In this study, I argue that American history textbooks present discrete, heroic, one-dimensional, and neatly packaged master narratives that deny students a complex, realistic, and rich understanding of people and events in American history. In making this argument, I examine the master narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr., in high school history…

The new 1?9 curriculum framework in Taiwan provides a remarkable change from previous frameworks in terms of the coverage of content and the powers of teachers. This study employs a modified repertory grid technique to investigate biology teachers' preferences with regard to six curriculum components. One hundred and eighty-five in-service and…

This article relies on a case study of a policy evaluation to illustrate how issues of social justice arise for action or inaction in a political environment. The article uses the case study to show that social justice issue formation is shaped by the personal beliefs of the actors, the prevailing political culture, the evolutionary path of the…

In this article, the author presents a genealogical analysis of the shifts (and continuities) in discourse during recent decades toward a "new sociology of childhood". He illustrates first historically (in Belgium and internationally) how the construction of the child at risk has been interconnected with the notion of the mother as…

The academic study of Education (as a social, historical, and theoretical phenomenon) is complicated by the fact of our immersion in it. This paper combines Said's idea of "contrapuntal reading" with Bourdieu's notion of reflexivity to explore what happens when students on an Education course directly confront the fact of their everyday…

This article is a response to recent revealing political attempts to set a political and social function for the Arts through the establishment of performance criteria. A long-standing feature of the historical development of government policy in the UK has been attempts to judge the effectiveness and efficiency of public activity (health,…

Alcohol remains the drug of choice for many adolescents; however, the nature of the relationship between athletic involvement and alcohol misuse remains ambiguous. In this article, we used a longitudinal sample of over 600 Western New York adolescents and their families to explore the gender-specific and race-specific relationships between…

This journal issue consists of articles and other information about immigration issues, as well as discussions of the utility of racial and ethnic categories. "An International Perspective on Migration" (Cathi Tactaquin) examines the intertwined economic, political, and environmental causes of international migration; discusses how…

This book was written to raise educators' consciousness and to encourage their active participation in the politics of everyday life in schools, educational systems, homes, and communities. Authors in nine chapters document and interpret the political action and inaction of educators in various settings. Contents include the following: (1)…

In order to better serve Illinois individuals and schools, human service organizations must pursue collaboration among and within state agencies, community organizations and resources, and families. Families have the primary responsibility for raising their children, but economic and social factors make it increasingly harder for families to do…

This collection documents how far we still are in the United States from putting our knowledge about child well being and policy into practice. It provides an overview of the changing nature of child poverty in the United States through the contributions of authors who use a number of qualitative and quantitative approaches to look at children in…

This paper examines the state of current research on ethnic minorities and their children and discusses areas in which further study is needed so that effective policy guidelines may be developed within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A number of examples of ethnic minority situations are presented to…

The strongest recent statement that inequality in America is the natural result of a free market came in "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life" by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. These authors argued that intelligence determines how well people do in life, and the rich are rich largely because they are…

Authors of color share their thoughts on diversity, difference, pluralism, privilege, and ethnicity in essays that are meant to speak to the attempt by white scholars to reserve to themselves the power to define these terms. Each writer represented in this collection is attempting to validate a marginalized perspective and its corollary arguments…

This autobiographical narrative describes the early life of Luis J. Rodriguez, a journalist and poet who was immersed in the youth gang culture of Los Angeles (California). Framed by the story of the pull of the gang life for the poet's son, it recounts his experiences from his childhood on the United States-Mexico border through his family's…