This article deals with central issues in the field of sociology and politics of education after the publication of the outcomes of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study for Germany. These outcomes serve to remind us of the old debate on politics of education in the 1960s. The main topic since then remains the reproduction…

This article addresses the issues of how cultural historical theory of activity can help design democratic teacher education classrooms aimed at developmental learning and dialogical, humanitarian thinking of students and prospective teachers. On the basis of retrospective analysis, the author begins by summarizing activity-based approaches to…

This article presents the Cyprus results, and proposes a model of home environment and school climate on the social participation of ninth graders based on the IEA 1999 CIVIC education study data. This study examined ninth graders' participation in social actions by means of a questionnaire; the data were analyzed using structural equation…

For emerging democracies civic education issues have special meaning. Often these issues play a vital role in the process of nation building and democratic consolidation, which makes the interplay between the school system and the socio-political environment particularly important. Estonia, which inherited from the half-century Soviet occupation a…

This article examines the historic character and mission of the REA with a view toward the role of this journal in the life of the Association. Early social influences are explored in relation to the Association's unfolding vision of "a democracy of God" in which religion would be a central enterprise of an educated citizenry. George Albert Coe,…

Organizing a classroom around principles of democracy is not new to American education. The principles that provide a background for this type of organization are found in classical Greek thought and more recently in the American colonial period (Smith 1984). This article discusses three principles of democracy: (1) liberty and freedom; (2)…

A central aspect of education has always been the passing on of norms and values. This task is not fulfilled if pupils only learn the meaning of established norms and values. It is also about making pupils believe in them and to act according to them. Thus, teaching is also a kind of political socialization. The values taught change historically…

In this article, I discuss a Canadian public school controversy and Supreme Court of Canada decision involving competing stakeholder rights to freedom of religion, safety and equality. Policy considerations that allowed one group of stakeholders to express their constitutional rights raised concerns among other stakeholders. A policy vacuum and a…

Describes Palestinian teachers' and students' emotional and cognitive conflicts when introduced to a problem- and case-based approach to democracy education. Observation and case study data indicated that participants sometimes held initial beliefs about democracy, student-teacher interactions, and appropriate classroom behaviors reflecting an…

It's tough to teach social studies and history to students who have trouble reading and understanding textbooks and other resources. But you can overcome those obstacles and motivate students to excel in social studies classes by using the concepts and research-based techniques in this guide. Renowned reading expert Donna Ogle teams up with two…

This article describes a participatory action research project undertaken as a partnership between student, teacher and nurse co-researchers at a Canadian alternative high school. A key purpose of this research was to explore and interpret the meaning of this partnership for mental health promoting nursing practices with adolescents. Following a…

Research literature on students as researchers demonstrates a spectrum of constructive ways in which students are being actively engaged in school and classroom action inquiries. Any identified tensions lie in the degree to which students themselves are genuinely engaged as action researchers. Increasingly, externally driven agendas for change and…

The power of civic education to elicit positive student outcomes has been empirically documented. However, the field is only now beginning to understand the causal processes that bring about these positive changes in young people. "The Civic Mission of Schools" report commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE (2003) lays out…

Various traditions within developmental science and psychology have concentrated on either personal or collective correlates as manifestations of well-being. The authors' claim is that the well-being of any one person is highly dependent on the well-being of her relationships and on the community in which she resides. Well-being may be defined as…

Many studies have reported gaps between Latino and non-Latino adolescents in academic and political outcomes. The current study presents possible explanations for such gaps, both at the individual and school level. Hierarchical linear modeling is employed to examine data from 2,811 American ninth graders (approximately 14 years of age) who had…