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When the United Nations General Assembly authorized holding the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, it was hardly a secret--or even a point in dispute--that progress in implementing sustainable development had been disappointing since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. With poverty deepening and environmental degradation worsening, what was necessary, the General Assembly said, was not a new philosophical or political debate, but rather a summit of actions and results (United Nations, 2002). We can question the WSSD accomplishments and whether the subsequent actions and results will contribute in meaningful ways to sustainable development. However, I think it is more important for science educators to ask: What are the implications of WSSD for science education? Why is science education not more intrinsically linked to the goals of human rights, democracy, and social justice? What are the ways in which science education ought to be connected to issues of sustainable development? In essence, where are the footpaths to/from science education? I investigate such questions in this position paper, while arguing that an education in science ought to enable learners to: (a) understand how the natural world works, (b) understand how human systems are interacting with natural systems, (c) assess the status and trends of crucial natural systems, and (d) promote and follow a long-term, sustainable relationship with the natural world. These are the very ways in which an education in science (i.e., science education) ought to be connected to issues of sustainable development.

The main theories of the thriving field of study of public policies have been formulated at institutions of developed countries, mostly by the American academy, based on the particular conditions of policy-making processes of their own country. However, its heuristic premises are considered, initially, as universal and are used extensively in teaching and academic studies around the world. This paper examines the complexities derived from the application of such predominant theoretical approaches to the study and teaching of public policies that are implemented in Latin American countries. Based on an extensive use of specialized literature, 10 public policy variables are identified and organized into two dimensions, one institutional and the other procedural. It is argued that the values of these variables in the countries of this region differ significantly from those observed in the United States, which reveals the explanatory shortcomings of those approaches to account for the particular modalities of public policymaking in these countries.

The Covid-19 crises in the United Kingdom and the United States show how democracies may struggle to confront disasters that are increasingly impinging on the Global North. This paper highlights the extent to which disasters are now 'coming home' to Western democracies and it looks at some of the principal reasons why democracy has not been especially protective, at least in the case of the UK and the US. These include: reconceptualising disaster as a good thing (via 'herd immunity'); the influence of neoliberalism; and the limitations in the circulation of information. A key pandemic-related danger is the conclusion that democracy itself is discredited. Disasters, though, call for a reinvigoration of democracy, not a knee-jerk invocation of autocratic 'emergency' rule. A fundamental problem in the UK and US is that these countries were not democratic enough. The paper underlines the risk of a move towards a disaster-producing system that is self-reinforcing rather than self-correcting., (© 2021 The Authors Disasters © 2021 Overseas Development Institute.)

The paper "American democracy is distress: The failure of social education" presents several "symptoms of democracy's dysfunction in the United States". These include the extreme reliance on campaign contributions, giving the donors--economic elites and groups representing business, frequently operating at a transnational level--an excessive power in determining government policy in areas such as the environment, media or fiscal regulations, as profusely exemplified in the paper. At the same time, policies impose restrictions on citizens' rights in areas such as voting, healthcare or employment. In this sense, the power gap between citizens and economic elites in the form of a global capital is growing and, as it goes undisputed and unchallenged, menaces the core of democracy itself. This is a paper worth reading. Not only does it present an argument--and this is something to be praised and cherished--but it also sustains its argument on a sound and systematic analysis of documents and research. As such, this is not a trivial paper. The data, analysis and argument the author develops call for our attention and challenges us to reflect on whether and how the situation described for the US resonates with the situation of those currently living in Europe.

Successful deliberations over contentious issues require a publicly spirited citizenry that will encourage elected officials to promote what James Madison called the "permanent and aggregate interests" of the country. Unfortunately, atomizing forces have pulled American society apart, undermining trust and making collective action difficult. Residential segregation is one of those atomizing forces. Residential segregation undermines a commitment to civic virtue because it encourages people to think about fellow citizens as "others" with whom they have little in common. To address this situation, we must start by fixing our neighborhoods and creating local institutions that enhance trust and foster a public-spirited democratic citizenry. For example, our existing educational policies reinforce the disparities associated with residential segregation and have created massive resource inequalities among school districts across the country. A useful first step would be to equalize school district funding to promote a more genuine equality of opportunity., (© 2021 The Hastings Center.)

