Democracy is neither inevitable nor guaranteed to last. To survive, democracy needs people adequately prepared to enact it. Such preparation for effective citizenship in a complex and plural world requires an adult civic education, one that goes beyond simple knowledge acquisition. It requires a transformative education to help learners become agents and co-shapers of their worlds. This book offers examples of the roles that civic education has played and can play in different communities. In this collection, scholars from around the world report and reflect on civic adult education, examining approaches, paradigms, and concepts that help us to act in culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse societies.
WINNER 2021 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award The essays collected in this book, by James A. Banks, a foundational figure in the field of multicultural education, illuminate the interconnection between the author’s work on knowledge construction and civic education. In pieces both poignant and personal, Banks shares some of his most groundbreaking and innovative work. Diversity, Transformative Knowledge, and Civic Education aims to unpack the "citizenship-education dilemma," whereby education programs strive to teach students democratic ideals and values within social, economic, political, and educational contexts that contradict justice, equality, and human rights. For change to take place, students need to internalize democratic values, by directly experiencing them in transformative classrooms and schools that are envisioned and described in this book. Drawn from Banks’ formidable canon, this collection highlights the conceptual, curricular, and pedagogical issues related to this dilemma, and signals a fundamental shift toward transformative citizenship education. Students, scholars and educators in the fields of multicultural education, civic education, social studies education, comparative education, and the foundations of education will find this book to be a valuable resource for discussion and discovery.
This open access book presents an in-depth analysis of data from ICCS. An international group of scholars critically address the state of civic and citizenship education in the four Nordic countries that participated in the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) in 2009 and 2016. The findings are of particular relevance to educators at all levels, from school education through to teacher education. Nordic countries have long traditions of democracy and their students have performed relatively well in the ICCS assessments. Nonetheless, citizenship education continues to evolve and has received increasing attention in recent educational reforms, indicating policymakers understanding that schools play an important role in establishing democratic values among future citizens. Data from ICCS can be used to analyze, discuss, and reflect on the status of civic and citizenship education and can contribute to the discourse on the potential role of education in contributing to sustainable democracies for a common future. However, teaching citizenship and learning democracy are two different things. While young people can be taught about democracy in school, it is vital that schools work together with the wider community in which youth operate to strengthen civic understanding and values for all young people regardless of their social and economic background.
. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.
How can schools and the school curriculum contribute to building democratic citizens? This is a major question posed by governments, educational systems, schools, teachers and researchers around the world. One important way is to identify the competences needed for preparing democratic citizens and incorporate these within both the formal and informal school curriculum. Another question must then be posed- what competences do young citizens need to be considered as active and engaged in modern democracies?In 2011 an invited research symposium of leading civic and political educators, and social scientists from across Europe met in Hannover, Germany to consider this key concern facing Europe today. In examining the above questions the symposium addressed two significant issues:1. Identify key competencies required for active citizenship of young people in Europe of the future.2. Translate those competencies to school-based activities in the form of curricular and pedagogical strategies.The publication Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in Democraciesaddressed the first issue and this volume addresses the second issue. Through discussion in the invited symposium, previously prepared papers, and participation in a modified Delphi Technique the participants have prepared chapters for this book. The chapters of this book represent the contribution of the participants before, during and after the symposium with opportunities for review and reflection about competences for democratic citizenship and the role of schools and the curriculum.Murray Print and Dirk Lange are professors from the University of Sydney and Leibniz University of Hannover respectively and are national leaders in civics and citizenship education in their respective countries. They have brought together a group of leading European civic and citizenship educators from different academic fields to explore the key issue and to identify the competences for young people to become active and engaged European citizens.
