Power and Privilege in the Learning Sciences: Critical and Sociocultural Theories of Learning

Although power and privilege are embedded in all learning environments, the learning sciences is dominated by individual cognitive theories of learning that cannot expose the workings of power. Power and Privilege in the Learning Sciences: Critical and Sociocultural Theories of Learning addresses the ways in which research on human learning can acknowledge the influence of differential access to power on the organization of learning in particular settings. Written by established and emerging scholars in the learning sciences and related fields, the chapters in this volume introduce connections to critical and poststructural race theories, critical disability studies, queer theory, settler-colonial theory, and critical pedagogy as tools for analyzing dimensions of learning environments and normativity. A vital resource for students and researchers in the fields of learning sciences, curriculum studies, educational psychology, and beyond, this book introduces key literature, adapts theory for application in education, and highlights areas of research and teaching that can benefit from critical theoretical methods.

Table of Contents:
Table of contents Foreword. Critical learning opportunities for the learning sciences Carol D. Lee Acknowledgements List of Contributors Chapter 1. Introduction Indigo Esmonde and Angela N. Booker Chapter 2. Power and sociocultural theories of learning Indigo Esmonde Chapter 3. Interfaces between critical race theory and sociocultural perspectives Eileen R. Carlton Parsons Chapter 4. Learning discourses of race and mathematics in classroom interaction: A poststructural perspective Niral Shah Zeus Leonardo Chapter 5. On the complementarity of cultural historical psychology and contemporary disability studies Peter Smagorinsky Michael Cole Lúcia Willadino Braga Chapter 6. Queer theory in the learning sciences Jacob McWilliams William R. Penuel Chapter 7. Towards an ethic of decolonial trans-ontologies in sociocultural theories of learning and development Megan Bang Chapter 8. Critical pedagogy and sociocultural theory Shirin Vossoughi Kris D. Gutiérrez Chapter 9. Toward critical sociocultural theories of learning Indigo Esmonde Angela N. Booker

About the Author :
Indigo Esmonde is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Angela N. Booker is Assistant Professor of Communication and faculty with the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (LCHC) at University of California, San Diego, USA.

Review :
"In this groundbreaking volume, Esmonde and Booker carve out new theoretical territory in elaborating tools to make explicit the significance of power and privilege in learning spaces. Yet this volume is not simply an intellectual or theoretical exercise. The book goes right to the heart of the responsibility of learning scientists and educators to create new activity systems that include and empower rather than exclude and marginalize. They have redefined the cutting-edge of research on learning sciences and equity." --Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, USA