The aim of this study was to compare the level of allocation of human rights education issues in social studies textbooks in Turkey and the United States. For this aim, six social studies textbooks from both countries were examined. Textbooks were analyzed in terms of their level of "human rights education issues," in accordance with Karaman-Kepenekci's (1999) subcategories. A content analysis method was used to analyze the textbooks. As a result, it was observed that human rights education issues were included more in Turkish social studies textbooks. The study showed that Turkish and United States textbooks contained the "rights" subcategory the most. While the intensity scores of the "democracy," "freedom," and "judgment" subcategories were listed the highest in both countries' textbooks, on the other hand, the intensity scores of the "tolerance" and "peace" subcategories were placed last in the textbooks of both countries. [This study was presented at the International Conference on Educational Research and Innovation (ICERI) (Institute of Research and Community Services of Yogyakarta State University Yogyakarta, Indonesia, May 11-12, 2016).]

By 1989, fascism had long been defeated in Europe, and reforms in the Soviet Union appeared to signify the collapse of communist ideology, prompting Francis Fukuyama to famously declare the 'end of history'. Since then, neoliberalism has been rolled out globally. This paper argues that, with regard to higher education, Fukuyama's claim that the pursuit of knowledge will be replaced by the 'satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands' is prescient. What, then, prompted Fukuyama to qualify his predictions in 2018? Citing both the turmoil of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, Fukuyama blames identity politics for the breakdown of consensus over what the nation is, or should be, and suggests that the promotion of creedal identity might rescue Western democracy from populism. This paper disagrees: using the examples of Brexit and the promotion of Fundamental British Values in schools, it argues that creedal identity has become another expression of populism. Rejecting the claim that identity politics are the ultimate source of populism, it argues that populism is the predictable outcome of recession in the market economy.

Support for democracy is based on warmth, inclusiveness, and a general belief that others are well-intentioned. It is also related to a willingness to respect the rights of outgroups which do not necessarily share the views of one's ingroup. In this research, we analysed the relationships between different types of national identity and support for democracy. In two surveys (Study 1; American participants, n = 407 and Study 2; Polish participants; n = 570), we found that support for democracy was negatively linked to collective narcissism, measured in relation to the national group, previously associated with negative intra- and inter-group outcomes. The effect of national narcissism on democracy support was present even when accounting for national identification. In Study 2, we also found that this effect was mediated by social cynicism - a negative view of human nature. In both studies, support for democracy was positively linked to a secure national identity, that is national identification without the narcissistic component, which tends to be associated with positive attitudes towards others. We discuss implications for understanding the role of national identity in support for (il)liberal politics., (© 2021 The British Psychological Society.)

This paper argues that it is important for educators in democratic education to understand how the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, the United States and around the world can never be viewed apart from the affective investments of populist leaders and their supporters to essentialist ideological visions of nationalism, racism, sexism and xenophobia. Democratic education can provide the space for educators and students to think critically and productively about people's affects, in order to identify the implications of different affective modes through which right-wing populism is articulated. Furthermore, this paper points out that 'negative' critique of the affective ideology of right-wing populism is not sufficient for developing a productive counter politics. An affirmative critique is also needed to set alternative frames and agendas which endorse and disseminate alternative concepts and affective practices such as equality, love and solidarity. These ideas provide critical resources to democratic education for developing a culture and process of democracy that transcends the negativity of mere critique of either right-wing populisms or inadequate forms of democracy.

In this article the author discusses aspects of the paper presented at the Nagoya American Studies Summer Seminar (NASSS) 2009 on the civil rights movement and democratization in the U.S. after the World War II by Doctor Honda Kazuhisa. The author stresses the boundaries of democracy in the global trends and the progress of democratization in the postwar period. He also cites the impact of civil rights movements on racial discrimination and the legitimacy of American democracy.

Statistics is one of the important branches of mathematics taught in schools, colleges and universities. It is also an important tool in public policy discussions. This paper focuses on the use of statistics in the latter context, rather than its use in adult mathematics education research. I review the key characteristics of the statistical approach to constructing public knowledge, and give a very brief history of key points in its development. I discuss how what I call the "overt crisis of statistics," the apparent disenchantment of large sections of the public with the "expert" statistical methods, outputs and pronouncements, leads to dilemmas both for citizens and for democratic governments. Recently "Big Data" and data analytics seem to many to offer new solutions to problems resulting from the essential lack of certainty surrounding efforts to understand society, and from the need to make quick decisions in a rapidly changing world. These approaches have potential, but also limitations. This leads me to consider a second, "covert" crisis of statistics, resulting from a struggle between proponents of freely available public information and public argument, and those aiming to profit from the appropriation and sequestering of information for private ends. I finish by considering what can be done by ourselves, as citizens, as adult mathematics teachers, and as researchers.

