Some political philosophers have recently argued that providing K-12 students with an adequate education suffices for social justice in education provided that the threshold of educational adequacy is properly understood. Others have argued that adequacy is insufficient for social justice. In this article I side with the latter group. I extend…

This article presents a moral analysis of the limitations upon legitimate authority to suspend and expel students in K-12 public schools, and it brings this analysis to bear on a pair of difficult disciplinary cases. The analysis is grounded in a defense of a child's right to receive a public education. It identifies the minimum content of that…

We discuss how K-12 teachers can put motivational principles from self-determination theory into practice. To explain the "how to" of autonomy-supportive teaching, we answer eight frequently asked questions from teachers: What is the goal of autonomy-supportive teaching? How is autonomy-supportive teaching unique? Does autonomy support mean…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an initiative that dates back to the early 1990s. Whilst policy statements at this time referred to ESD as a bringing together of environmental and development education, in the UK, as in most other industrialized countries, it has been the environmental agenda that has tended to dominate. In the UK,…

In this article the authors interrogate the historical meaning of the African American soldier in order to widen the discussion of race and citizenship in the field of social studies education. The article has two overarching purposes. First, the authors attend to the recent call in the field of social studies for a more rigorous analysis of…

This study is a mixed-methods text analysis of African American representation within K-12 U.S. History content standards treating the revolutionary era, the early U.S. republic, the Civil War era, and Reconstruction. The states included in the analysis are Michigan, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia. The analysis finds that the reviewed…

This article is an attempt to make an empirical contribution to a more grounded model of thinking about justice. It focuses on the work of one practitioner working in an inner-London local education authority with a remit relating to the achievement of "African-Caribbean" students. In describing the challenges that she faces in the course of her…

Adam Swift objects to private schools on the grounds of equal opportunity and efficiency, and to both private and selective public schools on the grounds of solidarity and improving the academic achievement of less advantaged students. I argue that private schools are not inefficient, and that a meritocratic ideal of equality of opportunity in…

School and government officials, system administrators and other policymakers offer a variety of reasons for engaging in high stakes testing: to monitor student performance, to measure teacher and/or school effectiveness, to ensure accountability, etc. Some of these reasons are good; others not. But the best reason--one that is never offered,…

This study examines the effectiveness of asynchronous communication in facilitating historical discussions among adolescents, with a specific focus on the ways in which teachers can affect this process. Threaded discussion board posts and teacher-student email correspondence from a five-week American history summer course are analyzed and…

In Fall 2000, when "Theory and Research in Social Education" (TRSE) first dedicated an issue to technologies in social studies education, Neil Postman contributed a View Point piece to this issue. Postman, who died in 2003, was an interesting choice because he was an outspoken critic of educational technology who believed that, as he said at the…

This article describes a service-learning intervention, the CivicConnections Program, as implemented by 96 teachers in 32 site-based teams in 21 states during 2004-2005. Each of the 32 teams was responsible for multiple service-based, social studies classrooms serving a total of more than 2500 students in grades 3-12. The individual…

The first Teaching American History (TAH) grants were made available to K-12 schools from the Department of Education in 2002. They provide money to school systems for three-year projects to form partnerships with area organizations with the goal of increasing the American history knowledge of teachers and students. This study focuses on the…

What teachers know about their subject-matter and how to teach it has become increasingly important as states continue to expect more rigorous learning outcomes for K-12 students--even more so when we consider that they must teach this content to an increasingly diverse student population. This article reports the findings from a four-year case…

In efforts to create "good" and "responsible" citizens, social educators have sought solutions (assimilation, acculturation, etc.) to the "problem" of racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in U.S. society (Houser & Kuzmic, 2001). The "greater good" of this neo-colonial endeavor often focuses on maintaining the privileges of the white, upper…