Maria Avila presents a personal account of her experience as a teenager working in a factory in Ciudad Juarez to how she got involved in community organizing. She has since applied the its distinctive practices of community organizing to civic engagement in higher education, demonstrating how this can help create a culture that values and rewards civically engaged scholarship and advance higher education’s public, democratic mission.Adapting what she learned during her years as an organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation, she describes a practice that aims for full reciprocity between partners and is achieved through the careful nurturing of relationships, a mutual understanding of personal narratives, leadership building, power analysis, and critical reflection. She demonstrates how she implemented the process in various institutions and in various contexts and shares lessons learned. Community organizing recognizes the need to understand the world as it is in order to create spaces where stakeholders can dialogue and deliberate about strategies for creating the world as we would like it to be. Maria Avila offers a vision and process that can lead to creating institutional change in higher education, in communities surrounding colleges and universities, and in society at large.This book is a narrative of her personal and professional journey and of how she has gone about co-creating spaces where democracy can be enacted and individual, institutional, and community transformation can occur. In inviting us to experience the process of organizing, and in keeping with its values and spirit, she includes the voices of the participants in the initiatives in which she collaborated – stakeholders ranging from community partners to faculty, students, and administrators in higher education.
"What kind of citizen is no ordinary education book. By drawing on accessible and engaging discussions around the goals of schooling, it is imminently readable by a broad public. Neither fluff nor polemic, the theory and practice described in the book are based in solid empirical research and come out of the most influential frameworks for citizenship and democratic education of the last several decades (the "Three Kinds of Citizens" framework that emerged from collaboration between the author and Dr. Joseph Kahne as well as consultations with thousands of school teachers and civic leaders.) - This framework has been used in 67 countries to help teachers and school reformers think about how to structure educational programs and how schools can strengthen democratic societies. - This book pulls together a decade of research on schools into one place giving the reader a comprehensive look at why schools should be at the forefront of public engagement and how we can make that happen"--
Mass migration and globalization are creating new and deep challenges to education systems the world over. In this volume, some of the world’s leading researchers in multicultural education and immigration discuss critical issues related to cultural sustainability, structural inclusion, and social cohesion. The authors consider how global migration is forcing nation-states to reexamine and reinvent the ways in which they socialize and educate diverse groups for citizenship and civic engagement. These chapters also address how schools can help migrant and immigrant groups attain the knowledge, values, and skills required to become fully participating citizens, while retaining important aspects of their home, community, languages, and culture. Case studies from the United States and Israel are used to illustrate how these concepts are manifested in two immigrant nations. Contributors: Tali Aderet-German, Ayman K. Agbaria, James A. Banks, Zvi Bekerman, Miriam Ben-Peretz, Amy K. Marks, Minas Michikyan, John P. Myers, Sonia Nieto, Carola Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, Guadalupe Valdés, and Gregory White “An invaluable guide to understanding the multiple complexities and challenges involved in designing a transformative multicultural civic education.” —Robert F. Arnove, Indiana University, Bloomington “This impressive volume offers valuable insights to teachers, teacher educators, and researchers concerned with preparing youth to be participating democratic citizens.” —Carole L. Hahn, Emory University “This important book outlines a set of urgent issues for both scholars and practitioners committed to the fuller expression worldwide of education for democracy.” —Margaret Crocco,Michigan State University “A stellar group of scholars integrates the migration question into issues related to teaching and learning, as well as teacher preparation.” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison “This visionary book highlights research, theory, and practices that can be used to help all students become effective and engaged citizens.” —Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University and President of the Learning Policy Institute
In the last twenty-five years there has been a great deal of scholarship about John Dewey’s work, as well as continued appraisal of his relevance for our time, especially in his contributions to pragmatism and progressivism in teaching, learning, and school learning. The Handbook of Dewey’s Educational Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive, accessible, richly theoretical yet practical guide to the educational theories, ideals, and pragmatic implications of the work of John Dewey, America’s preeminent philosopher of education. Edited by a multidisciplinary team with a wide range of perspectives and experience, this volume will serve as a state-of-the-art reference to the hugely consequential implications of Dewey’s work for education and schooling in the 21st century. Organized around a series of concentric circles ranging from the purposes of education to appropriate policies, principles of schooling at the organizational and administrative level, and pedagogical practice in Deweyan classrooms, the chapters will connect Dewey’s theoretical ideas to their pragmatic implications.
Education for Democratic Intercultural Citizenship (EDIC) is very relevant in contemporary societies. Seven European universities are working together in developing a curriculum to prepare their students for this important academic, societal and political task. The book present their theories and practices.