This short paper is a response to Nel Noddings's article on schooling for democracy. Whilst agreeing with the basic premises of Noddings's argument, it questions the possibility of parity between academic and vocational tracks given the inequitable social and educational contexts the two types of learning would have to coexist within. Drawing on the educational philosophies of John Dewey and R. H. Tawney, I argue that both the United States and the United Kingdom need to create educational systems that reduce the social distance between people rather than, as the current systems do, exacerbate them. This is an issue of hearts and minds as well as policies and practices. As Dewey pointed out a hundred years ago, what is required is education that results in "mutual regard of all citizens for all other citizens," and the paper concludes that both countries are still far away from achieving this.

This paper is an introduction to the special issue of the Athens Journal of Social Sciences on Politics. It includes six papers, which relate to various aspects of politics in today's democracies. The first paper examines populism in selecting political parties of the European Union (EU); the second explains a political experiment performed in USA; the third discusses the prospects of the 2022 elections in Brazil; the fourth states that democracies need leaders as this is the case with Israel; the fifth looks at a real threat to democracy which is radicalism and violence using the case of the Slovakian youth; and the last paper examines a case of primary elections of a Greek political party (PASOK). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this article, the author relates his experience of being attacked for teaching American history at a rural school in north Alabama using a critical, more inclusive approach to American history and social studies. He describes how he struggled with the notion of perspective in teaching primary documents, particularly papers written by those not in power at the time. With the intention of providing students with differing sides to the nation's history, the author had chosen the works of historian Howard Zinn, particularly "Voices of A People's History of the United States," because Zinn represented a radical, revisionist (even Marxist) version of American history. Because of this approach, the author faced opposition from parents who protested his teaching approach for using these excerpts from Zinn's book. From this experience, the author presents key lessons he learned which could be useful for teachers who find their methods or material under scrutiny and attack. He concludes this paper by reminding educators that only by attempting to teach how different groups in American history have interacted positively, as well as negatively, can teachers hope to instill notions of social justice in their students. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper explores the interrelations between power, politics, academia and curriculum reform in British Columbia (BC) using social studies curriculum documents as a case study. It describes how curriculum reform occurred and argues that reform was undemocratic as it was largely the product of individuals with power who invited individuals with educational ideologies that were attractive to them to aid them in the revisions. These educational ideologies came from the USA, illustrating the influence of US ideas overseas. The non-democratic nature of the curriculum reform process may partly explain why teachers often resisted the revisions, and why government officials attempted to appear more democratic by increasing teacher participation in the curriculum revision process later in the century. However, curriculum revision remained undemocratic. The paper comments on whether the curriculum revision process in a democracy ought to be democratic or not.

The paper highlights the role of translation in qualitative research that involves multiple languages. Its particular focus is on untranslatables, that is, those words or phrases in a source language that pose challenges to translators because no direct equivalent is available in the target language. "Untranslatables" create moments of productive difficulty by forcing a critical examination of both the data and the assumptions that framed the research questions. The paper discusses two cases: research with Mandarin-speaking participants on the topic of democracy and democratic subjectivity, and research with Q'eqchi'-speaking participants on the topic of civic engagement and political participation.

As a postsecondary educator with most of my experience teaching in colleges, but with some also in undergraduate and postgraduate studies both in Canada and the United States, I have been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only undertaking empirical analyses of political behaviour and the normative analysis of political theory, but also in the practical activity of promoting understanding of what is frequently called "civic life". The authorities who develop broad educational goals seem to have it in mind that promoting ideas of good citizenship and suggesting ways in which this citizenship can be enacted should be among the several goals of faculty members involved in "general education." As we live in a liberal democracy, it follows that a good part of that mission should involve the both cognitive knowledge (how governments work, issues of policy development, elements of the political process, etc.) and what are sometimes called affective and behavioural traits--habits of attitude and action that encourage and exemplify good citizenship. Specifically, we are expected to teach something about democracy.

Postsecondary teacher, Howard Doughty, has been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only working with the empirical analysis of political behaviour and the normative analysis of political theory, but also in the practical activity of promoting understanding of what is frequently called civic life. In line with current standards and educational goals for faculty members involved in "general education," Doughty asserts a good part of that mission should involve the both cognitive knowledge (how governments work, issues of policy development, elements of the political process, etc.) and what are sometimes called "affective" and "behavioural" traits--habits of attitude and action that encourage good citizenship. More specifically, these educators are expected to teach something about democracy. Herein, Doughty discusses the historical controversy that follows the concept of democracy in theory and in practice. Next, he highlights four primary concerns about the current state of democracy and electoral system. Doughty goes on to explore briefly one set of criticisms of contemporary democratic politics as they are practiced in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. A description of the First-Past-the-Post (FPP) electoral system and its overall flaws are then discussed. Three cases are then presented to illustrate why some people regard FPP as an unfair and even an undemocratic way to elect presidents, prime ministers and legislators of various descriptions. Doughty concludes with several arguments demonstrating why FPP should be replaced with the Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system.

