Same-sex marriage is part of a global civil rights struggle for LGBQ rights. How this movement is framed, advanced, and critiqued across the globe can be linked to how young people in schools are prepared to deliberate social issues in the political sphere. This article examines national history books as cultural artifacts that present what is…

This issue's "Middle Level Learning" section presents two articles. The first is "Harriet Tubman: Emancipate Yourself!" (by Steven S. Lapham and Peter Hanes). "Argo," which won the 2012 Oscar for best picture, was about a daring escape of six U.S. diplomats from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Now imagine the…

Breakthrough, a global human rights organization, produced "America 2049," an alternate-reality game set in a dystopian future in which the United States is on the verge of breaking apart because of an inability to tolerate diversity and promote human rights. During the 12-week game launch, players uncovered artifacts related to the…

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided for government of the largely unsettled frontier area north of the Ohio River and for an orderly, three-stage transition of the territories from control by national government to full and equal statehood, joins the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to form a trinity of…

The Northwest Ordinance is noteworthy not only for its provision of stages of development and eventual admission of new states into the Union but also for provisions which protected civil liberties of the inhabitants. In the latter part of the ordinance there are six articles of "compact" that declare fundamental principles of liberty.…

The U.S. Constitution established the broad legal frame for the U.S. political order; the ordinances provided the indispensable means for the expansion of that order across the continent. The first effort at organizing the northwest occurred in 1784. Written by Thomas Jefferson, the Ordinance of 1784 defined the stages through which territories…

The purpose of this packet of six lessons is to make it easier for teachers to include substantial instruction about the Northwest Ordinance in their secondary school courses. Each lesson includes a lesson plan for teachers and a lesson for students to study. The lessons are concise and can be completed in one or two class meetings. Each lesson…

Written for purposes of furthering aid to the Association of Aroostook Indian (AAI) in procuring Maliseet and Micmac American Indian rights, this essay provides historical documentation of U.S. treaties verifying Native American rights. This essay asserts that although about 4,000 Micmacs and Maliseets live in New England (1,000 in Maine), they…

This study unearths and examines rich models of learning in which multiple institutions collaboratively play a role in promoting civic education. Using historical and ethnographic case study analysis, this paper addresses the research question: What is the role of community in civic education? Specifically, the author examines Hull House and the…

The "International Society for the Social Studies Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. It contains the following papers: (1) Teacher Perceptions of Authentic Pedagogy: A Case Study of Professional Development in an African American High School's…