This November, California voters must decide two policy questions of great concern to public-sector unions. One is a tax hike to stave off further cuts to state spending (there are two versions on the ballot with a chance of passing). The other is a "paycheck protection" measure that would ban the practice of unions' deducting money from…

The Inner London education authority was a notable example of a radical and powerful local government body from which the fight for the comprehensive principle in English secondary education emerged. Building on previous work of women's contribution to state education in London, this articles focuses on Anglo-Jewish educator activists who helped…

The word sequestration has been in the news lately when talking about the federal budget. Sequestration refers to across-the-board cuts, and depending on where one lives and the amount of federal aid one's community receives, those cuts could amount to as much as 17 percent. That spells bad news for schools unless parents, educators, and other…

Ecological activism (henceforth ecoactivism) in Russia, a country with a predominant European culture, has common roots with the Europe of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A process of intensive industrialization and urbanization required that unspoiled, natural landscapes be preserved for rest, recreation, and ecological education. This…

Considering the lack of coverage in the mass media of certain kinds of social movement activity, many movements make use of smaller scale, independent media to publicise their struggles. From the vantage point of social movements in South Africa, this paper addresses what Mojca Pajnik and John Downing call "nano-media". Based on…

Civic engagement, or the practice of democratic deliberation in adult education and learning, asks that adults use their experiences to cooperatively build solutions to the difficult social, economic, and political problems that affect their lives and communities now and into the future. The articles presented in this issue look at the…

Elise Boulding wrote academically to help to create and influence the field of peace education, and lived a life that exemplified it. Her life integrated theory and practice and exemplified peace "praxis" as the "craft and skills of doing peace" and "the integration of thought and action". For Boulding, peace education occurred at all levels,…

True freedom and true peace are cousins, but they can only work together if the freedom of one people is seen in relation to the freedom of another. Struggles for freedom and peace can only enhance each other if the peace people seek is a robust harmony in which conflict is embraced and people are encouraged to imagine a far stronger freedom and…

When ACT UP is remembered as the pinnacle of postmodern activism, other forms and forums of activism that were taking place during that time--practices that were linked, related, just modern, in dialogue or even opposition to ACT UP's "confrontational activism"--are forgotten. In its time, ACT UP was embedded in New York City, and a…

This article presents a detailed example from the Albert Shanker Institute's report that shows the error of U.S. history textbooks and how it is distorting the historical record. One of the most glaring errors in textbooks is the treatment of the role that unions and labor activists played as key participants in the civil rights movement. The…

This final chapter provides observations about institutional research in community colleges derived from the preceding chapters and the issue editors' own experiences. Taken as a whole, the chapters in this issue, as well as the editors' experiences, suggest several observations about institutional research in community colleges. These include the…

An environmental education intervention in a university conservation-related course was designed to decrease students' errors in consensus estimates for proenvironmental intentions, that is, their errors in guessing their classmates' proenvironmental intentions. Before and after the course, the authors measured two intentions regarding willingness…

Participatory Action Research (PAR) has a history of empowerment, transformation, and healing (McIntyre, 2008). Its limited use in teacher education must be addressed, and this study shows pre-service teachers' overwhelming enjoyment in completing a PAR project. An outline of classroom methods demonstrates how the project was implemented, and 41…

Despite widely circulated pronouncements of the death of racism in the U.S. following the election of President Barack Obama, politicians continue to appeal to race as a means of galvanizing their (predominantly white) bases, legislation across the States taps into deeply held racist beliefs and connects those beliefs with notions of citizenship…

During the last few decades, educational research has increasingly tried to legitimise itself by its alleged capacity to contribute to the solution of certain societal problems. The article discusses this claim on the basis of historical evidence. It addresses two episodes of educational change aimed at a 'freer' pedagogy and society and at…