The University of Evansville, like many universities, requires a seminar for all incoming first-year students to prepare students for college-level writing, along with the reading and discussion of challenging texts. Often, these courses share particular books to allow in-coming students to share a "common experience." This article discusses how Matthew Knoester's first-year writing-intensive seminar class explored the topic of competing definitions of "democracy," focusing on the topic "Perspectives on Democracy." Drawing from the book "On Democracy" by Robert Dahl (1998), and the constitutions of five different countries (France, Ireland, Kenya, South Korea, and the United States), along with guest lectures from scholars from each of the countries outside of the United States named above, students compared how "democracy" appears to be defined from country to country. One of the guest speakers for the class, the second author of this essay, detailed how she was involved with the movement for democracy in Kenya, and offered a valuable perspective from a politically active citizen within a movement that helped to create the first democratic constitution in her nation's history. The lecture that Wangari Gichiru gave to the class via Skype is included in this paper.

This paper explores the issue of democracy and the role of the democratic classroom in the development of society in general, and the way in which educators understand and deal with diversity in particular. The first part of the paper explores different meanings of democracy and how they can be manifested in the classroom. We argue that the idea of a "democratic classroom" is far too broad a category; democracy is defined in action and can have realist or pragmatic characteristics, elitist or pluralist roots. The realist form of social education was championed by political scientist Charles Merriam, while a social educative process more dependent on pragmatic problem solving was pursued by educational philosopher John Dewey and those who followed in his theoretical wake. The history of democracy in the United States, and the battles of how to import different meanings of democracy into the classroom over the course of the 20th century is explored, suggesting that the educational establishment has a tendency to adopt more realist/elitist forms of civic education. We present five "democratic" classrooms with different characteristics to illustrate the different characteristics social education can exhibit. In the second part of the paper we discuss the relationship between different types of democratic classrooms and issues of race/ethnicity/culture.

Math education in the United States remains resistant to systemic change, and our country pays the price. Stemhagen's article "Democracy and School Math" further confirms this trend. Despite repeated calls for reform, decades of research on how people learn, millions of dollars invested in teacher professional development, and years of politicized debate, the math wars rage on--between those who believe students have the capacity to construct their own mathematical ideas and others who insist mastery of the traditional canon must come first. Meanwhile, algebra failure among secondary students remains rampant and elementary education majors report the greatest rates of math anxiety of any college major. Adults and children alike joke about being terrible at math, seemingly unaware of the extent to which this innumeracy serves as a barrier to full participation in democracy as well as to the realization of their individual goals, hopes, and dreams. In the math education community itself, there is little discussion of the unique role mathematics can play in preparing students for democracy. In this short paper, I offer a more detailed conceptualization of democratic mathematics education and discuss the role of constructivism in bringing these ideas to fruition. I suggest that a shift in the power dynamic that characterizes most mathematics classrooms will be a key component in moving beyond the gridlock.

This paper brings together two ongoing research projects on current citizenship learning programs in Iraq and the United States, both of which draw from the theoretical ground of Marxist-feminist perspective. A particular strength of this paper is its comparison between two American citizenship education programs in the context of neoliberalism, war and imperialism. Many claim that citizenship learning is always an ideological project promoting a particular set of beliefs or values. However, this research reveals that citizenship education programs are also ideological in their methods--a process Mojab has termed "learning by dispossession"--that serve to abstract learners from material conditions in order to promote a particular vision of liberal democracy that legitimates the very material conditions learners struggle to overcome.

This paper aims at contributing to new ways of thinking about democratic education. We discuss how revisiting this concept may help raise fresh questions in relation to non-formal fora grappling with intricate sustainability issues that span international borders. Starting from Rancière's ideas on democracy, we first examine a conception of democratic education derived from these ideas. Next, we turn to a complexity informed notion of education as proposed by the two strands of emergence and enaction. We discuss how, in introducing additional dimensions, these strands might fruitfully complement the Rancierian conception of education. We conclude our discussion by proposing to reposition democratic education as a process of (co)-emergence afforded by a series of critical moments which, we suggest, can call forth radically novel visions for governing the commons.

