideological shift in response to the civil rights movements of the mid-1900s. The case of Chicago is presented as a starting point. Three theoretical lenses help to differentiate what are really overlapping movements--namely, neoliberalism, Christian fundamentalism, and neoconservatism--that make attacks on public education and teacher education seem like "common sense." Implications for reframing teacher education conclude the article.

This article analyzes current education policy initiatives from the political Right in the United States, focusing on initiatives at the federal level (standards and testing), the state level (funding), the local level (alternative certification), and the campus level (censorship). Each initiative has received wide bipartisan and public support, largely due to the ways that they have been framed, particularly around family values. Implications for future research and practice conclude the article.

One theme that is reflected throughout this special issue on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) is a paradox of anti-oppressive education activism, namely, the paradox of defining a group for which to advocate while refusing to say what makes for that group. This Afterword reflects on the challenges of developing educational research and practices that address this paradox, and that, in doing so, hold promise for advancing social justice for all students, including AAPI students. After briefly examining the challenges and contradictions of defining an AAPI experience/community/culture, this Afterword explores what it could mean to research AAPIs with attention to these contradictions, and turns to several anti-oppressive theories within AAPI studies that attempt such a move and that, therefore, hold promise for new directions in education research.

In this conversation, Kevin K. Kumashiro shares his reflections on challenges to publishing anti-oppressive research in educational journals. He then invites eight current and former editors of leading educational research journals--William F. Pinar, Elizabeth Graue, Carl A. Grant, Maenette K. P. Benham, Ronald H. Heck, James Joseph Scheurich, Allan Luke, and Carmen Luke--to critique and expand on his analysis. Kumashiro begins the conversation by describing his own experiences submitting manuscripts to educational research journals and receiving comments by anonymous reviewers and journal editors. He suggests three ways to rethink the collaborative potential of the peer-review process: as constructive, as multilensed, and as situated. The eight current and former editors of leading educational research journals then critique and expand Kumashiro's analysis. Kumashiro concludes the conversation with additional reflections on barriers and contradictions involved in advancing anti-oppressive educational research in educational journals. (Contains 3 notes.)

While theories and recommendations continue to proliferate in the educational research literature on what it means to teach towards social justice and to prepare teachers for such teaching, so do concerns that these theories and recommendations fail to account for the ways that the contexts of teaching--cultural contexts, national contexts, political contexts--always affect teaching in idiosyncratic, unpredictable and even contradictory ways. Given that much educational research fails to trouble the US-centric nature of prevailing conceptions of social justice and teacher education, it is important to learn about the unique as well as shared challenges facing teacher educators around the globe. In this article, teacher educators from Asia, Africa, North America and South America offer a sampling of initiatives in anti-oppressive teacher education; that is, initiatives to prepare teachers to teach various subject matters to various age groups, addressing various forms of oppression in various cultural and community contexts.

The publishing industry in the field of education is undergoing several profound changes. New publishers are emerging while established publishers are merging. More book series (that is, books on a certain topic that are approved and mentored by one or more established scholars in the field) are being created. Alternative paths are becoming more viable, including self-publishing, online books, and multimedia books. Perhaps most important, more publishers are recognizing the marketability of books on LGBTQ issues in education, resulting in a rapid increase in the number of publications on this topic. This article offers scholars interested in publishing either authored or edited books seven tips for publishing books.

The process of publishing in journals is by no means certain or unproblematic, especially for researchers, practitioners, and scholars in such "controversial" fields as that of LGBTQ issues in education. This article offers tips that have been pieced together from the author's conversations with numerous scholars and journal editors, as well as from his own experience. The five tips are the following: (1) learn which journals "matter"; (2) learn each journal's uniqueness; (3) learn about the "peer-review" process; (4) get feedback while drafting; and (5) pay attention to the letters.

Examines how theories of antioppressive education can help educators teach, supervise student teachers, and conduct research in ways that work against repetitions of privileged knowledge and practices. Shows how students may seek knowledge confirming what they already know and challenges educators to disrupt unconscious discourses. (Contains 39 references.) (Author/SK)

Reflects on one educator's experiences teaching high school students and student teachers, suggesting that teaching was made meaningful, and learning against oppression was made possible, only when the group, consciously or unconsciously, made use of non-normalized or perverted forms of desire and crisis. Notes the teacher's realization that anti-oppressive education cannot revolve around affirmation and sameness. (SM)