Children's literature can be used to help teachers to build into their teaching programs ways to examine and change personal lifestyles to secure a sustainable future; to identify, investigate, evaluate and undertake appropriate action to maintain, protect and enhance local and global environments; to challenge preconceived ideas, accept…

How aware of societal issues are our young people who will soon be entering the workforce and communities as life-long residents? To what extent do young adults view local and state issues, in particular, as potential barriers to social progress and reform? In what way/s can young adults become and stay abreast of critical issues and initiate…

If students are to fulfill their obligations and rights as U.S. citizens they must develop the ability to make careful judgements, based on a reasoned historical perspective and a meaningful conception of the basic democratic values underlying citizenship in our constitutional order. To this end, an agenda of 12 core civic values that are…

This paper examines the implications of the relationship between two contemporary international trends in education for women's equality as citizens. The first trend is that in most Western countries girls are now achieving statistically, slightly better, average school-leaving results than boys, and occasioning a hostile populist backlash against…

The basic paradox of citizenship education in the United States is that the first steps toward the rational, autonomous, critical-minded citizen required by a democracy are necessarily non-rational and based on an unquestioned deference to authority. The movement from the morality of authority to the morality of principle constitutes the challenge…

Several institutions, including churches, community groups, and political organizations, lay claim to the task of bolstering existing values and restructuring the ethical set of the nation. The higher education community has an equally legitimate claim for the responsibility of inculcating values. The role of education in values transference is…

The core civic ideas that helped form a consensus around a United States Constitution in 1787 are the seeds that produce the civic culture of the United States today. Constitutionalism, republicanism, communitarianism, and classical liberalism were related ideas at the center of U.S. civic culture in the 1780s. Two hundred years later, with some…

Informed observers, from the political right to the left, believe that citizen education requires reform. While its effects on public life may be unclear, democratic theory insists that education is required as a condition of democracy itself. Most often, students are given information about the founding of the government, its structure, and due…

This paper defines active citizenship as a fundamental aim of democratic society that enables all citizens to participate as fully as possible in cultural, economic, political, and social life. Adult education is recommended as a forum for promoting active citizenship and, since participatory democracy is learned through practice, should be an…

The case of Africa, in terms of development and democratic prospects, encounters a number of stubborn hurdles, and are increasingly more difficult to overcome. This paper, while agreeing with a number of leading Africanists, who are calling for the efficient repair of Africa's political systems, without which other components of the national and…

This document consists of abstracts for two papers which discussed television audience research and public policy. The first, "News Audience Research and an Informed Electorate" (Mark Levy), examined more than a dozen studies over the past 20 years concerning the flow of news and information to the public. None of these studies found…

Many Asian countries have strong elements of nationalistic education in their civic education. In 1996, a year before the return of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China, a new official "Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools" was issued by the Education Department. This document proposes a curriculum framework with equal emphasis on human…

In this review of literature, the researchers draw upon the history of politics and education as they overlap in society. Politikverdrossenheit is defined as disillusionment with politics in education and society, a concept researchers feel is unproductive. The development of the collective social and educational system is traced through the…

This paper contends that the issues of constitutional government debated during the founding of the United States should be in the core curriculum of any school that seeks to educate students to become responsible citizens of a constitutional democracy. For purposes of teaching students, the issues debated by founding-era political thinkers can be…

Most data support the thesis of declining civic engagement among Generations X and Y. If levels of civic engagement remain depressed across the life cycles of Generations X and Y, U.S. democracy may be threatened, for there will be fewer engaged people to fulfill the obligations of democratic citizens. The hope is that youths' indifference to…