Contends that United States has fragmented health care system that was put together like collage and that produces gaps in coverage, prohibitively rising costs, and endless paperwork. Discusses competitive insurance system, physician reimbursement, and hospital competition as three qualities of the collage that are at the heart of the problem. (NB)

Following Argentina's economic collapse of December 2001, the authors examine the engagement of university faculty and students in various grassroots movements. Based on a qualitative study involving 24 formal structured interviews, 18 informal interviews, observation-based field work, and document analysis, the authors identify key forms of…

This article reviews the research literature on political impacts linked to adult literacy. Despite the enormous importance of literacy, few studies exist on their interconnection. The majority of quantitative studies indicate higher levels of political participation by former adult literacy program participants compared to their non-participant…

High school teacher Julie Gorlewski considers the complexities of multicultural education and the challenges of realizing its potential as a social movement. She explains how students became "powerful users of language" by writing to the editors of their literature anthology to question what appeared to be censorship through alterations to text…

In this review essay, Jan Nespor uses three recent contributions to place-based education, Paul Theobald's "Teaching the Commons," C.A. Bowers's "Revitalizing the Commons," and David Gruenewald and Gregory Smith's edited volume "Place-Based Education in the Global Age," to examine some fundamental conceptual and practical issues in the area. One…

Educationalization is a term most frequently used to indicate that government (in particular) has inappropriately imposed on educational institutions responsibility for providing the solution to some social or economic problem. In this essay David Bridges illustrates, however, the way in which educational institutions collude in this process,…

In the first decade of the 21st century, efforts to create alternatives to neoliberalism emerged in many parts of Latin America. Social movements across the region took to the streets, occupied abandoned factories, and started to create new democratic spaces, solidarity networks, and social economy initiatives. In one country after another,…

The recent publication of David Heise's "Expressive Order" (2007) provides an occasion for discussing some of the key ideas in Affect Control Theory. The theory proposes that a few dimensions of affective meaning provide a common basis for interrelating personal identities and social actions. It holds that during interpersonal interactions, social…

This article explores a third-grade teacher's use of critical writing pedagogy to encourage students' exploration of issues that were important in their lives from personal as well as social perspectives. She used a particular version of critical writing pedagogy--social narrative writing--in which students read and discussed children's literature…

In what way do movements move? What do we mean by the movement of movements? While still a rather unconventional stance, I advance the argument that social movements are, at root, culture production agents. Regardless of whatever else they may accomplish, movements produce new cultural forms in the course of struggle; they often change and augment…

The report summarizes efforts of the Institute for Nonviolent Social Change toward the planning and design of nonviolent activities and programs capable of bringing about social change as discussed at a conference held in Atlanta, June 11th and 12th, 1971. To bring about a synthesis of various viewpoints and ideas this meeting was attended by not…

Considers factors in the environmental crisis, and the social resources available for its solution. Suggest public pressure is a necessary beginning action. The space program and the civil rights movement can serve as working models for solving the environmental crisis. (AL)

Advocates the necessity of considering the body when attempting to understand the effects of many forms of public argument, especially social protest rhetoric. Makes evident that both the meaning and force of the arguments presented by Earth First, Act Up, and Queer Nation is dependent on the deployment of their bodies. (SC)

Scholars interested in the lives of children and in the social contours of childhood have remained largely inattentive to the consumer popular culture in which these lives are embedded and out of which particular versions of childhood have arisen. Consumption, and its kindred areas of media and popular culture, are arenas of social action and…

"Choosing to Participate" focuses on civic choices--the decisions people make about themselves and others in their community, nation, and world. The choices people make, both large and small, may not seem important at the time, but little by little they shape them as individuals and responsible global citizens. "Choosing to…