The need to increase students interested in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is growing. The current study delivers results of an Upward Bound program focused on advancing students' interest toward STEM fields and careers. Project STEMulate, funded by the National Science Foundation's ITEST program, used…

Equity has often been identified as a foundational concept for truly inclusive and reciprocal partnerships among schools, families, and communities. Equity can be difficult for schools to achieve without cultivating new paradigms for interacting with historically marginalized students, families, and communities. In order to bridge the ideal of…

The focus of this article is on understanding Early Intervention as a discourse; how it is generated and reproduced and how it makes possible certain processes and practices and limits others. In particular the research study considers the dominant discourse of neuroscience associated with the notion of early childhood and how this is translated…

As the interconnectedness of the world grows, the need to prepare college students capable of addressing complexity likewise grows. In this context, the University of Dayton has developed and tested a transdisciplinary model for education. This model links multiple classes from different disciplines via a common theme and within a common space. It…

Indonesia consists of a variety of tribes, religions, races, and groups that exist on islands that spread from Sabang to Merauke. The wealth of ethnic diversity in Indonesia should be an advantage to unite the nation, but the reality in the field of cultural gatherings raises new conflicts, based on increasing social conflict in the community. In…

This study is aimed at exploring how teachers make curricular-instructional decisions regarding teaching contemporary controversial public issues in Taiwan (e.g., national identity, sovereignty, and ethnic issues). Using a case study design, this study documents how six social studies teachers make curricular decisions about whether to teach…

Although the Toulmin model (1958) has dominated argumentation research, it does not provide many tools for evaluating argument quality. Towards that end, we draw on work in philosophy on argument schemes, and critical questions for evaluating those schemes. In our approach, we integrate the teaching of critical questions with argumentation vee…

This paper examines classroom discourse from English lessons that implemented a critical literacy unit focused on a contextualised social issue. Utilising the theoretical notion of frame, the analysis of classroom excerpts highlights how ideologies about English teaching and learning at times enter the discourse of the classes, not only overtly…

As social issues increase, so does the scope of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Companies are expanding their CSR activities and making the terminology used to describe them more specific. This study compares website content of "Fortune" 500 companies in 2015 with content collected in 2011. Traditionally, two CSR issues have been…

The Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative aims to focus the profession's attention on how social work can play a larger role in mitigating contemporary social problems. Yet a central issue facing contemporary social work is its seeming reticence to engage with social problems, and their solutions, beyond individual-level interventions.…

In this paper I focus on the problems that face (teacher) education policy and practice in meeting the challenge of 'persistent and entrenched locational disadvantage' in marginal communities. In "Dropping off the Edge 2015," Tony Vinson and colleagues (2015) clearly demonstrate that complex and entrenched disadvantage has continued to…

This paper examines the idea of using advertising to facilitate difficult conversations about diversity, politics, race and gender in the classroom. In our current tense political climate, I explore how cultural competence can be developed in the classroom by introducing topics related to diversity through the viewing of Super Bowl 2017…

How can schools teach the skills required for a strong democracy to flourish? "What Kind of Citizen?" asks readers to imagine the kind of society they would like to live in--and then shows the ways in which schools can be used to make that vision a reality. Westheimer draws on groundbreaking research on school programs and policies to…

This paper contributes to an understanding of the processes by which organisational actors learn how to affect positive and sustainable social change in their local region through action learning, action research and appreciative inquiry. The paper is based on a critically reflective account of key findings from an ongoing action research project,…

Over the past three decades, Russia has undergone profound socio-economic reforms, often initiated not by the population itself, but by the authorities. However, it is the population, its mass consciousness that has become the main object of deep transformations, expressed not only in a change of lifestyle, but also in the value orientations.…