This study aims to find a link between strong civic norms at school and engagement in the political process. Although adolescent civic engagement has been a topic of concern for many years, it has not been put to a careful empirical test, in part because few surveys of students contain detailed contextual information about their school community…

Almost all shapes of adolescent risky and deviant behaviour take place in the context of peer-relations. The present study examined the role of parents and peer-relations with respect to two indicators of deviant political development. In the fall 1998, directly after the German parliamentary elections, 1309 East German adolescents were asked…

In this article, the author details how she and another teacher developed a multicultural Wisconsin history curriculum for a fourth-grade classroom. Their focus in this article is a description of the main ideas students learned and the instructional strategies that supported their learning from the three-week unit on Wisconsin government. They…

Many early childhood educators feel they must implement programs that conflict with their understanding of best practice. Some teachers are saddened and some even decide to leave schools in which administrators are not open to dialogue, challenge, and reflection. But there is hope in taking action. This article is about action and activism because…

This Winter 2006 issue of "Learners in Action" contains the following articles: (1) Premiers Honour Adult Learners; (2) Learning Difficulties?; (3) Awards; (4) Hats off to Jacques Demers!; (5) What Do You Think?; (6) Meet the Current Learners Advisory Network; and (7) "Learning Edge" is No Ordinary Magazine!.

Technology, and the Internet in particular, is bringing constant change to American society, including the potential to enhance democracy by fostering participation in the electoral process. Because of the wealth of information available on candidates, issues, and policies, the Internet may foster citizens' ability to cast a more informed vote. As…

This paper describes an election simulation developed at Rutgers University (New Jersey) using Multimedia Toolbook. Toolbook has features which enable an information flow to be presented which mimics the flow of a campaign, using both text and video. Subjects are presented with textual information that flows across the screen, representing the…

This paper reviews the experiments done over the past 20 years with Televote, a generic term referring to voting by telecommunications (telephone, computers, etc.) As a method of public opinion polling, it is highly innovative and responsive to many of the criticisms often levied against public opinion research. The researcher describes work at…

This study identifies successful election strategies employed by community colleges in bond issues or tax levy increase elections, and distills these strategies into a list of principles or rules that can be utilized by colleges in preparing for such an event. Results of case studies conducted at Maricopa (Arizona), Santa Monica (California), and…

A 10-month investigation by the City of New York Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District found widespread corruption and mishandling of the 1993 Community School Board election. School board elections are at the heart of school decentralization, and should enable local communities to exercise control over their…

This study explores the relationships between the percentage of successful property tax issues and community and school characteristics in rural school districts in Ohio. Data were obtained for 74 rural school districts between 1984 and 1988; sources were government statistics and a questionnaire survey of school principals. The dependent variable…

Intermediate grade teachers are provided with 14 presidential election learning activities which introduce students to the different stages of the campaign process, past presidents, and the two-party system. Students participate in a presidential facts game, an election vocabulary game, a word search, and a matching game; create campaign slogans…

Working from the basic assumption that the primary motivation for those involved in school governance is self-interest, this paper develops and discusses 15 hypotheses that form the essential elements of an economic theory of school governance. The paper opens with a review of previous theories of governance and their origins in social science…

The public reaction to the proposal that the Australian government should reintroduce fees for tertiary education was surveyed in 1985. The influence of the proposal on the way people would vote in a federal election was also investigated. The fee would be between $900 and $1,500 per year for full-time tertiary education. As part of a McNair…

A survey instrument containing 46 socioeconomic and attitudinal items was administered to a sample of 452 registered voters in the Columbia (Missouri) School District. Three past financial elections and two hypothetical future financial elections were chosen in order to describe and analyze the relationships between socioeconomic and attitudinal…