Suggests that by taking a realistic approach to the subject matter, social studies teachers can increase their chances of having a positive effect on students. Discuses how to make the subject matter relevant and considers the role of the mass media. (SG)

The author proposes that two curricula are present in some educational programs for retarded adults: a manifest curriculum of life skills that promotes independence and personal responsibility and a hidden curriculum of infantilizing behaviors and attitudes that promotes dependence and immaturity. He discusses how to remove the latter curriculum.…

Education in and through the arts has been overlooked by educational reformers. The classroom arts are mistakenly viewed as programmatic add-ons or pleasant diversions from the core academic basics. Instead of subjecting youngsters to mindless, text-driven drills and exercises, the arts-integrated school stimulates them to investigate many ways of…

Examines a writing conference between a tutor and a student, both feminists. Discusses the conflicts expressed by the tutor and the student as they attempt to espouse feminist values within a patriarchal system. Concludes that feminism (and good tutoring) will have a chance only if students have options and the power to choose. (RS)

Describes a self-study in which a group of part-time composition instructors examined their practices for commenting on students' papers. Concludes that their commenting pedagogies had more to do with ubiquitous political ramifications of being marginalized part-timers or temporary appointees than they would have liked to admit. (RS)

Defying "liberal" and "conservative" labels, Communitarianism is a new social movement reflected in George Bush's endorsement of family values and Bill Clinton's calls for community service. Communitarianism does not uphold the individual's rights at all costs, nor impose moral solutions. The Communitarian agenda is to…

Principals should focus curriculum development around specific questions mirroring journalistic who-what-where-why considerations. This means striving to clarify definitions, rationale and philosophy, policy origins, procedures, temporal arrangements, learning sites, and value. For example, schools have multiple curriculum philosophies that…

Celebrates life and work of British primary headteacher over past decade, using ethnographic conversational data. Stan Fast's intellectual and moral vision, his theories and practices, are set in context of recent (conservative) policy. Although his transformative "hidden curriculum" stressing three C's (caring, cooperation, compassion)…

Discusses how many recent treatments of the hidden curriculum have overlooked historical antecedents of the early progressive curriculum literature. Shows how insights derived from John Dewey and others portray the hidden curriculum more positively than some of the ideologically laden interpretations in vogue today. The hidden curriculum can…

In the process of selecting which science facts should be learned, the events that are selected become imbued with significance and their implicit messages with value. Contends that what is included and what is left out of science stories says much abut meaning-making at all levels of school science, and has implications for the way science is…

Interviews of adult literacy learners were compared with depictions of learners as consumers in textbooks. Texts focused on learners' deficits and lack of knowledge, whereas learners viewed themselves as competent, capable consumers despite limited academic skills and income. (Contains 40 references.) (SK)

Technopoly rhetoric hypes computers in classrooms without considering costs, ultimate purposes, technology's place in the curriculum, and technology's effects on learners and learning. Developed by the military and modern corporations, computers concentrate more on efficiency, speed, power, and information than on sustained inquiry and genuine…

Background: Cole and Knowles (2000) suggest that making sense of experiences and understanding personal-professional connections are the essence of professional development. These researchers posit that through personal life-history exploration, teachers make known implicit theories, values, and beliefs that underpin teaching and being a teacher.…

The paper considers the broader policy context in which English Post Compulsory Education and Training (PCET) is placed, examining the model of class implicit within policy documents and particular currents within new Labour thinking. It notes that class relations and patterns of inequality have deepened. Class as a structural feature of the…

Socialisation theories have traditionally focused on how children are socialised in a rather unidirectional manner, according to a transmission model. However, more recent research and theories show that children are not just passive recipients, but active agents in their socialisation process. At the same time, children are subordinated to adult…