Nadine Dolby | Purdue University (original) (raw)
Books by Nadine Dolby
Rethinking Multicultural Education for the Next Generation builds on the legacy of social justice... more Rethinking Multicultural Education for the Next Generation builds on the legacy of social justice multicultural education, while recognizing the considerable challenges of reaching today’s college students. By drawing on breakthrough research in two fields – neuroscience and animal studies – Nadine Dolby argues that empathy is an underlying element of all living beings. Dolby shows how this commonality can provide a scaffolding for building an exciting new approach to developing multicultural and global consciousness, one that has the potential to transform how our students see and relate to the world around them. This book features classroom vignettes and reflections, discussion of research with pre-service teachers on the concept of empathy, and pedagogical suggestions for fostering the new empathy in students.
Incorporating discussions of animal emotions, sustainability, and our responsibilities to all living creatures and the planet, Dolby challenges multicultural educators to rethink both curriculum and pedagogy and to begin new and bolder conversations about how empathy for humans, animals, and the planet must be part of a new approach to teaching.
Papers by Nadine Dolby
International Review of Qualitative Research, 2021
In this essay, I explore my story as an activist and my current critical community engagement pro... more In this essay, I explore my story as an activist and my current critical community engagement project, Animal Advocates of Greater Lafayette. Animal Advocates merges my activism and my scholarship. I begin by providing stories of my experience as a student and community activist in Boston in the 1980s. I then discuss my more recent volunteer experiences, which led to the formation of Animal Advocates of Greater Lafayette. I share stories of the early challenges and my experiences with this group and how my activism and my scholarship now simultaneously shape and move each other. Through this discussion, I hope to expand the possibilities for being and acting in the world outside of the academy to engage with the communities where we live, thinking about the multiple ways in which justice matters in critical times.
Honors in Practice, 2017
Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc, scholars of higher education, have described the purpose of high... more Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc, scholars of higher education, have described the purpose of higher education: Our colleges and universities need to encourage, foster, and assist our students, faculty, and administrators in finding their own authentic way to an individual life where meaning and purpose are tightly interwoven with intellect and action, where compassion and care are infused with insight and knowledge. (56) The role of higher education is not only to prepare students for a career: it should assist and support them as they begin an adult life, which includes contributing to society and a community, participating in a democracy, forming relationships, clarifying their values and beliefs, and finding meaning and direction in the world. However, as higher education becomes more tightly linked to job and career preparation in both the public imagination and the actual practices of institutions, students are not surprisingly focused increasingly on credentialing (Arum and Ro...
Critical Education, 2015
The practice of cat declawing is intertwined with how both veterinarians and the public are educa... more The practice of cat declawing is intertwined with how both veterinarians and the public are educated and socialized to make sense of animals and the relationship between humans and animals. In this article, I review the history of the veterinary profession, its intrinsic “hidden curriculum,” and how it has intersected with three different ways of valuing animals through the lenses of animal health, animal welfare and animal rights. In recent years, successful critical public education efforts are changing the way that people think about animals and their use (and abuse) for human ends. I describe the history of cat declawing and how The Paw Project is reshaping the public conversation around this controversial practice. In conclusion, I examine how The Paw Project can be understood as an important critical education project in the public sphere.
This article focuses on the partnership between Discovery Charter School of Rochester, New York, ... more This article focuses on the partnership between Discovery Charter School of Rochester, New York, founded in 2011, and Nazareth College Partners for Learning. The Partners for Learning program engages Nazareth College students in partnerships with the children, teachers, and staff of eight urban sites. The authors examine the four critical roles that work to foster program success: (1) Associate Director for the Center for Civic Engagement, (2) Student Site Coordinator, (3) Site Representative, and (4) Classroom Teacher. We describe each of the four roles, how the roles support experiential learning, and, most importantly, how we consistently collaborate to ensure success for all parties. We have gathered multiple forms of reflection, and we share data focusing on the impact of student learning for both personal and professional growth. Finally, Discovery Charter School students describe what having a Partner in their classroom means to them, how the Partners have improved their lear...
