Objectives: In this Paper, I examine how high school social studies content standards in the United States address fundamental concepts of American governance, particularly the concept of democracy. Methods: I conducted a qualitative textual analysis of government/civics content standards from all 50 states, Washington DC, and the Advanced…

Convinced of the major advantages and effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach in teaching, colleagues from American Studies, Economics, and Greek Studies offered a joint seminar for master's degree students on "Individual Goals and the Common Good: Perspectives on Utility Concepts from Ancient Greek Literature, American Studies, and…

This paper uses the author's time as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies to Norway as an entrée into exploring human rights discourse and Human Rights Education in Norway, a country that is often thought of as one of the centers of human rights work in Europe--and appreciates this association. It begins by situating human rights in…

Purpose: The paper aims to illustrate some of the challenges and outcomes of teaching courses addressing the politics, culture, and history of the US in the Middle East. In doing so, it contextualises an application of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and describes its implementation. Methodology: A case study method is applied to qualitative records…

Despite decades of formal work with teachers, little is known about what they gain from professional development at and with historic sites. This article presents the first data-set from a 3-year Institute for Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant project designed to develop a broad-based assessment for understanding what teachers…

Despite years of research on effective teaching suggesting that learners must engage actively in the process and that teachers should vary their instructional strategies, direct instruction using lecture continues to dominate in America's college classrooms. The author reviews selected studies focusing on effective instructional practices and…

In this paper, the author looks closely at two spaces where students engaged in practices and forms of cultural production with transformative possibilities. Specifically, the author sought out spaces where youth came together for one of two important purposes: to cross boundaries of difference or to affirm and re-imagine identities. The two…

Provides an interpretation of survey results of historians by an Italian scholar of American studies. Maintains that U.S. historians and historiography are changing the way Italian and other European scholars view history and its societal role. Concludes that cultural and intellectual pluralism is deeply rooted in U.S. political culture. (CFR)

A stage model of Black adolescent racial identity from the perspective of its use by educational researchers in the United States who employ it to explain the academic and social decisions that Black youth make in secondary schools was examined. Researchers often draw on stage models to explicitly challenge forms of White dominance in studies…

This article extends and expands the existing literature on critical thinking (CT) by both establishing the need for more student-centered research on the topic and reporting on the findings of a CT research project with two central, related goals: 1) To record and analyze undergraduate students' definition of CT and 2) To create an easy-to-use…

Contributes to scholarship on American Studies, Literary Criticism, and Gay Historical Criticism by examining F. O. Matthiessen's "American Renaissance." Argues that criticism of the work misses its homosexual double-consciousness: a resistive form of "passing" labeled "homosexual palimpsest" that manifests itself in…

Purpose: The study of patterns of residential mobility among individuals around the age of retirement has led to the recognition that for many reasons--climate and cost of living being the most frequently cited--settlement patterns of comparatively affluent retirees will often differ from those of the working-age population. Increasingly,…

The debate over whether the 50 states are meaningful units for macro-sociological research has mostly been conducted on the basis of deductive reasoning. Three sets of analyses that are intended to provide much needed empirical data on this issue were studied. The first set involved all variables in the "County and City Data Book" used…

Letters by German-American writer and political scientist Francis Lieber and American lawyer and linguist John Pickering to Wilhem von Humboldt in Berlin, published here for the first time, give insight into the cultural interaction between Germany and the United States during the Jacksonian era, and may open new perspectives for German-American…

Describes a recent survey of library resources for American Studies at libraries in Taiwan and compares the results with those of two earlier surveys. Faculty opinions, periodical holdings, book holdings, and recommendations for improving the quality, quantity, and utilization of library resources for American Studies are discussed. (LRW)