Teachers are often apprehensive about facilitating deliberation in classrooms because conflicts can develop when deliberations surround issues of authentic concern to students. However, conflict is central to deliberation, and the identities and experiences of participants must be reflected in deliberation. These differences challenge the…

Inclusion is a fundamental aspect of social studies education in general and democratic education in particular. Inclusion is especially important when we consider the possibilities for transnational civic culture and education. The theoretical framework of this study is based upon concepts of positionality, identity, and belonging as they are…

Social networks and communities are rapidly expanding and changing due to the accelerating pace of globalization. In this article, we examine new possibilities for the reform of curriculum and educational research in a way that is responsive to increasingly multicultural and global communities. Drawing on literatures in the areas of multicultural,…

The authors, one from China and one from the United States, present a theoretical framework for understanding the discursive fields of citizenship education as composed, in large part, of the discourses of nationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism. The framework is illustrated by examples from citizenship education in China and the United…

Although student deliberation of public issues is recognized as a vital component of democratic education, little research focuses on the range of perspectives available to students during such deliberation. Social justice and legitimacy demand a wide range of inclusion, choices, and perspectives during student deliberation. This article contrasts…

This article examines a case of curriculum conflict in order to understand how the social studies curriculum is changed by such conflicts. In the case, a small group of activists challenged a local sixth grade history curriculum, which claimed that the WWII internment of Japanese Americans was a mistake. Activists claimed that the internment was…

Countries around the globe are responding to the pressures of globalisation, standardisation, accountability and market rationality. In curriculum reform, we theorise these pressures as neoliberal cosmopolitanism because they are intended to promote a new type of entrepreneurial citizen that navigates an increasingly interconnected global…

The representation of a variety of stakeholders' voices during the deliberation of public issues is vital for the proper functioning of a liberal democracy. This qualitative study examined an activity involving deliberation among children and preservice teachers in the United States. In the activity that we call partner journals, children were…

Under conditions of globalisation, the discourse of cosmopolitanism adds a new dimension to analysis of curriculum reform. We examine the meanings and contentions of curriculum as a regulatory function in rapidly changing, global communities. We examine cosmopolitanism and curriculum through the lenses of two cosmopolitan discourses, neoliberal…

Frame analysis was used to examine how competing stakeholders framed a sixth grade curriculum controversy over whether the WWII internment of Japanese Americans should be categorized as a controversial issue. Teachers and administrators in a northwestern U.S. school claimed that the internment was clearly wrong and not controversial, but these…

We report a qualitative case study of interpretive activity inside the current wave of the "international education" movement in U.S. schools. We used a sociological framework to examine how competing interpretations are mobilized in relation to one another and to the urgent discourses of Globalization and Terror. Data were gathered in interviews…

Numerous theorists have identified a need for students to learn to solve global concerns in an increasingly interconnected world. The issue of immigration policy is one such concern. This study analyzed the texts of two programs teaching deliberation and U.S. immigration policy. The purpose of the study was to analyze instructional materials that…