In this study, we argue that in order to understand the underlying causes of inequities in education, we need to look outside specific educational settings to the larger social, historical and political structures behind those inequities. Therefore, in this work we take a social justice perspective to look at the relationship between environmental…

Winthrop Middle School's cafeteria had three paintings on the wall in which the paint was fading and the plaster was falling off. Many students wanted a change since the paintings had been there for over 15 years. This situation seemed appropriate for a service learning project for this Winthrop, Maine middle school. After the students reviewed…

Cocurricular events are capable of providing rich learning opportunities for students. However, as the film and speaker sequence described in this article demonstrates, all too often they fail to reach their potential. In order to teach lessons and enhance skills related to civic responsibility, these events must be designed with a purposeful…

Ultimately, sustainability "must take root in the consciousness and cultures of society" to become an effective means of creating widespread change. Indeed, the participants at the 1997 UNESCO Conference on Environment and Society: Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability recognised "that radical social change must occur…

Internships and similar applied opportunities have long been valued for providing students with opportunities for practical experience, career preparation, and personal growth. The need for applied experiences in gerontology and geriatrics is particularly salient. Creating and sustaining effective internship experiences, however, requires careful…

Community is important to many institutions of higher learning, but it is very difficult to imagine Berea College disconnected from its primary community--the Appalachian region. Since its mid-nineteenth-century beginning as a radical experiment in interracial education and coeducation centered in community, the college has been dedicated to…

While service-learning has distinguished itself in the literature as a problem-based experiential alternative to dominant classroom-based, subject-centered pedagogies, there is a strange absence of research based on program planning theory. This work introduces program planning theory to the field of service-learning and reports findings from a…

This paper explores the ways one school continues to enhance both literacy and service-learning through the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. Over the course of their middle-school years, young adolescents at Canterbury School visit a range of sites in the community. They also explore service-learning at home and around the world by…

This article describes a travel course to New Orleans that allows students the opportunity to study a unique culture in the United States. Students in the course are able to study how the culture developed through its immigration patterns, its food, its architecture, and the development of jazz. Since the flooding following Hurricane Katrina, a…

In response to the increasing diversity in American public schools and concerns over inequities in opportunity and achievement, many teacher education programs are infusing multicultural topics and coursework into their programs (Akiba, 2011; Hollins & Guzman, 2005). While some programs utilize what O'Grady (2000) called the Human Relations…

Following observations and interviews with transnational children that have one or more years of school in the United States and are now in school in Mexico, it was determined that the Mexican public school system has no mechanism in place to offer them the support they need. Therefore, I collaborated with Mexican university students to seek…

Pre-service elementary education teachers conducted family nights with children and families considered "high need". The family nights were designed to help build preservice teachers' sense of self-efficacy regarding parent involvement and working with low-income children and families with limited English proficiency. The project…

The purpose of every university is to contribute to the public good by educating socially responsible, civically minded, engaged citizens. In the context of a developing country such as Mexico, with multiple challenges of social, political and economic order, the role of universities in preparing future leaders and civically engaged citizens is…

Given the perils of today's dynamic and resource-constrained environment, intellectual capital has become a source of competitive advantage for public sector organizations. Composed of three elements--organizational knowledge, innovative capability, and organizational commitment--intellectual capital is an asset that cannot simply be bought or…

Work-based learning (WBL), an important part of the 1990s "School to Work" movement, is a core component of the Linked Learning strategy which is now shaping efforts to improve secondary education in California and around the nation in cities such as Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia. WBL can include not only classic internships and…