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Abstract:The present study investigates the extent to which a program guided by the principles of critical pedagogy, which seeks to develop critical consciousness, is associated with the improved academic performance of students attending a low-performance middle-school in Buffalo, New York. The students were enrolled in an in-school academic support program called the Community as Classroom, which used critical project-based learning to show students how to improve neighborhood conditions. The study found that the Community as Classroom program bolstered student engagement as reflected in improved attendance, on-time-arrival at school, and reduced suspensions. Although class grades did not improve, standardized scores, particularly in Math and Science, dramatically improved for these students from the lowest scoring categories. We suspect that given increased student engagement and dramatically improved standardized test scores, teacher bias might be the cause of no improvements in class grades. We conclude that critical pedagogy, which leads to increased critical consciousness, is a tool that can lead to improved academic performance of students. Such a pedagogy, we argue, should be more widely used in public schools, with a particular emphasis on their deployment in Community Schools.

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Public service delivery is an essential component of e-governance initiatives but the digital divide limits citizens’ access to e-government services, especially in rural communities. The Digital India initiative launched Common Service Centers (CSCs) to mitigate the physical-digital divide issue. The privately operated local kiosks are meant to ensure easy access to digital government services in India’s remote pockets. Although the literature indicates that females generally have lower perceptions and adoption rates of digital government, existing studies commonly assume women directly interact with government websites. We know little about gender-specific experiences of digital government through the user assisted and privately operated local kiosks. This survey study utilizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the gender-specific acceptance of public service through local kiosks in rural India. This paper argues that user-assisted kiosks help mitigate the gender digital divide by increasing the usefulness and ease of use of e-government, which improves rural women’s acceptance and use of digital government services. This field research brings insights from the developing world while recording women’s voices from underserved communities.