This paper revolves around two recently decided cases by the Supreme Court of Canada that illustrate how that Court views fundamental legal rights in terms of public policy and administrative decision making by creatures of statute in a free society. The protagonists in each case differ, as do the legal arguments, but the salient socio-political…

The aim of this study is to analyze the process of planning, preparation, application and evaluation of classroom rules at secondary schools, and to come up with some recommendations to develop functional classroom rules depending on the findings. The study is a survey of the graduates of secondary schools who are currently attending to some…

This paper is concerned with changing constructions of teaching and learning in the further education (FE) sector in England. It explores how current changes may be affecting the development of lecturers' professional identity, drawing upon a small-scale study of trainees on a full-time FE teacher training programme in the academic year 2001-2002.…

This article evaluates the credo "integration while maintaining one's identity" with the help of psychological arguments. First, it explores the requirements of being a good citizen in a liberal democracy. Following Rawls, we state that justice is the cardinal liberal virtue and that this virtue includes having the disposition to respect…

Because spirituality connects us to the most profound realities of life, it has an integral role to play in education. Public education and spirituality, as distinct from the teaching of or expression of religion, are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, spirituality is both epistemological and ontological. It constitutes one of many legitimate ways of…

In this article, the authors present a philosophical exploration of the import of a democratic ethic in making decisions concerning curricula. Specifically, the authors offer a guide for ethical decision making that is concerned with promoting fairness and acting on social justice principles. The ethical responsibilities of educators are explored,…

In this article, the author states that because people are willing to kill us just for being Americans, we ought at least to know what being American is. Yet many of our students have been taught painfully little about our nation's history, purposes, or achievements. In America's original founding narrative, faith and reason work together. Both…

Using the Rasch Rating Scale model, data collected from 200 ninth grade students in North Sulawesi Indonesia were analysed. This analysis sought to validate instruments developed to measure the Democratic Climate of Civic Education Classrooms (DCCEC) and Student Engagement in Civic Education Classrooms (SECEC). Category used, item and person…

It remains to be seen how a task force from the American Political Science Association will contrive an equality of voice for the politically apathetic, but that goal, they say, is crucial to the continued workings of American democracy. Robert Weissberg wonders how muffling the appeals of those actively engaged in the political process will sit…

From the beginning of the U.S., the political values of freedom and equality have received top billing. However, these core values can come into conflict in the making of public policy. For example, affirmative action can provide substantive equality in the form of a job or college admission to some at the expense of others' freedom. The same…

In this article, I offer a reading of the psychoanalytic concept of identification, with specific attention to its meaning in the context of children's historical learning. In educational contexts, it is not identification but historical empathy that teachers and researchers typically regard as holding pedagogical status. Using examples from my…

This article presents reflections of a ranting and raving "South Park" junkie. The church the author goes to is Unitarian Universalist (UU). UUism is the religion for people who don't believe in religion but somehow feel the need to regularly assemble in a religious tradition and affirm their nontraditional religiosity. From what the author can…

The right to privacy is a firmly entrenched democratic principle that has been inferred in the U.S. Constitution and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment as a liberty of personal autonomy. It is the statutory right to privacy that has been most closely aligned with data protection as a form of self-protection. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission…

It has often been said that the Inuit have many words to describe snow because one would be wholly inadequate to capture accurately the variety of frozen precipitation. Like snow, patriotism is a more nuanced idea than is immediately apparent. Political scientists, sociologists, and educators would do well to expand the roster of words used to…

OFSTED and schools are largely agreed on what is meant by "spiritual development" for schools though debate continues at the theoretical level on the broader question of what might be meant by a spiritual education. In this article, it is argued that cross-curricular "spiritual development" as a form of spiritual education is…