While ample research has examined how youth in the United States define 'Americanness', little attention has been given to how youth imagine the nation of the future, particularly in light of ongoing immigration. This study investigates how middle school students envision necessary national reforms, and how these views reflect different models of…

A number of social and ecological justice educators have long recognized the need for educational institutions to foster the development of a critical interest in civic engagement. They also have recognized the lack of appropriate education for students who are already civically engaged. One popular way to address this context in higher education…

The long-recognized disconnect between research and practice is reflected by social work students who often report significant apprehension about their research classes, likely at least in part because of a poor understanding of the research-practice interface and an unfamiliarity with larger professional social change initiatives like the Grand…

This article explores how a secondary ethnic studies course leveraged immigrant families' literacies rooted in the Mexican spiritual ritual of Las Posadas for in-school literacy instruction and to engage in community-responsive grassroots processions as social protest. Using ethnographic and participatory design research, the authors--one a…

This article presents an exploration of diverse adults' motivations for action to promote social and environmental change at a California public university. Semi-structured interviews with current or graduated university students reveal how they navigate their own identities and intersectionalities in developing an activist orientation and their…

Biomimetic leadership is a pioneering framework viewed through the ecological lens, in which every living system reveals practical applications and sustainable solutions to systemic challenges. Extended office hours and stressful environments have distanced administrators from nature-inspired activities and practices. This mixed methods study…

Peer sexuality educators' accounts of their work reveal two approaches to empathy with their students: affinity and alliance. "Affinity-based empathy" rests on the idea that the more commonalities sexuality educators and students share (or perceive they share), the more they will be able to empathise with one another, while…

This article examines the work of three urban youths as they designed and taught a social justice class at an urban continuation high school in California, USA. Drawing from a two-year ethnographic study of the project, it shows that youth participants constructed a set of imagined binaries to frame teachers, schoolwork and coercion "in…

In the field of positive youth development programs, "empowerment" is used interchangeably with youth activism, leadership, civic participation and self-efficacy. However, few studies have captured what empowerment means to young people in diverse contexts. This article explores how youth define and experience empowerment in youth-led…

Examines how California's curriculum framework--while acknowledging ethnic, religious, and gender differences--counters the scholarship on historically marginalized groups and attempts to build students' allegiance to the existing social order. Asserts that by claiming to tell a multicultural story, it masks the ideology of its own story. Uses…

This qualitative study explored the intersection between social class and college outreach. The service-learning experience was perceived differently by students of different social classes. The benefit was that the interactive classroom forum allowed diverse students to exchange views. Regardless of their personal backgrounds, students shared a…

This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2017), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.). Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the…

This book describes how a journalist turned college professor faces the students of Generation X at a community college in California. He discovers a culture war between generations--a culture wave between college teachers, typically Baby Boomers and members of Generation X. This cultural divide is between the modern and postmodern worlds and the…