Critical Education, 2020
In the context of the unrelenting neoliberal reality of schooling, teacher education focuses larg... more In the context of the unrelenting neoliberal reality of schooling, teacher education focuses largely on the formal, structured spaces in which children learn: predominantly the classroom. Yet, critical educators also recognize that children learn in informal spaces at school, including at lunch. This essay examines how school lunch can be used to teach about humans’ relationships with other humans, animals, and the environment through innovative school, community, and university-based programs. In conclusion, this essay suggests that critical teacher educators should understand the pedagogical importance of school lunch in students’ lives, and begin to incorporate it into preservice teacher education programs.
Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research, 2020
Animal welfare is an increasingly important component of veterinary medicine. While the AVMA Mode... more Animal welfare is an increasingly important component of veterinary medicine. While the AVMA Model Animal Welfare Curriculum is not required, there is growing research that examines veterinary students’ understanding of animal welfare and moral and ethical responsibility to animals. However, there is limited research that investigates incoming veterinary students’ perspectives on animal welfare: a significant pedagogical gap, as successful curriculum interventions take into account students’ pre-existing experiences. This study investigates this gap in the literature through a qualitative, interview-based study of twenty incoming veterinary students at an accredited veterinary college. Four themes are identified in the data: formative childhood experiences; pre-professional experiences in the field; public conversations in the media/ social media; and academic definitions memorized for admission interviews. In conclusion, I draw on the field of narrative medicine to discuss how stud...
The Journal of Environmental Education, 2019
Similar to other fields, environmental education has begun to embrace the significance of nonhuma... more Similar to other fields, environmental education has begun to embrace the significance of nonhuman animals. This essay examines developments in the natural sciences, particularly in the field of cognitive ethology, that focus on the concept of empathy as a paradigm for conceptualizing human/nonhuman animal relationships. Drawing on my own experience using this model of empathy in a course focused on animals, society, and education, I suggest ways that environmental education can incorporate these new understandings about nonhuman animal sentience, cognition and emotion into the field.
Educational Studies, 2018
In this essay, I discuss my experience as a member of my university's Institutional Animal Care a... more In this essay, I discuss my experience as a member of my university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Using Blum's (2016) model of experiential learning (or "learning in the wild"), I reflect on the connected processes of reading, thinking, seeing, hearing, smelling, talking, and listening that were the basis for my education about the use of animals for research on university campuses. In conclusion, I suggest that faculty members, staff members, and students have an obligation to understand, and work to change, the lives of the animals who exist among us. For a brief moment, I was alone with the pigs. I lingered behind with them while everyone else on the university inspection team moved into the hallway. As I approached their pen, they immediately rushed to greet me: squealing, talking, communicating, and probably hoping for a small treat. A familiar feeling of sadness settled in: these pigs would have a short life spent in confinement and boredom, be used in one or more research studies, and then euthanized. It may be surprising that, as a professor in a college of education, I was doing part of my job through spending time inspecting the facilities on my campus that house pigs, rats, mice, dogs, chickens, cows, goats, and dozens of other species. Most faculty members in colleges and schools of education focus their research and teaching on humans. In the past two decades, scholars in the social foundations and related fields have started the process of challenging that emphasis. For example, there is now an emergent focus on nonhuman animals 1 as food in the social foundations literature and in related work in eco-justice (
Rethinking Multicultural Education for the Next Generation builds on the legacy of social justice... more Rethinking Multicultural Education for the Next Generation builds on the legacy of social justice multicultural education, while recognizing the considerable challenges of reaching today’s college students. By drawing on breakthrough research in two fields – neuroscience and animal studies – Nadine Dolby argues that empathy is an underlying element of all living beings. Dolby shows how this commonality can provide a scaffolding for building an exciting new approach to developing multicultural and global consciousness, one that has the potential to transform how our students see and relate to the world around them. This book features classroom vignettes and reflections, discussion of research with pre-service teachers on the concept of empathy, and pedagogical suggestions for fostering the new empathy in students.
Incorporating discussions of animal emotions, sustainability, and our responsibilities to all living creatures and the planet, Dolby challenges multicultural educators to rethink both curriculum and pedagogy and to begin new and bolder conversations about how empathy for humans, animals, and the planet must be part of a new approach to teaching.
