The film "Moana" creates a universe that is at once imaginative and familiar in that it is a fanciful depiction of real-world issues related to the environment. This sets the stage for an engaging series of activities with important content implications integrating environmental issues into elementary social studies. "Moana" is…

In 2019, Artist Inc. and the Kinnari Ecological Theatre Project presented "Snow White and the Apple's Revenge" at the Likhandula Festival in Los Baños, the Philippines. Adapting the original Grimm version of the fairytale to challenge the validity of GM crops, it was presented in the town where the International Rice Research Institute…

In this article, the author asks the question: what are the real implications of living in a Trump America? He thinks as it relates to public education, people see this as a call to really stand up, and say, "Our schools will be safe places. Our schools will be sanctuaries. We will have good public schools in our communities, and we will…

This study present findings related to students' community and political engagement and activism after participation in an action civics institute. The institute, iEngage, is a weeklong summer experience for rising fifth through rising ninth graders that utilizes the action civics inquiry cycle to foster civic skills and cultivate participation…

In recent years, Teach for America (TFA) has invested in developing corps members as leaders. Although TFA asks corps members for a two-year commitment, TFA celebrates the achievements of alumni who have gone on to careers in politics, public policy, and advocacy. Thus, many community leaders see the arrival of TFA corps members as having a…

This article describes how one local teachers' union branch has developed an active and imaginative campaign as it has challenged both national education policy and also the very specific attacks on schools in the community. By connecting local and national issues, and by linking struggles on pay and pensions to wider questions of policy, the…

Montclair Cares About Schools (MCAS) is a citizen-activist group in Montclair, New Jersey, that used Facebook, emails, and online petitions to inform and organize citizens on local educational policy issues. Emerging in response to a new superintendent's plans to reshape Montclair schools with new teacher evaluations, administrative hires, and…

In the fall of 2013, a parents' group formed to protest the new Common Core based mathematics textbook recently adopted by their school district. Quickly allying with teachers, the new coalition began to, "hammer," the district to drop the Common Core and return to more traditional texts and pedagogies. They did so by speaking at…

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…

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of a New York City-based third-sector organization focused on what it calls "food justice." This study concentrates on how this organization, that I call Food Rights, has built a broad multi-sector network made up of a varied set of constituents and collaborators aiming to develop and promote an…

This article builds upon the literature examining the relationship of contemporary youth with politics and youth civic participation through a study exploring youth citizenship in post-socialist Ukraine. Specifically, drawing upon qualitative research undertaken during 2005-2006 with young people (aged 15-18) from two contrasting regions in East…

This essay--a combination of authorial narrative and scholarly critique--examines a grassroots organization's (Friends of Historic Northport) campaign to preserve a site in west Alabama where a pivotal Choctaw-Upper Creek battle took place in 1785. The organization has faced opposition from city planners and business leaders intent on developing…

In American popular culture, the word "rural" invokes images of sunny farms and little red school-houses--while "urban" means drugs, poverty, and crime. But rural schools face many of the same challenges as their urban counterparts. The problems of rural schools are often invisible to the public and policy makers. The solutions…

Contemporary rural social movements bring diverse interest groups and stakeholders together at the local scale in the pursuit of common visions and goals, often against the backdrop of an external threat. The challenge for a movement's leaders is to negotiate and design a rural agenda that resonates with this complex constituency. One way to…

Reflecting on the 140th anniversary of the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified July, 1868), this qualitative case study described a response by educator-activist Tony Stewart to the Aryan Nations, a neo-Nazi hate group that attempted to intimidate Stewart's community, Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, between 1972-2000. Stewart galvanized community response using…