School districts are both big businesses and a form of local governance that is part of American democracy. When a crisis makes a district's democratic face relevant, the organization will experience a dilemma that does not occur in business-only organizations. This study examines the public meetings of a school board in the western United States as it confronted a multimillion dollar error. After reviewing the organizational crisis literature, background is provided on the district, the crisis, and the method - action-implicative discourse analysis. The district's crisis, the paper shows, was constructed through six discursive practices. Each is identified and illustrated. Because school boards are democratic bodies, they depend on having citizens willing to attend and speak out in public meetings, and they depend on a smaller set of citizens willing to run for and serve in these elected, unpaid school board positions. In crises, these two groups of citizens will have partially competing needs. As a result, local governance organizations will experience a dilemma regarding how to design their public participation. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on organizational crisis and public meetings, and practical implications for citizens and elected officials. (Contains 11 notes and 2 tables.)

This paper addresses the ethical and social justice implications of an educational movement called, The New DEEL (Democratic Ethical Educational Leadership). In particular, this paper emphasizes the ethical underpinnings of this movement by focusing on the paradox in the form of the dyad of control/democracy. This important paradox is developed through a discussion of the profound contradictions between the accountability thrust and the democratic emphasis in schools, particularly in the United States. The paper attempts to grapple with the inconsistencies within the paradox and provides some suggestions for coping with the challenges of blending these two very different and opposing concepts together during a very turbulent era. It also attempts to illuminate what a New DEEL moral educational leader might value, especially in the area of social justice, as well as how he or she might guide an organization.

This paper describes a participatory research (PR) project encompassing a capacity-development programme and advocacy skill-building initiative for rural women. The project actively engaged four prominent women's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Sri Lanka: Agromart Foundation, Centre for Women's Research (CENWOR), Sarvodaya Women's Movement, and the Muslim Women's Research and Action Forum (MWRAF) in partnership with the resources of three units at Northern Illinois University in the United States with extensive field experience in university-NGO collaboration: the International Programs Division, the Adult and Higher Education Graduate Programmes, and University Resources for Women. The initial major goal of the grant project, titled "Grassroots Organizing by Women" or GROW, funded by the US Department of State, Office of Citizen Exchanges, was to stimulate and build the capacities of the leaders of four selected women's NGOs in Sri Lanka to face new challenges and opportunities for strengthening women's participation in grassroots democracy within the context of a multi-ethnic society. Within two months of the inauguration of the project, the four NGO partners developed an implementation structure through which each organisation focused its energies on a single rural "model village". In each case, the NGO partner selected a village in which basic survival needs remained largely unmet. One of the four villages includes Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim residents, one includes primarily Tamil and Muslim residents, and the other two villages are home to only the Sinhala majority. The foundation for the project that is described in this paper began in July 2002 with a two-year grant and has continued through a second two-year grant that builds on the work of the first.

This paper reviews two main historical approaches to creativity: the Romanticist approach, based on the culture of the irrational, and the Enlightenment approach, based on the culture of the objective. It defends a paradigm of creativity as a sum of rich semiotic systems that form the basis of distributed knowledge and learning, reviews historical ideas of the university, and identifies two conflicting mainstream models in regards to understanding of the university as a public good: the 'Public' University circa 1960-1980, and the 'post-historical' university. Based on practical experiences, and on previous works by Peters and Jandric, it develops the new model of 'the creative university as digital public university,' and argues that it provides a useful philosophical goal for directing present and future practices of the contemporary university.

Following the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the nation was thrown into a state of fear and hysteria. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 which resulted in more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry being either interned in relocation centers, drafted, or imprisoned. In communities throughout the Western part of the United States, lessons about democracy, tolerance, and brotherhood were mediated by the reality of the Japanese internment. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II at the same time that students were being taught about democracy, intolerance, and brotherhood is an example of the mixed messages that were given to students and teachers. The issues and groups have changed since World War II, but educators today continue to face the challenge of helping students understand and develop the skills, knowledge, and habits of heart to be effective citizens in pluralistic democratic society. Balancing unity and diversity is a critical component of that challenge. In this article, the author stresses the important role of schools in helping to resolve the tension between unity and diversity. She argues that giving students the opportunity to grapple with real questions and issues that give prominence to the tension between diversity and unity can help them understand that there are no easy answers and that while they may not find immediate solutions they can help create an environment where the issues can continue to be explored and ultimately resolved. By learning from history, recognizing the ways in which elements of history continue to be present in contemporary society, and taking action to right an old wrong, they gave individuals a glimpse of how schools can educate students who understand the unity-diversity tension and act accordingly.(Contains 1 endnote.)