This paper examines contemporary challenges for education and democracy in Brazil. In the past decade, conservative forces headed by the Escola sem Partido (ESP) movement have led a scaremongering campaign against teachers and public education, with Paulo Freire's critical educational philosophies as their main enemy. This study investigates the…

What should teachers do on the days after major events, tragedies, and traumas, especially when injustice is involved? This beautifully written book features teacher narratives and youth-authored student spotlights that reveal what classrooms do and can look like in the wake of these critical moments. Dunn incisively argues for the importance of…

This practical book provides teachers with step-by-step guidance for developing a class culture that welcomes curiosity and ignites social action. Student-driven inquiry has a lasting impact on learning, yet questions posed from students' own contexts rarely serve to shape their understanding of the outside world. The authors show teachers how to…

This chapter showcases a program that involves college student leaders to teach about the civil rights movement to K-12 students in local public schools. Voices of a student leader and high school teacher speak to the program's impact on them personally and professionally, and provide broader lessons for cultivating student leadership through the…

Increasingly, policy makers, educators, and school systems are embracing LGBTQ+ individuals and issues in the classroom. This fall, California's K-12 classrooms began using LGBTQ-inclusive textbooks, and, for the last three years, a San Francisco high school has offered an LGBTQ Studies course, likely the first in the country and a pilot for…

Promoting Social Justice through Pre-K-12 Multicultural Literature is a graduate course at Elmhurst College in which social studies teachers learn to take a leadership role in their classrooms and communities by infusing social justice topics into their existing curricula. The study of multiculturalism alongside issues such as environmentalism,…

A key ongoing debate in environmental education practice and its research relates to the content and goals of environmental education programmes. Specifically, there is a long history of debate between advocates of educational perspectives that emphasise the teaching of science concepts and those that seek to more actively link environmental and…

Contends that a call to informed action is central to students' work in classrooms where teachers strive to teach in socially just ways. Describes a two-fold approach to action in the days following September 11 by the Center for Teaching for Social Justice at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Provides links to websites for helping…

Compares the educational and philosophical theories of John Dewey and Paulo Friere, articulating how each deals with two key relationships: action to reflection and individual to society. Their theories of experiential learning largely overlap, but they depart on the larger ideological purposes of education, with Freire more inviting of critical…

Discusses Gramsci's political education model, which explains the role of education in building an alternative, anti-capitalist cultural formation. Considers the definition of hegemony, the form of pedagogy best serving to develop critical consciousness, Gramsci's break with Marxist-Leninist traditions, and the revolutionary role of the common…

Reports on a research study designed to understand the influence of education on the level of recycling in communities and counties in Iowa. Focuses on different types of education, distribution methods, expenditures, and messages. (DDR)

This article examines a decision-making strategy called mixed scanning which can be used to teach social participation in elementary and secondary social studies. The strategy requires logical gathering and analyzing of information, judging the alternatives, making choices, and planning a course of action. The article outlines environmental…

Analyzes some epistemological attributes of ecological hypotheses and theories and tries to connect them with the need for teaching strategies that take into account the strong provisional character of ecological knowledge. Shows that critical thinking is an essential tool in both learning and practicing ecological science. (DDR)

Participatory democracy should replace protectionist democracy as the organizing principle for civic education. An outline of a curriculum for democratic participation is presented. One facet of this curriculum, the teaching of democratic values, is examined in detail through the example of a study of the nuclear freeze movement. (Author/RM)

This article explores the teacher's role as an advocate for gifted education. It discusses applying the principles of learning to the process of advocacy, including using motivational strategies, scaffolding, and metacognitive skills to advocate. The importance of facilitating the transfer of knowledge is stressed and an advocacy checklist is…