A study examining the educational experiences of Aboriginal students surveyed educators, service providers, and Indigenous residents in a rural South Australian Aboriginal community. Findings indicated a lack of cross-cultural communication. Recommendations revolve around equalizing power differentials between schools and community, and include…

Elected president of Iran in 1997, Khatami promised to bring about political reform, freedom, and religious democracy. He charged schools with creating moral, politicized, and empowered individuals with a strong Iranian-Islamic identity, but capable of relating to the West. While reflecting some of Khatami's goals and values, schools continue to…

Suggests that education leaders are currently faced with changing bases of social cohesion, changing instruments of economic control, and changing forms of organization. Democratic leaders are seen as those that enable the formulation of social, learning, and culturally responsive public educational institutions. (Contains 2 notes and 49…

Suggests that modern schooling was founded on elitist principles and has resulted in making people dumber, weakening families, replacing religion, lowering incomes, reproducing the class structure by dividing children into classes that correlate closely with family income, and concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a small fraction of the…

Discusses several issues related to a modern approach in the interpretation of civil freedom and its relationship to the notion of family. First, presents some definitions and distinctions regarding the sociology of political freedom, which it suggests should become the sociology of citizenship. Then, applies those ideas to families, particularly…

This paper reexamines the logic supporting ideas of differences and inclusion for students with disabilities, critiquing a range of perspectives on special education and suggesting that people consider the ways that the symbiotic relationships between regular and special education constrain theory making. (SM)

Although the American public still upholds its educational system, support has declined during the past decade. Public opinion surveys furnish valuable information about voter attitudes; they are also a vehicle to communicate information to the public. Districts should poll the public regularly to ensure that all client groups remain reasonably…

Discusses public policy against using public funds to help minorities attend private religious schools and reviews private school funding as found in other countries (Denmark, Holland, and Australia). Discusses the influence of separation of church and state in justifying the exclusion of private schools for public funding as well as the…

Argues forcefully for increasing and improving citizenship education and civics in the public schools. Maintains that many individuals' disparaging of the political process rises from a lack of experience with assessing an argument on behalf of a political position. Fully documents young people's lack of political participation. (MJP)

Maintains that reunification allowed teacher unions of the former West Germany to move into the former East Germany, filling a structural void left by the dissolution of the Communist Party. Specifically examines the reactions of newly elected teacher union leaders from the former East Germany to subsequent events in the education and political…

Trends fostered by globalization have increased pressures for school choice in westernized nations. A review of international research indicates that policies that increase school choice can balance the tensions inherent in simultaneously educating for diversity and social cohesion, but only if carefully designed and monitored. Civil society must…

Describes "Class, Race, Gender in the History of U.S. Education," a course embedded within a teacher education program that introduces prospective teachers to the history of students and teachers who have advocated for a broad and challenging education for all. It examines topics and texts; order, democracy, and the rise of the common schools;…

Describes a course on the problems of cultural pluralism in a democratic, constitutional society. Analyzes the rule of law in the United States. Examines the topic through an analysis of Supreme Court cases on questions pertaining to race, religion, gender, and community. Discusses course format and includes a class exercise of a mock trial. (RW)

Proposed educational reforms, outlined in Australia's Quality of Education Review Committee report, call for greater quality and relevance in schooling to respond to technological change. This article argues that the proposed responses will produce antidemocratic elitist schools which are characterized by a tightly structured curriculum and…

Currently, the dominant approach in research on teaching in physical education (the objectivist, scientific approach) has failed to provide a solution to how its findings, which are embodied in theories, can bring about change in the curriculum. This approach is critiqued with reference to issues of strategy, power, and politicization. (IAH)