This article presents a speech that Senator Barack Obama delivered in Thornton, Colorado, in May 2008, summarizing his education beliefs and proposals. One of the highlights of Obama's education proposal is fixing the broken promises of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). As President, he will work with the nation's governors and educators to create and…

Students of color, students with language differences, and students with disabilities tend to get caught up in marginalizing institutional practices that continue uninterrupted in school communities where an anemic sense of membership is informed by technical literacy rather than moral literacy. In these schools, administrators, teachers,…

In the present study, we tested the effects of specific dimensions of perceived teaching behaviors on students' self-determined motivation in physical education. In accordance with the tenets of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000), we expected the psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness would mediate these…

The Genesis Center is a community-based adult education center located in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1982 to assist immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia in their transition to life in the United States, the Genesis Center now provides adult education, job training, and child care services to people who have immigrated from all…

If a liberal arts education should prepare our students to participate in a meaningful way in democracy, what does that mean for how we design our courses across disciplines? In this paper, I first address the question: who should teach democratic skills? Using an upper-level course in Canadian politics, I then illustrate how to explicitly…

Increased academic attention has been drawn to democratisation in higher education, following the implementation of affirmative action in America. However, the models of Access policies presented by certain European educational systems deserve more attention. France and Britain share a common position on elitism, although they define it according…

Inclusive education inherently involves the inclusion of all citizens in a democratic society. Based on this view, questions emerge with respect to equality and integration in educational systems. Although inclusion should be viewed as a requirement in a democratic society, along with the integration in schools of students from different social…

Using the method of purpositive sampling, this research makes an empirical study on the relationship between the schooling for education and democratic qualities of public high school students in Beijing. The results show that the democratic qualities of the students in public high school of Beijing are better as a whole, but they are still lack…

There is a propensity, when considering the meaning(s) of citizenship, to think in terms of universality and equality rather than difference and inequity. In a North American context, citizenship often operates as a taken for granted status with the requisite rights and responsibilities associated with membership in a nation. In education, how…

In this article we explore socio-cultural theories of learning and some of the processes by which children learn democratic values. Norwegian policy and practice emphasises children's right to participation and involvement in decision-making. We discuss the importance of adults' attitudes, knowledge and ability to relate to and understand…

If you're serious about providing a level playing field for all, it is time to do more than identify and lament the reasons for educational disparities and why they persist. John Robert Browne II shows how Culturally Courageous Leadership by all school community stakeholders can help you achieve equitable learning opportunities and outcomes for…

In 1997, fifteen council meetings were observed and recorded at the Albany Free School and subsequently analyzed. Unbeknownst to the school, the council meetings were found to be very similar to what Lawrence Kohlberg had in mind when he developed his Just Community Model. This article discusses how this council meeting forum compares to…

The article critically reflects on the positive portrayal of mentorship as a professional development strategy for educators. We argue that the conceptualisation of classical mentorship has been informed mainly by functionalist thinking. We contend that the supposedly beneficial nature of the mentorship relationship has been given such prominence…

Badat (2004, 4) refers to the triple challenge facing higher education: to promote equity and growth within a democratic framework and to consolidate a fledgling democracy. In higher education there is inherent tension between growth (access to education) and equity. The article argues that the vagueness in which the term "equity" is…

This article applies a democratic learning conceptual framework to an analysis of the Ontario (Canada) Guidance and Career Education program. Although the program respects some principles of democratic learning, it fails to explicitly recognise the distinction between social and natural reality. As a result, student agency and democratic…