Profiles Active Citizenship Today (ACT), a social studies service learning program for middle and high school students. In ACT, students explore their community, identify problems, examine public policy, explore their options, and take action. Includes unit excerpts from the ACT teacher's handbook. (MJP)

Briefly describes a service-learning grant program and provides examples of elementary, middle, and high school projects awarded grants in 1996. Projects included efforts to educate the community about river pollution, multicultural murals, and a school activities news show. Includes application form and general guidelines and suggestions. (MJP)

Provides a brief overview for including labor history in the social studies curriculum. Notes the broad range of subjects (geography, history, economics, music, and art) and approaches (women's history, social history, oral history) that encompass labor history. (MJP)

Provides a fascinating look at the ideological and cultural schisms that developed between the communist party and local trade unions in Schenectady, New York. By the 1950s trade unions had become more conservative while the communist party championed the rights of women and blacks. This split debilitated the communist party. (MJP)

Advocates including school-age children in community service programs as a way to give back to the community, build confidence, create a sense of power to make a difference, organize, solve problems, develop strategies, make decisions, and gain personal gratification. Includes guidelines for planning and ideas for community service projects. (SD)

Discusses the shift in thinking among the current generation of young Canadian Indians. Political attitudes have moved from an accommodating stance (Kiyam) to a more committed and confrontational position (Semac). Briefly addresses why some Indians prefer to stay on reservations. (MJP)

Argues that too often liturgy and religious education posit an idyllic notion of the reign of God and fail to address the injustice, oppression, and violence endemic to much of modern life. This amounts to a dichotomy between the sacred and the secular. Proposes several corrective measures. (MJP)

Articulates a challenge for today's arts and science faculties to help prepare teacher candidates who are predominantly white and female to work in schools with increasingly diverse populations. Argues for a more culturally responsive curriculum and modeling culturally responsive teaching. (MJP)

This article discusses the importance of early intervention advocacy and provides vignettes that illustrate sample early intervention advocacy issues from the perspectives of parents, teachers, and program administrators. Quick tips are provided for professionals as self-advocates and for family advocacy, along with legislative Web site resources.…

A Black woman who came of age in the 1960s discusses her distrust of educational institutions, including Black institutions. She claims that they avoided issues of race, and it wasn't until the call of Black Power that an era of pluralism was initiated. Black feminist scholars are seen to have been undermined. (MLW)

Describes the development and content of teacher guides from The Giraffe Project, a social values and community service program. States that the teacher guides are available for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12. Maintains that the materials would be appropriate for schools integrating a service component into the curriculum. (CFR)

Discusses projects used by some teachers, texts, and other instructional materials for teaching the responsibility and participatory aspects of citizenship. Suggests that texts currently in use neglect teaching the protection of rights. Argues that corporations do more educating than schools through their commercials. Questions how some teachers…

The fall 1987 Chicago (Illinois) teachers' strike, documentation of the systems' problems, a movement to return local control, a history of organizing, the fall 1986 Education Summit, and skepticism about the board's ability to engineer change led to the school system's restructuring through the Chicago Public Schools Reform Act. (JB)

Uses social exchange theory as a conceptual framework for developing the sociological imagination. Explains this counters a trend toward an emphasis on social forces as behavioral determinants and the omission of values in the classroom. States exchange theory emphasizes how individual action collectively changes the social structure. Applies…

Examines the school choice movement in the United States, which advocates claim will make schools more efficient by allowing parents to select the best schools for their children. Argues that the school choice movement is a surreptitious plan to gradually put the functions of public education in private hands, with public funds going to support…