International Review of Qualitative Research, 2021
In this essay, I explore my story as an activist and my current critical community engagement pro... more In this essay, I explore my story as an activist and my current critical community engagement project, Animal Advocates of Greater Lafayette. Animal Advocates merges my activism and my scholarship. I begin by providing stories of my experience as a student and community activist in Boston in the 1980s. I then discuss my more recent volunteer experiences, which led to the formation of Animal Advocates of Greater Lafayette. I share stories of the early challenges and my experiences with this group and how my activism and my scholarship now simultaneously shape and move each other. Through this discussion, I hope to expand the possibilities for being and acting in the world outside of the academy to engage with the communities where we live, thinking about the multiple ways in which justice matters in critical times.
Honors in Practice, 2017
Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc, scholars of higher education, have described the purpose of high... more Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc, scholars of higher education, have described the purpose of higher education: Our colleges and universities need to encourage, foster, and assist our students, faculty, and administrators in finding their own authentic way to an individual life where meaning and purpose are tightly interwoven with intellect and action, where compassion and care are infused with insight and knowledge. (56) The role of higher education is not only to prepare students for a career: it should assist and support them as they begin an adult life, which includes contributing to society and a community, participating in a democracy, forming relationships, clarifying their values and beliefs, and finding meaning and direction in the world. However, as higher education becomes more tightly linked to job and career preparation in both the public imagination and the actual practices of institutions, students are not surprisingly focused increasingly on credentialing (Arum and Ro...
Critical Education, 2015
The practice of cat declawing is intertwined with how both veterinarians and the public are educa... more The practice of cat declawing is intertwined with how both veterinarians and the public are educated and socialized to make sense of animals and the relationship between humans and animals. In this article, I review the history of the veterinary profession, its intrinsic “hidden curriculum,” and how it has intersected with three different ways of valuing animals through the lenses of animal health, animal welfare and animal rights. In recent years, successful critical public education efforts are changing the way that people think about animals and their use (and abuse) for human ends. I describe the history of cat declawing and how The Paw Project is reshaping the public conversation around this controversial practice. In conclusion, I examine how The Paw Project can be understood as an important critical education project in the public sphere.
This article focuses on the partnership between Discovery Charter School of Rochester, New York, ... more This article focuses on the partnership between Discovery Charter School of Rochester, New York, founded in 2011, and Nazareth College Partners for Learning. The Partners for Learning program engages Nazareth College students in partnerships with the children, teachers, and staff of eight urban sites. The authors examine the four critical roles that work to foster program success: (1) Associate Director for the Center for Civic Engagement, (2) Student Site Coordinator, (3) Site Representative, and (4) Classroom Teacher. We describe each of the four roles, how the roles support experiential learning, and, most importantly, how we consistently collaborate to ensure success for all parties. We have gathered multiple forms of reflection, and we share data focusing on the impact of student learning for both personal and professional growth. Finally, Discovery Charter School students describe what having a Partner in their classroom means to them, how the Partners have improved their lear...
Critical Education, 2020
In the context of the unrelenting neoliberal reality of schooling, teacher education focuses larg... more In the context of the unrelenting neoliberal reality of schooling, teacher education focuses largely on the formal, structured spaces in which children learn: predominantly the classroom. Yet, critical educators also recognize that children learn in informal spaces at school, including at lunch. This essay examines how school lunch can be used to teach about humans’ relationships with other humans, animals, and the environment through innovative school, community, and university-based programs. In conclusion, this essay suggests that critical teacher educators should understand the pedagogical importance of school lunch in students’ lives, and begin to incorporate it into preservice teacher education programs.
Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research, 2020
Animal welfare is an increasingly important component of veterinary medicine. While the AVMA Mode... more Animal welfare is an increasingly important component of veterinary medicine. While the AVMA Model Animal Welfare Curriculum is not required, there is growing research that examines veterinary students’ understanding of animal welfare and moral and ethical responsibility to animals. However, there is limited research that investigates incoming veterinary students’ perspectives on animal welfare: a significant pedagogical gap, as successful curriculum interventions take into account students’ pre-existing experiences. This study investigates this gap in the literature through a qualitative, interview-based study of twenty incoming veterinary students at an accredited veterinary college. Four themes are identified in the data: formative childhood experiences; pre-professional experiences in the field; public conversations in the media/ social media; and academic definitions memorized for admission interviews. In conclusion, I draw on the field of narrative medicine to discuss how stud...
The Journal of Environmental Education, 2019
Similar to other fields, environmental education has begun to embrace the significance of nonhuma... more Similar to other fields, environmental education has begun to embrace the significance of nonhuman animals. This essay examines developments in the natural sciences, particularly in the field of cognitive ethology, that focus on the concept of empathy as a paradigm for conceptualizing human/nonhuman animal relationships. Drawing on my own experience using this model of empathy in a course focused on animals, society, and education, I suggest ways that environmental education can incorporate these new understandings about nonhuman animal sentience, cognition and emotion into the field.
Educational Studies, 2018
In this essay, I discuss my experience as a member of my university's Institutional Animal Care a... more In this essay, I discuss my experience as a member of my university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Using Blum's (2016) model of experiential learning (or "learning in the wild"), I reflect on the connected processes of reading, thinking, seeing, hearing, smelling, talking, and listening that were the basis for my education about the use of animals for research on university campuses. In conclusion, I suggest that faculty members, staff members, and students have an obligation to understand, and work to change, the lives of the animals who exist among us. For a brief moment, I was alone with the pigs. I lingered behind with them while everyone else on the university inspection team moved into the hallway. As I approached their pen, they immediately rushed to greet me: squealing, talking, communicating, and probably hoping for a small treat. A familiar feeling of sadness settled in: these pigs would have a short life spent in confinement and boredom, be used in one or more research studies, and then euthanized. It may be surprising that, as a professor in a college of education, I was doing part of my job through spending time inspecting the facilities on my campus that house pigs, rats, mice, dogs, chickens, cows, goats, and dozens of other species. Most faculty members in colleges and schools of education focus their research and teaching on humans. In the past two decades, scholars in the social foundations and related fields have started the process of challenging that emphasis. For example, there is now an emergent focus on nonhuman animals 1 as food in the social foundations literature and in related work in eco-justice (
Journal of College and Character, 2017
Abstract Faculty and staff are rightly concerned with the moral and ethical dimensions of human r... more Abstract Faculty and staff are rightly concerned with the moral and ethical dimensions of human relationships on campus. Yet, they rarely discuss the animals with whom they share their campuses and larger world. In this article, the author reflects on her experience on an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee to raise questions about animals in higher education research, amid changing understandings of human/animal relationships, and growing scientific evidence of animal cognition and emotion. In conclusion, the author suggests that faculty and staff and students need to engage these conversations to be informed, involved citizens and whole human beings.
The Educational Significance of Human and Non-Human Animal Interactions, 2016
While children’s books portray the veterinary profession as the logical career choice for anyone ... more While children’s books portray the veterinary profession as the logical career choice for anyone who loves animals (Ames, 2010; Macken, 2011; Murray, 2013; Thomas, 2009), the actual reality of the profession and its relationship to animals is considerably more murky. For example, while the public image of veterinarians is centered on the kindly, trained person who knows how to take care of their companion animal (usually a cat or a dog), veterinarians also care for animals who are raised and slaughtered for human consumption and used in zoos, aquariums, circuses, and laboratory research.
Comparative Education Review, 2015
Teaching in Higher Education, 2015
Rethinking Multicultural Education for the Next Generation, 2012
Handbook of Research in the Social Foundations of Education, 2013
... 1 In many instances, it is tricky to draw a line between popular culture and the rest of our ... more ... 1 In many instances, it is tricky to draw a line between popular culture and the rest of our lives, so embedded is it in our daily patterns. ... Some of this research is still concentrated in the subculture genre (Baulch, 2007; Hodkinson & Deicke, 2007; Skott-Myhre, 2008). ...
Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the... more Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.