Katy Swalwell – författare

Giving young people opportunities to grapple with injustices and complex social problems can inspire them to build a better world. In this bestselling book, two experienced social studies educators lay out their vision for an elementary social studies education that will help young people find value in learning about the world as they consider how to make their communities more just, equitable, and healthy.

Rodríguez and Swalwell unpack the problems that so often characterize the elementary curriculum—normalization, idealization, heroification, and dramatization—and show how common pitfalls can be replaced with creative solutions. This timely second edition discusses increasingly important topics like book bans and the rise of AI, provides updated research and resources, and includes strategies for teaching anti-oppressive social studies even when circumstances are less than ideal.

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, methods student, or curriculum coordinator, this is a book that can transform your understanding of the social studies disciplines and their power to disrupt the narratives that maintain current inequities.

Giving young people opportunities to grapple with injustices and complex social problems can inspire them to build a better world. In this bestselling book, two experienced social studies educators lay out their vision for an elementary social studies education that will help young people find value in learning about the world as they consider how to make their communities more just, equitable, and healthy.

Rodríguez and Swalwell unpack the problems that so often characterize the elementary curriculum—normalization, idealization, heroification, and dramatization—and show how common pitfalls can be replaced with creative solutions. This timely second edition discusses increasingly important topics like book bans and the rise of AI, provides updated research and resources, and includes strategies for teaching anti-oppressive social studies even when circumstances are less than ideal.

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, methods student, or curriculum coordinator, this is a book that can transform your understanding of the social studies disciplines and their power to disrupt the narratives that maintain current inequities.

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2013!

Educating Activist Allies offers a fresh take on critical education studies through an analysis of social justice pedagogy in schools serving communities privileged by race and class. By documenting the practices of socially committed teachers at an urban private academy and a suburban public school, Katy Swalwell helps educators and educational theorists better understand the challenges and opportunities inherent in this work. She also examines how students responded to their teachers’ efforts in ways that both undermined and realized the goals of social justice pedagogy. This analysis serves as the foundation for the development of a curricular framework helping students to foster an "Activist Ally" identity: the skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to negotiate privilege in ways that promote justice. Educating Activist Allies provides a powerful introduction to the ways in which social justice curricula can and should be enacted in communities of privilege.

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2013!

Educating Activist Allies offers a fresh take on critical education studies through an analysis of social justice pedagogy in schools serving communities privileged by race and class. By documenting the practices of socially committed teachers at an urban private academy and a suburban public school, Katy Swalwell helps educators and educational theorists better understand the challenges and opportunities inherent in this work. She also examines how students responded to their teachers’ efforts in ways that both undermined and realized the goals of social justice pedagogy. This analysis serves as the foundation for the development of a curricular framework helping students to foster an "Activist Ally" identity: the skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to negotiate privilege in ways that promote justice. Educating Activist Allies provides a powerful introduction to the ways in which social justice curricula can and should be enacted in communities of privilege.