This article features an elementary teacher who has worked with the authors for the past 10 years in research on building a classroom community and using cultural universals as the centerpiece for elementary social studies for all children. "Cultural universals" are basic human needs and social experiences found in all societies, past and present,…

This article outlines the events that have led to Cuba's current engagement with global capitalism and the implications for Cuban education. The author looks at what Noam Chomsky (1999) has repeatedly referred to as "Cuba's trouble making in the hemisphere," such as it is. The author answers the question, "Why does the US government…

The cognitive-cultural dimensions of contemporary capitalism are identified by reference to its leading sectors, basic technologies, labor relations systems and market structures. Cognitive-cultural systems of production and work come to ground preeminently in large city regions. This state of affairs is manifest in the diverse clusters of…

At the Appalachian Studies Association's thirty-first annual conference, in March, 2008, activist and author Silas House gave a thought-provoking keynote address. That Friday evening, on the Marshall University campus, in Huntington, West Virginia, not far from the coal fields of southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, Silas offered some…

This paper foregrounds education for sustainable development (ESD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) as emergent discourses that need conscious efforts to align their ideals. While it explores the capacity of ESD to make significant contribution towards educational thinking and practice, it does so recognising that current neoliberalists'…

In this paper, we argue against the over-simplistic accusation that the media "dumb down" the study of history. Instead, we critically examine the contemporary presentation of history on British television within a framework of analysis of commodification and consumption. We argue that central to the debate is the idea that whilst…

Progressive lifelong transformative education has recognized the impact of social inequalities on learning. Some scholars applying feminist knowledge have acknowledged that violence against women (VAW) also affects learning. Yet, in this recognition there is an implicit assumption that learning is itself positive and peaceful, and impacted…

As colleges and universities become more entrepreneurial in a post-industrial economy, they focus on knowledge less as a public good than as a commodity to be capitalized on in profit-oriented activities. In "Academic Capitalism and the New Economy," higher education scholars Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades detail the aggressive…

After the fall of the Soviet Union and its transition in the 1990s towards a democratic form of government, Mongolia was forced to embark upon a complete series of reforms within society, including within its education sector. Mongolia's higher education sector was significantly affected by this change. Private higher education institutions…

This article argues that the proposals in the 2005 White Paper can be largely explained by a New Labour emphasis on "meritocracy" merging with a right-wing belief in education as a means of creating an hierarchical society.

Past educational improvement endeavors were fundamentally centered on the learner as an individual. This changed by the early 1990s after an increasing number of educators and researchers embraced sociocultural learning concepts such as "communities of practice," "communities of learners," and "knowledge-building communities." These ideas are…

Cognitive capitalism--sometimes referred to as "third capitalism," after mercantilism and industrial capitalism--is an increasingly significant theory, given its focus on the socio-economic changes caused by Internet and Web 2.0 technologies that have transformed the mode of production and the nature of labor. The theory of cognitive…

Some effects that formal education can have on a social system are to a) undermine and destroy it, b) strengthen and perpetuate it, c) refine and improve a social order, d) build a new social order, and e) develop persons able to formulate the best type of social order in a given situation. (Author/JA)

Critical social theory is a multidisciplinary knowledge base with the implicit goal of advancing the emancipatory function of knowledge. It approaches this goal by promoting the role of criticism in the search for quality education. Through critical social theory in education, quality is proportional to the depth of analysis that students have at…