Education

www.chapman.edu/ces Susan Tetler, Professor and Research Director, describes the national supportive interventions (legislation, implementation, knowledge-base of what works, nationwide research projects, support (task forces), and advocacy campaigns) that will support municipalities’ transformation processes to increase inclusion of all students regardless of their abilities, racial or cultural background. This is accomplished by nationwide development of competencies and capacity building. The Danish Folkeskole is a comprehensive school which includes both primary (grades 1 – 6) and lower secondary education (grades 7 -9/10). In other words, Students range from 7 years old to 16/17. The Folkeskole is the responsibility of the 98 Danish municipalities. In order to meet the learning and overall development, the Folkeskole builds on the principle of differentiated teaching. Teaching such that that it both strengthens and develops the individual student’s interests, abilities and needs and while offering common experiences and situations to all students and helping them cooperate in the performance of tasks. Inclusive education is on the top of the political agenda since 2010. Inspection of the public school system resulted in recommendations for how schools can increase the academic standard for all students and drastically reduce the number of pupils assigned to special education. Schools must now provide education that ensures good learning outcomes for all students while fostering social and educational inclusion. Today inclusion is no longer just a matter of international declarations (value and ideology), but also a matter of expectation and policy - and so primarily a matter of implementation at scale. This change forces municipalities and schools to build systematically the necessary capacity to implement this national strategy.

www.chapman.edu/ces Lotte Hedegaard-Sørensen, Associate Professor focuses on the concepts of inclusion and diversity in a Danish context and the implications for teaching in schools and teacher education. Both inclusion and diversity encompass ethical, social/cultural diversity and ability diversity (or children/youth who have special educational needs). Teaching to diversity implies that all teachers acquire special educational skills and competence in dealing with complicated learning situations in the practice of teaching. She also discusses how teachers will be prepared to teach all students and to cope with unforeseen and complex situations. The Danish Folkeskole is a comprehensive school which includes both primary (grades 1 – 6) and lower secondary education (grades 7 -9/10). In other words, Students range from 7 years old to 16/17. The Folkeskole is the responsibility of the 98 Danish municipalities. In order to meet the learning and overall development, the Folkeskole builds on the principle of differentiated teaching. Teaching such that that it both strengthens and develops the individual student’s interests, abilities and needs and while offering common experiences and situations to all students and helping them cooperate in the performance of tasks. Inclusive education is on the top of the political agenda since 2010. Inspection of the public school system resulted in recommendations for how schools can increase the academic standard for all students and drastically reduce the number of pupils assigned to special education. Schools must now provide education that ensures good learning outcomes for all students while fostering social and educational inclusion. Today inclusion is no longer just a matter of international declarations (value and ideology), but also a matter of expectation and policy - and so primarily a matter of implementation at scale. This change forces municipalities and schools to build systematically the necessary capacity to implement this national strategy.

Tyrone Howard, Professor at University of California, Los Angeles, presents his curiosity about how race and culture plays in one's education in this lecture. Howard raises the question of why race is an important variable of schooling and why does the population ignore it and explains that by refusing to talk about race and culture mystifies it even further, thus causing the lack of understanding to be problematic. The boundaries of racial lies need to be broken in order to ensure better education and further learning in students through the greater understanding of race and culture.

Rethink what disability means and how it is important in one's identity as a writer. Dr. Beth A Ferri examines how disability influences writing, the current method of teaching special populations, and how such methodology could be improved. Dr. Ferri is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Doctoral program in Special Education at Syracuse University. The Ph D Forum is a lecture series within the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University. This presentation was filmed by Panther Productions.

Shirley R. Steinberg, Ph.D. gives a keynote presentation on the effects of current global issues in regards to the treatment of Muslim Communities in Orange County. Steinberg is the director and chair of the Werklund Foundation centre for Youth Leadership in Education, and professor of youth studies at the University of Calgary. Dr. Steinberg is also the director of the Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy. Panelists include Dina Eletreby, Ph.D., head of New Horizon Elementary School in Irvine and an American Muslim of Egyptian descent who was raised in two religiously and culturally different worlds of home and school; Shabbir Mansuri, founder and CEO of the Institute on Religion and Civic Values and a member of the editorial board of the Religion & Education Journal; and Muzammil Siddiqi, religious director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, a Chapman instructor and president of the Academy of Judaic Christian and Islamic Studies at UCLA.

Keynote speaker at the Emerging Scholars Conference on Exploring Difference: Disability and Diversity in Education, Law and Society, Laura Rothstein lectures on Disability Policy in Education Settings. She details the relationship between the Eisenhower Highway System as it relates to the history of disability policy in the United States. Rothstein has written extensively on disability discrimination in education. She chaired the AALS Special Committee on Disability Issues (1988-1990). She has served
as co-chair of the AALS Section on Disability Law, Chair of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education Diversity Committee, a member of the LSAC Minority Affairs Committee, and a member of the AALS Membership Committee.

Intersectionality’s Complexity is the theme of Alfredo Artiles presentation at the Emerging Scholars Conference on Exploring Difference: Disability and Diversity in Education, Law and Society. He reflects on past and future research on the racialization of disabilities, detailing how student social identities are constructed along racial lines. Alfredo Artiles has published extensively for audiences in education, psychology, and related disciplines.
 He is Editor (with T. Wiley) of the International Multilingual Research Journal (Taylor & Francis), and
 edits (with E. Kozleski) the book series Disability, Culture, & Equity (Teachers College Press). Dr. Artiles’s interdisciplinary scholarship examines the ways cultural practices and ideologies of difference mediate school responses to students’ needs. His research also focuses on teacher learning for social justice.

Autism and Down Syndrome is discussed in this event, starting with a presentation by Rex and Jennifer Hudler of Team Up for Down Syndrome. Rex, the famous professional baseball player, details how he and his wife’s lives changed after having a child with Down Syndrome. Following their emotional tale, the two autistic stars of the film “Wretches and Jabberers,” Larry Bissonnette and Tracy Thresher partake in a question and answer session. With the help of computers acting as their voices, the men reveal what it is like to live with a disability.

Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education Eugenie Scott discusses evolution and intelligent design. Dr. Scott focuses on court cases and fossils to examine the issue. In closing, she explores the efforts to get creation science into schools.

This session focuses on developing educators that are better equipped to create educational environments that understand and respond to the social toxins that emerge from racism and poverty. Dr. Duncan-Andrade discusses the impact of these conditions on student identities and the role hope plays in this framework. Dr. Duncan-Andrade draws from his 18 years as an urban educator to explore the concept of hope, as essential for nurturing urban youth. Through the voices of young people and their teachers, and the invocation of powerful metaphor and imagery, Duncan-Andrade proclaims critical hope’s significance for an education that relieves undeserved suffering in communities.