This study examined the influence of diagnostic criteria and diagnostic labels for psychopathy or conduct disorder on judicial decisions. A national sample of judges (N = 326) rendered hypothetical dispositions based on 1 of 12 mock psychological evaluations. The evaluations varied the presence of 2 sets of diagnostic criteria (antisocial…

Background: Experiential learning has been posited as an approach to influencing preservice teachers' understanding of diversity and social justice. The research reported here examined the impact of a field-based experience in Poland focused on the Holocaust as it pertained to the beliefs and actions of 12 future education professionals. This…

This paper re-conceptualizes the relationship between the citizens and the state in view of praxes, dilemmas and contradictions found in modern multicultural societies. The new concept of citizenship is construed through a joint project for the state and human service professionals designated as organic intellectuals within a Gramscian framework…

The author describes teaching eighth-grade students about the civil rights movement. Teachers used photographs of students in the 1950s as a central theme of their unit about the U.S. civil rights movement. Using these photographs as a learning tool inspired the students to be engaged in history. At the end of the unit, students were able to…

This article considers issues of educational inequality in the U.S. South from a social work/social justice perspective. After a review of existing literature and discussion of cultural versus structural explanations for race and socioeconomic status gaps in academic achievement, findings are presented from a study examining child-, classroom-,…

Recess beckons well before it actually arrives. Its allure can be heard in children's lunchtime conversations as they discuss imaginary roles, plans, alliances and teams, with an obvious appetite for play and its unbounded possibility. For some children, recess provides the most important reasons to come to school. In team sports, games of chase…

The racially-based academic achievement gap demonstrates that schools are not equally successful with all students. There are gaps in discipline; placement in remedial, gifted, and honors classes; assignment to special education programs; grade point averages; dropout and graduation rates as well as in funding and resources. The elimination of…

This paper aims to give an introduction to the central concepts and the literature of Policy Studies in education. The first part of the paper addresses the questions of what policy is. How is it made and why is it relevant? It looks in particular at the role of the state and the Policy cycle framework which is an analytical tool that helps to…

Helping regular education students transition from high school to the post-secondary world can be a daunting task. Assisting students with special needs do this can be quite intimidating. According to the Harris Poll 2000, 20% of the general population was unemployed, while 71% of adults with disabilities were unemployed (Miller, Lombard, &…

This article reviews the literature on community service and activism, particularly in youth, using the theoretical approach provided by an identity projects framework. This framework allows for an examination of the contextual and experiential factors that contribute to the emergence and maintenance of an identity project of service or activism.…

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that a pragmatic view of music education--one that considers the presence or absence of music instruction in US schools, the quality of that instruction, and the opportunities for professional growth available to music teachers in those schools--is a necessary part of discussions related to social justice…

This article investigates justice judgments concerning grading. In two studies with secondary students (N[subscript 1]=350 academic-track students; N[subscript 2]=225 intermediate [n=81] and academic-track students [n=144]) attending the 7th to the 12th grade level, participants were presented with vignettes describing three different grading…

The values that school principals use when solving organisational problems were studied. Data were collected by a think aloud procedure, in which the participants verbalised their thoughts while working on a set of five administrative problems. The results show that the principals referred to seven values that had subtle but important sub-texts:…

This paper reports on research involving American College of Education students in relation to their impressions of, reactions to, and engagement with democracy. Four themes are explored: the conceptualization of democracy; the democratic educational experience of teachers; the concern about teaching controversial issues; and the understanding of,…

The Dream Project, which started in 2004, pairs students at the University of Washington with first-generation and low-income students in six Seattle high schools. The program teaches undergraduates at the university about higher-education policy at the same time that they help disadvantaged high-school students apply to college. The college…