Discusses specific pedagogical practices, embedded within a distinct context, leading to a particular poststructural curriculum for educational justice. The description provides a conceptual framework to guide in the reflection of each individual's pedagogical practices. (SM)

Advocates hail privatization as an effective, cost-efficient tool for school boards in meeting their wide-ranging obligations and diverse responsibilities. Critics see privatization as movement away from a publicly owned and operated institution with broad citizen support to a hollow structure that compromises public education's goals. A sidebar…

Asserts that no attitude is more detrimental to democratic values than blind allegiance to numerical data. Maintains that children must challenge and debate numerical data. Includes examples of data collection and activities designed to encourage students to be skeptical about numerical information. (CFR)

Discusses special education's role in the problems of schooling, reviewing two works. "Behind Special Education" suggests contradictions between democratic ends and bureaucratic means often cause a bureaucratic isolation of individuals who cannot fulfill institutional expectations. "The Ethics of Special Education" states…

Describes the work of Harry S. Broudy and his impact on public education in the United States. Maintains that Broudy believed that universal values can be grounded in human nature. Presents Broudy's view that students in secondary grades should study the arts and humanities to acquire the values necessary for participatory citizenship. (CFR)

A response to an article on multiculturalism and the status of community languages in Australia focuses on three aspects of the article: (1) proposed links between global capitalism, nation-state development, migration, and language policy; (2) the meaning ascribed to "cultural democracy;" and (3) implications of language policy issues…

University programs are failing to prepare school leaders for a culturally diverse America. Education needs a new vision of leadership based on cultural pluralism, humanistic ethnicity, a new view of ethno-democracy (embodying mutuality, nonfoundationalism, community, public discourse, and critical pragmatism), artistic experience, and revised…

Presents a lesson using primary sources to explore the revolutionary rhetoric of British-American colonists and its application to the lives of enslaved Africans and free Blacks: How could the same people who argued so forcefully for liberty defend slavery? Includes excerpts from four primary documents and sources for additional documents. (DSK)

Synthesizes findings of four case studies that examine technology-rich environments and how they might promote democratic learning. Discusses experiences of each via a matrix of four domains of democratic learning environments (power and voice; beliefs about knowledge and learning; modes of thinking and expression; and perspective on instructional…

In the postwar transitional phase, restoration of a comprehensive education system in Bosnia has been impeded by inadequate resources and capacity to repair and/or upgrade existing facilities, debate over curricular content, differing school management systems, and student displacement. Rebuilding must stress democratic, multicultural principles.…

The current emphasis on accountability, standards, and assessment is missing one important dimension--connection to a sense of values and beliefs. In California, standards are stifling creativity and flexibility; standard-setting is too politicized; test scores are eclipsing democratic values; and cash rewards won't necessarily improve student…

Draws on ongoing case studies of women's initiations of elementary collaborative principalships to discuss dilemmas encountered within the contradictory environment of "centralized decentralization" in New Zealand. Accountability issues have emerged as significant in one school, as the women and their board have been radically…

Before 1994, South Africa had a complex education system, characterized by multiple, loosely connected bureaucracies; inequitable resource distribution; and concentrated, oligarchic power. The new government is striving to democratize education by dismantling and dismembering the old institution. Blacks and whites must cooperate to make it happen.…

Facing increasing standardization and accountability pressures, schools struggle to retain democratic ideals while seeking alternative visions. The standards movement defines a well-educated citizen as a technologically adept, economically savvy college graduate. Democracy flourishes only when protecting the marketplace of ideas and a diversity of…

Examines underlying epistemological and theoretical assumptions of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). Concludes that IALS is primarily geared toward enhancing labor-market competencies but should instead make learners co-responsible actors of their own learning process and participants in a democratic debate defining the kind of…