This article addresses issues that are related to the empowerment of elementary teachers through teaching and learning science in socially and culturally meaningful contexts. It is based on the analysis of the attitudes and relationship to science of 10 elementary school teachers from inner city schools in Caracas, Venezuela. In the context of a…

This article argues that testimonial novels are an important curricular addition in classrooms that take seriously the responsibility to educate students about social justice and civic responsibility in a global context. The addition of testimonial novels to our literature courses lets us internationalize our curriculum by including courses and…

I have taught Plato's "Republic" for several years although seminars on this text can be difficult and pose certain challenges, most especially with first year students new to university: the ancient Greeks seem a long way from the technocratic society we live in today. More importantly, the complexity of our relationship to each other as citizens…

A key aim of democratic public policy should be the provision of hope. It is often argued that a key element of hope is not only a drive for equity in the face of neo-liberal marketization, but also the opportunity for the practice of agency by (especially disadvantaged) citizens. Here we examine the relationship between democracy and hope in an…

This article combines discussions of the politics of education with personal story telling to remind us why the continuing struggle over schooling--over what is and is not taught, over how it is taught and evaluated, over how students with different characteristics are treated, over how teachers and other school employees are respectfully dealt…

Against a perspective of shame that would see it as something paralyzing, negative and destructive, I draw out a different account of the politics of shame in intercultural education. I explore the openings that are created for a productive politics of shame in the context of discussions surrounding intercultural education via tracing how…

This article discusses some of the findings of research undertaken by the authors with secondary students in the London Borough of Newham. The research was concerned with exploring young people's understanding of cultural harmony and their views on the issues and challenges in creating cultural harmony in their schools and in their lives outside…

The influx of Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands during the past 50 years and terrorist events in recent years have led to increased alienation. This case study, conducted at a culturally diverse school with a large Muslim student population, found that its administrators and "social studies" teachers agreed it is important to simultaneously…

Multicultural societies such as the UK typically claim to embrace a model of "participative", "inclusive" and "democratic" citizenship. In this article, I examine conceptions of participative citizenship, democracy and diversity and how they inter-relate in the citizenship education policymaking process in England. I illustrate that the dominant…

We analyse a teacher-to-teacher discourse (14 web-published case studies) concerning "participation as citizenship" in schools. Many different mechanisms through which pupils participate are reported (from school councils to paired-reading schemes and community links). The claimed outcomes of these activities are also varied: improving the…

This article presents a manifesto to discuss how bilingual--Hebrew-Arabic--education can work for Israel, challenging its reality and changing it. It presents the new comprehensive programme for bilingual education initiated and operated by the Jewish-Arab Centre at the University of Haifa, discussing it in the light of both theory and practice.…

We describe our research on the role of education in the social reconstruction of countries after mass conflict. Our studies focus on the voices of those least heard in the discourse--teachers, students, administrators and parents. We examine schools in four societies that experienced profound violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide during the…

The religious diversity of Singapore, coupled with the current phenomenon of Islamic revivalism, makes the management of religion a paramount concern for the Singapore government. By examining the developments of Islam in Singapore, this article explores the challenges and implications these developments have on citizenship education in the…

This article reports on a small exploratory study of adolescent girls' experiences of sexual harassment and abuse while attending secondary school in Karnataka State, South India. In South Asia, public discussion of sexual matters, especially relating to children, is largely taboo, and the study uncovers a hidden aspect of schooling, which…

"Local and global citizenship" will become a statutory component of the Revised Curriculum for Northern Ireland from September 2007. This article uses the development of this new curriculum area as a site to explore three significant stages in the process of transforming policy into practice suggested by the author: policy gestation; policy…