Some educators have developed teaching strategies to address issues of racism and discrimination in the classroom. Although these exercises are provocative and no doubt meaningful for students, they generally do not address the impact that racial group membership has on student response to provocative issues like affirmative action. In the…

Notwithstanding the First Amendment, book banning is a practice rooted in American history. In 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Law in an effort to legislate public morality. Though rarely enforced, the act remains on the books. A survey by the National School Boards Association found that one-third of challenges to school reading materials in…

The literary works surveyed here were written by authors who, as children, witnessed apartheid, holocaust, imprisonment, escape, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other horrors that marked their lives. In each case, the selected texts are rendered as diaries or as first-person narratives describing disturbing situations which are resolved either…

For decades, educators have wrestled with how to handle the increasingly diverse religions of an increasingly diverse student body. Sometimes, the line between church and state--what schools can and cannot do under the Constitution--can feel confusing and slippery. Today, religion has become a subject one high school teachers describes as even…

During the first 6 months of 1996, a task force of teachers, administrators, and community members in the Lane Education Service District (Eugene, Oregon) studied issues and practices related to teaching about religion in public school classrooms. The task force sought to develop a framework for teaching about religion and its appropriate…

This paper examines the rapid changes in technology that enables cloning of human embryos and explores the issues related to teaching students about the use of such technologies. STS adoption has made only minimal impact on mainline social studies curriculum, although the topic has been included in discussion for decades. The paper outlines five…

This book argues that the best solution to higher education's conflicts over culture and "political correctness" is to teach the conflicts themselves. The book suggests making intellectual conflict part of the universities' object of study and thereby more successfully engaging students in the world of ideas and learning. The book argues…

This journal article examines how school board policies are used to control the controversies that often surround curriculum challenges. Specific key provisions of model policies and actual policies from California are analyzed to suggest ideal policy provisions. In a longitudinal study, over 42 percent of the 1,000-plus school districts in…

This document suggests that the main purpose of the study of current affairs in the social studies program in Alberta, Canada, is to add relevance, interest, and immediacy. It defines current affairs as the study of news events presented by the media. Because the study of current affairs must be tied to the achievement of social studies…

This article describes a teaching experiment in Finland to develop critical thinking and argumentation skills in a university course using both face-to-face and e-mail settings. Subjects (n=49) were advanced students of education and three faculty members. All students received two lectures on argumentation and packages of argumentative writings…

This annual publication contains reading materials designed to help students understand the complexities of the domestic and foreign policy issues facing the United States. The first portion of the book features background reading on the structure of the Federal Government. Next, 10 domestic policy issues are covered: the economy, education, civil…

This paper discusses the importance of teaching about the place of religion in U.S. development and calls attention to the inadequate treatment of religion in history textbooks used in public secondary schools. Knowledge about various religious traditions is necessary to citizenship, and since it is not taught by parents or religious institutions,…

Teaching about potential nuclear conflict is increasing in schools, colleges, and universities. A group of faculty from many universities across the United States has formed United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear War (UCAM) to produce teaching materials and publish summaries of courses on nuclear war. One such course at Lafayette College…

Designed for secondary school students, this 3-5 day unit focuses on the legal context of the Japanese-American internment during World War II and can be incorporated into a history unit or used as a case study of the American legal system or American race relations. Four lesson plans are provided. In lesson 1, the historical events of the…

This study was conducted to identify bioethical topics of possible interest for a high school science curriculum, focusing on advantages and disadvantages of bioethical education and emphasizing the procedure to incorporate bioethics instruction into the secondary school science curriculum. Researched material is presented as an annotated…