Community and Difference: Teaching, Pluralism, and Social Justice (Counterpoints)

Community and Difference: Teaching, Pluralism, and Social Justice contains seven very different chapters. In each chapter, educators describe how their experiences with oppression came to inform their commitment to teaching for social justice. Relying on principles taken from heuristic inquiry to show what people know and what experience has spun, this book provides evidence of the promise of narrative storytelling as a means of teaching for social justice. The voices of the storytellers are honest and compelling, inviting readers to listen, to know others as they know themselves, and to experience a journey that is largely collective – that knows hope, and that offers a semblance of understanding and grace.

The Editors: Roberto A. Peña earned his B.A. in English and his B.S. in secondary education from Buffalo State College and the State University of New York College at Buffalo respectively. Peña obtained his Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Following work as an English teacher and administrator in Buffalo, New York, he was a professor in higher education, and currently teaches at Seattle University in the College of Education’s Educational Leadership program.
Kristin Guest earned her B.A. in speech and French and her B.S. in secondary education from the University of Minnesota, and her M.A. in speech communications and her Ph.D. in school psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Following work as a school psychologist in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, she has taught for over twenty-five years at Seattle University.
Lawrence Y. Matsuda earned his B.A. in speech education, his M.A. in educational administration, and his Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Washington. He has been a junior high school language arts teacher, a university counselor, a state level administrator, school district administrator, K-6, middle school, and K-8 principal, and an assistant superintendent in the Seattle public schools. Matsuda is currently Visiting Professor in the College of Education at Seattle University and an independent educational consultant working in the areas of school remodeling and student assignment.