Examines the planning, implementation, and mission of the Clearinghouse for Character Education at California State University, Fresno. Materials collected at the Clearinghouse include samples of model programs, research, contacts for program development, and instructional resources for teachers, schools, and districts interested in character…

Reports on the background and philosophical base of the Community of Caring program. Originally started as a teen pregnancy prevention effort, the program has grown to include teacher training, values discussion, student forums, parent involvement, and community service learning. The program is sponsored through the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation.…

Presents an example of current Russian cultural criticism. Articulates a diatribe against the current state of Russian culture and its influence on that country's youth. Condemns the influx of Western influences, sex and violence in the media, and the glorification of a drug culture through popular music. (MJP)

Argues that there is no pressure to make Irish an official language in Northern Ireland because the sociolinguistic preconditions for bilingualism do not exist. The article demonstrates that those Irish who do not speak or learn Irish have no less a sense of having an Irish identity than do fluent speakers or those learning Irish. (26 references)…

Criticizes the national civics standards for emphasizing shared political values over political participation, oversimplifying the relationships among U.S. political values, and relying upon elite statements to identify those values. Characterizes the proposed standards as a symbolic ritual for reinforcing cultural hegemony. (MJP)

Formulates a pedagogical position that articulates religious experience as complementary to formal-rational thought. Recent postmodernist criticism has located secular thinking as a coequal position to subjective religious experience on the now-leveled philosophical playing field. Explores what this newfound (academic) respectability means for…

Examines how new educational technologies can invigorate existing educational communities, facilitate the creation of new educational communities, and interfere with the formation of desired types of educational communities. Focuses on e-mail, listservs and newsgroups, electronic publication, and the World Wide Web, and discusses issues of equity.…

Investigates the issues, candidates, and political climate of the 1896 presidential election. The Democratic Party candidate, William Jennings Bryan, espoused a Populist platform attacking big business, protectionism, and the gold standard. William McKinley, the Republican Party, pro-business candidate easily won the election. Includes cartoons…

Traces current educational philosophy and practices to 19th-century philosophers who proposed the "mudsill theory," the notion that ordinary children could not be intellectually successful and must be coerced and prepared for work by compulsory schooling. Points to the success of relatively underschooled self-sufficient Lancaster Amish…

Surveys undergraduate psychology students in an attempt to ascertain the relationship among right wing authoritarianism (RWA) thinking, relativism and idealism, and political orientation. Discovers an inverse relationship between RWA and relativism but a surprising positive correlation between idealism and RWA. (MJP)

Describes the process of redesigning faculty roles and reward structures at Towson State University (Maryland) and in the University of Maryland System from 1988-95, noting the pressures and outcomes it created. Topics addressed include workload; alignment of roles, policy, mission, and values system; clarification of roles and workload; faculty…

Recounts the early efforts (circa 1970) of feminists to collect oral histories of women around the western United States. Supported primarily through universities, the historians collected material from ranch women, labor activists, Native Americans, Asian immigrants, Hispanic homemakers, and others. Discusses developments in oral history…

Explores three characteristics of the Catholic tradition that offer students ways to become more attentive to role of faith in their lives. These include the juxtaposition of faith and reason, the movement towards inclusivity, and an understanding of sacrament as the mediation of the Divine through bodiliness. (MJP)

Contends citizenship education should teach a living U.S. Constitution, rather than a blueprint for government. Stresses teachers' responsibility to instruct students about responsibilities as citizens as well as rights. Argues citizenship education, specifically, and social studies, in general, must teach individuals how to live together with…

Argues that, far from being a dangerous and destructive break with the past, various factions of postmodernism actually parallel modernist beliefs. Both movements share groups whose creative revisionists approach seeks a constructive accommodation. Similar parallel destructive approaches also exist. (MJP)