The "International Society for the Social Studies (ISSS) Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. The following papers are included in the 2016 proceedings: (1) The Emergence of Social Studies in Trinidad and Tobago (Leela Ramsook); (2) Opinions of…

There has been a lot of crises in Nigerian politics and Administration--a crisis of confidence in our elected officials, a lost of faith in our democratic government and an increasing frustration at government, and more also, an increasing frustration at the irrelevance of individual's vote in our political process. All these crises are crises…

It has become a familiar sight for education policy mavens this election season: panel discussions, in Washington and elsewhere, hashing out the presumptive presidential nominees' differences on performance pay for teachers, private school vouchers, and other reliable topics of debate. But the candidates themselves have not appeared at these…

John McCain's announcement in late August that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska would be his running mate got the attention of the news media, to say the least. The public heard more than enough from pundits, politicos, and pollsters. But they heard little from another group with opinions aplenty: scholars who specialize in how the news and…

Stories of transient students missing deadlines or being misled about their voting rights are nothing new. But this year, the role younger voters played in Barack Obama's win in Iowa's Democratic presidential primary seems to have motivated a wave of college students in other states. Some of those students--and the campaigns courting them--are out…

The perfect politician, the ideal political ally to a library, is often but not always an elected official. He or she is always an effective champion of "reasonable financial support," i.e., "the amount...which a thoroughly competent librarian can spend wisely." That is what J.T. Wyer, director of the New York State Library, said in his "What the…

Four studies investigated whether political allegiance and salience of outgroup membership contribute to the phenomenon of acceptance of false, stigmatizing information (smears) about political candidates. Studies 1-3 were conducted in the month prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and together demonstrated that pre-standing opposition to…

When Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency, he seemed an unlikely candidate. Against all odds, he was able to defeat an apparently overwhelming opposition by relating to the electorate in a more horizontal, collaborative manner. What Obama did differently was to empower the new, digitally active, younger political class by involving…

In the latest sign of the growing national prominence of community colleges, President Obama has named the chancellor of a two-year-college district to the government's top postsecondary-education position. The nominee for under secretary of education, Martha J. Kanter, is head of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, in Silicon Valley.…

Federal law had long prohibited corporations and unions from using general treasury funds to make either direct contributions to candidates or independent expenditures that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. It didn't matter where the ads appeared--print, online, or TV. The rationale for these restrictions was plain:…

For Daniel J. Kaniewski, the magic formula needed to redirect his career path from anonymous academic researcher to presidential policy adviser was only 719 words long. A single newspaper column that he wrote in April 2005 succinctly criticized the Department of Homeland Security's disaster-preparation plans. A few months later, a White House…

Barack Obama's ascension to the highest elected office in America's land is surely a milestone in the American narrative. The events of Nov. 4, 2008, and Jan. 20, 2009, are marks of America's collective progress. In the course of the long campaign season, however, there is another date that also should be etched into American textbooks: March 18,…

Purpose: In the 2008 presidential election, a majority of older persons voted for John McCain, the loser. The purposes of this report are to help illuminate why older voters were the only age-group that gave a majority to McCain and to delineate some ongoing issues in the analysis of older persons' voting behavior. Methods: Analysis was undertaken…

Melissa P. Deputy, a 49-year-old mother of five and a community-college student, has long harbored desires to run for public office. Deputy decided to nurture her dreams of entering politics by attending a five-day program at Rutgers University earlier this month intended to encourage undergraduate women to run for elected office. Rutgers has held…

In this article, the author shares his thoughts when he saw the controversial "New Yorker" cover of July 21, 2008 showing the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, as a Muslim jihadist and his wife, Michelle, as a gun-toting, Afro-wearing black militant. The cover told the story of a rite of African-American passage that occurred at a…