How can universities cultivate students' capacity to learn across political divides? While many universities affirm the importance of open exchange between people who hold different views, it is unclear whether, what, and how students learn through such conversations. This article draws on observations of a deliberative dialogue between college…

Higher levels of civic and community engagement in higher education are positively associated with students' academic performance and they also build upon citizenship skills such as informed voting. Yet, while these are worthy and important outcomes of higher education, students from disadvantaged backgrounds can have more difficulty navigating…

This article presents two lessons. The first one is "Carved in Stone: The Preamble to the Constitution" by Steven S. Lapham. In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned artist Lenore Thomas to create some sculptures for the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland. Part of her work consisted of bas-relief friezes on the…

The combination of classroom voting system (clicker) questions and peer instruction has been shown to increase student learning. While implementations in large lectures have been around for a while, mathematics has been increasingly using clickers in classes of a smaller size. In Fall 2008, I conducted an experiment to measure the effect of…

In a democracy, agents of political socialization, such as schools and parents, generally emphasize the importance of voting. While college students may be exposed briefly to voter registration as a barrier to participation, there is little evidence that the topic is given serious attention in the classroom. This research addresses how classroom…

Despite the recent turmoil in the U.S. economy, most libraries that were tracked by "Library Journal" won their referenda at a rate just slightly lower than 2007. Nearly three-quarters of operating referenda passed. Building referenda under $10 million passed at a whopping 85%, with those over $10 million batting slightly better than…

In this article, the author shares how his fourth-grade students' creative thinking concerning a long-standing research problem stimulated changes in his instructional strategies. He begins by providing an example which illustrates that the standard tool of democracy, the plurality vote, suffers serious deficiencies: "The winner can be the…

Pennsylvania is considered one of the nation's key swing states. But over in Penn State's student union, there wasn't much excitement about the forthcoming election--even though it is the first presidential vote that most undergraduates will cast. A visit last week by "The Chronicle" to Penn State and two other campuses in the central…

The term service-learning is used frequently these days, but confusion remains as to what it is and why it matters. More importantly, are there any measurable benefits? This issue of "The Progress of Education Reform" looks at four research studies that explore the impact of service-learning on student achievement and civic engagement. A…

Obamamania has swept across college campuses. Students, it seems, are out campaigning, registering people to vote, singing the Democrat's praises far and wide. This article reports that a new poll of college students in four battleground states--Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania--conducted by CBS News, UWIRE, and "The…

Every day, 14 retired teachers and other school employees arrive at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' headquarters and go to work for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The retirees--working with volunteers and union staff members from as far away as Alaska--are working to inform teachers' union members why the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)…

Following introductory material, this report examines the collective bargaining election in Pennsylvania's stateowned colleges. The second section establishes the contextual framework for the election. This section discusses certain features of the Pennsylvania State Colleges, reviews the election campaign waged by the respective contending…

Despite a growing consensus that civic education is an important aspect of political socialization, little research has prospectively examined how gains made during civics courses are maintained after high school. This study used a quasi-experimental design to examine longer-term effects of the Student Voices program, which was originally…

Reports a questionnaire survey of faculty following the election of a collective bargaining agent at the 14 Pennsylvania state colleges. Identifies relationships between faculty choice and influence of internal vs. external governance matters on voting, demographic faculty characteristics, and attitudes toward contending associations, scope of…

A voter education package was developed to aid institutional personnel in educating the residents from state mental health facilities in the methods of registering to vote, developing the necessary skills in the voting process, and the use of the voting machine. The curriculum was taught to 38 residents in the Harrisburg State Hospital who had…