Background: The continuing significance of race in U.S. society and culture begs the question of what role history and social studies education can and should play in preparing students to critically and constructively address race and racism in contemporary U.S. society and culture. However, research on history and social studies curriculum and…

High school social studies teachers play an important role in fostering the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students need to thrive after graduation. These efforts can also help counter Truth Decay--the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. Although several factors, such as state standards and assessments,…

In this article, the author shares his experience in teaching a course called "American Political Theory" at Nanjing University in Nanjing, People's Republic of China. The course the author designed was intended to explore the philosophical background of what drove the North American colonists to declare their independence; what ideas…

The writings of Martin Luther King Jr. deserve to be read in undergraduate humanities classes but not in the spirit advocated by former Secretary of Education William Bennett. It is argued that Bennett downplays the struggles against racial discrimination and chooses the most conservative King pieces for the literary canon. (SLD)

A class in racial tolerance, now in its third year at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn's (New York City) Bensonhurst section, is being replicated in 15 other schools. The weekly year-long class traces the civil rights movement and examines causes of contemporary racial strife. (SLD)

A plan is presented for a curriculum that shows how African Americans have been left out of decision making, stereotyped negatively, and denied resources. The project is intended to be a base for future studies of human relations issues in order to understand how society operates. Using the contexts of the 1960s and the 1990s, the power structures…