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,…

For most children in North America, Halloween is one of the most exciting holidays of the year. But some critics insist that its emphasis on ready-made costumes, store-bought candy, and trick-or-treating seduces children into cultural passivity and socializes them to mindless consumption. These critics argue that trick-or-treating was an inherited…

Margin acts as ground to receive the figure of the text. Margin is initially unreadable, but as suggested by gestalt studies, may be reversed, or regrounded. A humanities course, "Native American Architecture and Place," was created for a polytechnic student population, looking to place as an inroad for access to the margins of a better…

Having served as a college and university instructor at several institutions, the author has taught numerous history courses that have dealt with race relations in the United States. A class that he currently teaches, titled "Race in America," focuses specifically upon this topic. It is designed for non-history majors who are in their…

Americans in the East were great fans of Black Hawk, whose popularity on tour overtook that of Andrew Jackson's parallel tour of the Northeast. Undoubtedly, then, Black Hawk was a celebrity. He remained popular even in 1837, when he attended Catlin's gallery opening in New York, which included his 1832 painting of Black Hawk. Black Hawk may also…

This interpretive study draws on interdisciplinary scholarship on affect and knowledge to ask: toward what feelings do abstinence-only and comprehensive sexuality education curricula direct us? A methodology that is attuned to double exposures is discussed, and one abstinence-only sexuality education curriculum and one comprehensive sexuality…

This article focuses on how public schools have functioned in the ideological production of race in America and their critical role in shaping the way Americans understand specific definitions of race as well as the muted rules of racial etiquette. The author analyzes American schools as racializing institutions, that is institutions with the…

In her seminal essay on white privilege, McIntosh (1988) began a discussion on privilege that has taken hold in areas outside her original intent. In this chapter, the author discusses privilege as it pertains not only to race and gender but to religion, especially the Christian faith. The author incorporates the current state of religious flux in…

This article presents two conceptual frames to help with teaching about issues of race and racism. First the concept of the web of racism describes a matrix that helps students understand the depth of damage racism has instilled in contemporary U.S. society. Second, the web of resistance offers a model of anti-racist activities to help students…

The authors investigate the nearly ubiquitous cultural icon for girls' play, the princess. They survey historical instances of princess play from the beginning of the American republic to the New Millennium, look at the literature concerning princesses in various periods, and discuss the individual recollections about princess play of a number of…

In 1988, the El Paso, Texas, city council accepted a proposal to build twelve statues of historically important individuals as part of a downtown revitalization initiative. Juan de Onate was selected as the centerpiece statue of the XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest. The decision to honor the Spanish colonizer triggered a local controversy…

This article investigates culture-based instructional design in its purest form through "The Brownies' Book", a children's periodical produced from 1920 to 1921. Methodologies of examination include historical analysis and critical discourse analysis grounded in a Foucaultian framework. The findings extrapolated from the design of "The Brownies'…

This article examines how Chicana/o and Latina/o youth employed their political-historical knowledge to "talk back" to the xenophobia and political contradictions that underlie the (im)migration "debate." A literacy unit that honed bilingual students' everyday translating created opportunities for students to utilize this political-historical…

Black men are vital and important members of American society, especially in their communities. Black families suffer a great loss when Black men are unable to thrive. Throughout modern American history, Black men have struggled to gain their footing and fulfill their destinies as strong, caring and productive members of society and their…

Cross-sectional studies find a positive relationship between a state's welfare benefits and single motherhood. But is this evidence of a "welfare effect" or rather of cross state differences in social attitudes that influence both policy and behavior? This paper demonstrates that the spatial variation in welfare policy long preceded the…