One of the most important skills students can learn is how to use multiple, conflicting sources of information to formulate and defend positions on political issues. However, when we assign students to do this, all instructors see is the final product. Not knowing the process by which students do these assignments makes it difficult to help them…

This essay examines how Guillermo Gomez-Pena's ethno-cyborgs, performance personae that first appeared in his work in the mid-1990s, exploit and critique two overlapping cultural-political movements: the emergence of Internet technologies (cyberculture) and the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). After locating the…

This chapter critically examines six political television narratives: The Weather Channel, The Fox News Channel, "24," "The Rachel Maddow Show," "The Daily Show," and "Torchwood." The implications of those television narratives, their impact on adult learners, and suggestions for classroom practice are discussed.

As television ads have become the primary tool of communication in American campaigns, research on campaign effects has focused more and more attention on how these ads influence the electorate. Little attention has been paid, however, to the visual content of these ads. Despite a format that delivers an enormous quantity of visual information,…

There is growing interest by schools and universities in understanding Asian societies and cultures. One way of deepening this interest productively is through the imaginative use of cinema. In this article, the author explores how cinema can be a window into the dynamics of contemporary Asian societies and cultures. Through "aesthetic…

Education-Based Incarceration and Recidivism: The Ultimate Social Justice Crime Fighting Tool takes a penetrating look at the needs and challenges of society's disenfranchised jail populations. It is incumbent to encourage public awareness of the causes that underlie the destructive cycles plaguing these populations, including the abuse and…

This article examines the ways in which a multimodal text--a YouTube video on globalization and business--was mediated in two English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms, and how these mediations shaped the instructor's and her students' meaning-making in specific ways. I first explore the complex multimodal discourses involved with this…

This work examines the interlocking strategies of scientific entrepreneurialism and academic capitalism in cutting-edge innovations in molecular biology, biomedicine, and other life sciences deployed in research and the development of high-end skin whitening and anti-aging cosmeceuticals. Skin whitening products and anti-aging cosmeceuticals are…

This study presents a pedagogical framework to inform culturally responsive teaching in a Yukon First Nations community. The paper describes the community-based processes used to develop the framework, and presents accounts from teachers who have used the framework to inform their teaching. Preliminary indications of the adjusted teaching…

The aftermath of September 11, 2001 complicated how students of Middle Eastern heritages are perceived, treated, and constructed in U.S. institutions of higher education. However, research and scholarship has ignored how students of Middle Eastern heritages experience higher education in the current socio-political United States context. Borrowing…

During these unprecedented complicated times, there is an equally unprecedented need for an informed citizenry. Many of us watch democracy get played out on the 24-hour news networks. Still others bear witness to it in the social commentaries embedded in the entertainment provided by late night comedians like Jon Stewart. Humor provides a largely…

Two months before his 2008 election, Barack Obama addressed a roomful of Ohio public school teachers, praising their long hours and talking about his daughters' starting 2nd and 5th grade. Then Obama departed from the usual feel-good talking points. He touted competition, charter schools, and school choice. Two and a half years later, Republicans…

In November 2007, I helped found a blog, "The Monkey Cage", with two of my colleagues, David Park and Lee Sigelman. This site joined a nascent political science blogosphere that is now composed of at least 80 blogs (Farrell and Sides 2010). The goals of "The Monkey Cage" are to publicize political science research and use this research to comment…

This study explores college students' reactions to engaging in experiences with diverse others that students found uncomfortable, interactions that disrupted students' current beliefs or values. Our examination of these experiences was grounded in theory and research on intergroup contact and anxiety and developmental models of self-authorship…

This article describes a study that explores the ways in which principals use their political acumen to promote social justice in their schools. Employing face-to-face interviews with 28 principals who have worked in a variety of schools, the study examines the principals' efforts to understand their political contexts, the manner in which they…