As state capitals and city halls influence our daily lives, how can students become active participants in the affairs of their communities (Saffell and Basehart 2009)? For students to explore this question and local policy making in general, I developed a city council simulation for a state and local government course. This article describes the…

On 6 February 2008, a deliberative theatre experiment was held at the "National Archives of Quebec". Inspired by the democratic virtues of public deliberation but preoccupied with its blind spots, Forum Theatre was used as a deliberative medium to initiate discussion about the social tensions between the homeless and other dwellers of…

Local control of schooling has been considered a defining feature of the American school system; however, in the past several decades of public schooling has also increasingly been subject to the influence of extralocal institutional mandates that encourage curricular and organizational standardization. We conducted a content analysis of 480…

This paper highlights critical pedagogical methods used in a community relations class that introduces intercultural education concepts to current K-12 educators who are enrolled in a Masters of Education program at Northeastern Illinois University, which is located in the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA. The purpose of the class is to teach future…

The extent of between-school segregation, or clustering of disadvantaged students within schools, in England varies depending on the indicator of interest. For example, the trend over time for segregation by student poverty differs from those for ethnicity or special educational need. Additionally the causes of the level of segregation for any…

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a period of change in higher-education systems across the former Eastern bloc. Reform-minded leaders in the region sought to introduce western models and policies promoted by foreign development aid agendas. Private higher-education institutions emerged. This qualitative multiple case study examines…

This essay examines the relationship between research and policy and, more specifically, how researchers might relate to policy work. Given the current international policy focus on climate change, green growth and sustainability in general, it argues for strengthening and widening policy research in the areas of Environmental Education (EE),…

Encouraging members of the public to get engaged in local decision-making is a key role of Extension educators. The study reported here explores whether local context influences which individuals choose to attend public meetings about the community and the environment. The study surveyed meeting attendees and non-meeting attendees in three…

Drawing on task-based and intercultural teaching approaches, this article presents an ESL classroom project at two different university settings in which students investigate aspects of their local communities through the use of ethnographic and observational research techniques. For related reasons, the instructors at each university developed…

Historically power to govern public schools has been delegated to local school boards. However, this arrangement of power has been shifting over the past half century and increasingly, local school boards are targeted as ineffective and antiquated. Teach For America (TFA), typically examined for its placement of teachers, also seeks to develop…

This paper examines the impact of the International Standard School (ISS) on the identity of Indonesia as a postcolonial nation. According to the Indonesian Ministry of National Education, an ISS is "a school which complies with the National Standard of Education and enriches its standards from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and…

This article summarizes various applications of oral history interviews at local sites to represent the writing of underrepresented groups. The coauthors (a rhetorician and an archivist) discuss the important disciplinary implications for tending to the local, especially at sites where formal archives are hard to come by, offering three principles…

Through the lens of place-based climate change communication, this manuscript compares results from internal and external assessments of capacity to communicate about climate change at national parks and refuges in southern Florida. The internal survey sample included agency staff, stakeholders, community partners, and concessionaires; the…

This article examines the emergence of the public university in Kenya as a key provider of private higher education, characterised mainly by the phenomenon of the "private public university student." It probes the broader socio-economic reforms circumscribing the privatisation of Kenya's public universities and the local and global…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) requires learner-centred and interactive teaching strategies such as critical thinking, participatory decision-making, value-based learning, and multi-method approaches, all of which to some degree contrast traditional lecture-based teaching practices. As there is very little evidence providing…