Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policymaking in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In…

Education in the United States has a foundational public purpose: to prepare students for effective citizenship. The idea that an educated and engaged citizenry is essential to the health of a democracy motivated the creation of government-run "common schools" in the early decades of the nation and remains an important value in modern…

The changing societal context in South Africa (SA) has necessitated curriculum reform to deal with the challenges of education, from apartheid to democracy, with the aim of promoting active citizenship education. The aim of the paper is thus to illuminate to what extent the Grade 11 Life Orientation (LO) curriculum prepares learners for active…

The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the extended use of student-designed games. 207 students (grades: eight, nine, eleven) from one school participated. They were randomly divided in Experimental (student-designed games) and Equivalent group (traditional instruction). Both experienced the same learning units (two, 12 sessions) over the…

Background: Citizenship, nationalism, human rights and democracy are four terms and concepts that are inextricably linked. In Kuwait, the status of citizen is based on nationality, gender and age, with women, children, naturalised citizens, expatriates and "bidoon" (stateless people) denied many freedoms, rights and services. Citizenship…

In this study, we examine how transformative leadership enables students from a low-income and multicultural neighbourhood to learn about democracy, responsible citizenship, and community engagement at school. As part of a graduate seminar on critical pedagogy and cultural studies in education, in-depth group interviews were conducted with…

Civic studies in Israel and elsewhere are unlike any other school subject. This course of study has a higher purpose--to transform students into good citizens. In contrast to other core subjects, civics, in essence, strives to realize ethical goals. While other subjects perceive the instilling of values as a secondary outcome, in civics the…

In post-conflict, emerging democracies, service learning has great potential to promote intercultural understanding if projects encourage students to see each other as individuals rather than as members of marginalized groups. This paper evaluates a service learning project in a Serbian secondary school and suggests ways in which service learning…

Schools in the late sixties and early seventies had many options and were engaged in implementing a variety of programs rooted in the social science disciplines with effective pedagogy drawn from social studies educators. With the implementation of the "No Child Left Behind" Act, one can observe the drastic changes made in the way social…

I argue that parent participation in SGBs is an important ingredient in building democracy in the schooling system, as well as in the wider society of South Africa. At some schools in South Africa, parents are not yet playing their full role as governors mandated by legislation. Parents at some rural schools are reluctant to participate in the…

The open-ended responses of 701 7th to 12th graders to the question "What does democracy mean to you?" were analyzed. In logistic regressions, age, parental education, political discussions, and participation in extracurricular activities distinguished youth who could define democracy (53%) from those who could not. Case clustering revealed three…

Biography has a proven track record of exciting interest in historical events. Barbara Tuchman used it extensively in her best-selling histories, considering it a "vehicle to carry the larger subject," something that "encompasses the universal in a particular... representative." Others favor biography because it "humanizes history," "personalizes…

Because the national education agenda is focused on standards, testing, and accountability, schools are at risk of narrowly defining their mission as improving test scores. In this environment, it is easy to forget that public education serves a larger civic mission. Preserving and promoting a democratic society was the founding precept of the…

Teachers often desire meaningful classroom discussions, but frequently shy away from introducing controversial topics. An instructional activity "Where Do You Stand?" was developed and used regularly with the goal of engaging students in discussion around politicized and divisive issues. Over 3 years of use in a secondary social studies…

This article shows the process through which one teacher and a group of eleventh-graders worked to create spaces for democratic education in a hierarchically organized New York City public school that is heralded as a model of success under current reform initiatives. In response to student resistance to a required unit on Tim O'Brien's novel, The…