The educators in the teacher inquiry group examine how to teach for social justice and support the development of student-empowering social justice themes in teachers' practice. A better understanding of effective urban teachers' philosophies and practices and putting a system in place to support the professional growth of all teachers are the two…

Nineteenth century consciousness is traced to demonstrate a public recognition of corpoatization of education through Willa Cather novels, which rely on the rhetoric of frontiers to promote university education within a democratic ethos. It is argued that a previously democratic stage of the university, uncontaminated by the profit motive of…

Following World War II, a group of American educators was assigned the task of evaluating the U.S. military government's program for reconstructing Germany's educational system. Although issuing a generally positive report, this education mission identified a number of persistent tensions that ultimately undermined America's efforts to…

Drawing on relevant literature and a study carried out by the author and colleagues, this article reviews the evidence about children's expressed views on methods used by adults to obtain children's views. It identifies key considerations deployed by children to account for those preferences. Children are normally passive with respect to method…

Increasing numbers of students with disabilities receive a majority of their formal education in general education settings where they must be taught the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to lead fully equitable and participatory lives in a democratic society. Given the need for all students to acquire civic understanding, the purpose of…

The purpose of this article is to examine the connection between school democracy and a strong principalship. The point of departure is taken as the Danish Folkeskole, the aim being to extract some general trends from this Danish case. It is shown how international trends have influenced the Danish situation, making it possible to speak of a…

The genesis of the moral leadership concept in educational administration and examples of studies exploring this idea during the 1979-2003 period are discussed. The author recommends more contextually sensitive descriptive studies with a focus on the social relations among school leaders and others, giving particular attention, in a…

In this article, the author provides a prefacing narrative that examines the work of Simpson et al. (2004, this issue), situating the reader as the importance of a framework for curriculum design. Importantly, the author illuminates a set a democratic values that animate the framework, and which work to instruct a democratic ethic of curriculum…

This author states that American higher education ignores about 90 percent of the environment in which it operates. Colleges change admissions requirements without even informing high schools in their service areas. Community college graduates are denied access to four-year programs because of policy changes made only after it was too late for the…

"Change Matters," written by leading scholars committed to social justice in English education, provides researchers, university instructors, and preservice and inservice teachers with a framework that pivots social justice toward policy. The chapters in this volume detail rationales about generating social justice theory in what Freire calls "the…

The role of a practicum supervisor of early childhood students has received limited research attention in discussions of professional practice in this field. This article discusses four phases in the author's personal journey towards professionalism in this role. The phases reflect an ongoing research-practice cycle: Phase 1 involved a research…

The paper considers the broader policy context in which English Post Compulsory Education and Training (PCET) is placed, examining the model of class implicit within policy documents and particular currents within new Labour thinking. It notes that class relations and patterns of inequality have deepened. Class as a structural feature of the…

Socialisation theories have traditionally focused on how children are socialised in a rather unidirectional manner, according to a transmission model. However, more recent research and theories show that children are not just passive recipients, but active agents in their socialisation process. At the same time, children are subordinated to adult…

One of the primary goals of social studies education in the United States is to prepare students for civically active, politically informed, and socially engaged democratic citizenship. Too often, however, the curricula fall short of this goal. Textbooks and state curriculum standards tend to portray citizenship as a static concept rather than an…

In this paper, the authors discuss the influence of democracy and law on music education in Sweden and Finland, and the potential for music education as training in democracy. The latter consideration can be instructive regardless of the nation, or its laws and paradigms of music education. The theoretical background is based on Jurgen Habermas'…