This article explores the new conservative assault on the university and the relative silence on the part of progressives in response to this challenge. In part, this apparent retreat is a consequence of the vulnerabilities and anxieties of workers in the academy that result from the ongoing corporatization of the university as well as the…

Critical theorists consider schools as sites of ideological struggle. The following is an account of Suzette's (pseudonym) attempts to define the educational practices in a women's prison according to the democratic principles suggested in the Task Force Report on Federally Sentenced Women: Creating Choices, (Correctional Service of Canada, 1990).…

The author has been asked to discuss academic freedom and political correctness in wartime or times of great stress. He talks about real threats to security--not the danger that one will be offended by a student's or professor's arguably sexist, racist, or homophobic point-of-view and will feel dis-empowered, demeaned, or stripped of self-esteem.…

If there was one theme essential to the historical scholarship of Stanford professor Susan Moller Okin, it was the oppression of females. In imbuing political theory with feminism, Okin wrote, for instance, that modern American women are "second-class" citizens in a society where biological differences should count for nothing. Such declarations…

In this article, the author seeks to address the present function of Canadian criticism by undertaking a meditation on the contemporary Canadian university and stating his own position as a critic of Canadian literature in this institutional framework. The author asks: What are the connections between neoliberalism and cultural nationalism in…

At the beginning of the twentieth century about one in twenty American teenagers graduated from high school; by mid century over half of them did so; and today six of seven do. Along with this expansion in graduation, the experiences of high schooling became more significant. Though diversity existed at the school level, by the interwar period…

This study attempts to gain some level of national understanding of what exactly is going on with social studies in elementary and middle schools. It focuses upon public elementary and middle schools, the educational institutions where formal history and civic education allegedly begins. A nationally representative telephone survey of 1,051…

The three issues of this newsletter published during 1990 contain the following articles: "You Can't Run before You Learn To Walk" (Jose Manuel Ventura); "The Truth about Police Torture" (J. Maya R.); "A Student's Testimony"; "Voices from the Community" (Gabriel Ramirez and Others); "Books and Authors" (Jose Hunter); "You and Your Health" (Arnaldo…

Noting that many varied organizations have become increasingly politicized and maintain strong interests in the nation's education agenda, a survey of national professional organizations examined to what extent conservatism and liberalism on political matters translated into a similar mind-set on issues in the English curriculum. To survey 23…

Having been schooled in the intellectual tradition of the strict separation of church and state, educational researchers have devoted little scholarly attention to how religion affects education. This paper delineates the ways in which religion and politics intersect to shape society, particularly, the impact of the intersection on education. The…

Experiences of Bosnian adult refugees within the Swedish educational system raise questions of diversity and indications of institutionalized discrimination. Approaches to diversity within the education system reflect those approaches within the social system of the nation. Sweden is presently moving toward a uniform and more restrictive European…

This interdisciplinary unit includes seven lessons that can be adapted to fit individual classrooms and curricular needs. The focus of the lessons is on human rights and human rights abuses. The lessons include: (1) "Who Are the Victims?"; (2) "Coping"; (3) "Torturers"; (4) "A Case for Torture?"; (5) "The Map of Torture"; (6) "The Words To Say…

This book explores the contemporary phenomenon of English as a world language and sets out to analyze how and why it became so dominant. It looks at the spread of English historically in order to ascertain whether the language has been promoted actively as an instrument of the foreign policy of the major English-speaking states. The book examines…

Many countries' reform efforts are government-directed programs that are driven by the government rather than by educators or bureaucrats. A comparative analysis of this type of reform, with a focus on Canada, is presented here. The paper raises questions about the international character of education reform by comparing the Canadian experience…

The international trend of shifting educational management responsibilities to the schools themselves has exerted a powerful influence on education over the past 20 years. Many reasons have been given for the emergence of the self-managing school, and an analysis of the most important reasons are examined here. The paper focuses on education in…