Despite repeating claims that Canadians are less nationalistic than members of other nations, English as a second language (ESL) textbooks often participate in banal repetitions of nation-ness and nationalism. This banal nationalism takes the form of the marking of nation through flags, maps, routine deixis, and nationalized symbols. This study…

This article presents the Quebec ministry of education's (MELS) strategy for diversifying the national historical narrative that is transmitted in the province's History and Citizenship Education program as well as the manner in which Francophone national history teachers put this strategy into practice. In bringing research on their social…

The strong relationship between education and civic engagement is what leads Fraga and Frost (2010) to describe the U.S. school system as a "center of democratic governance" (p. 119). For immigrant communities, schools also serve to foster political socialization and incorporation. This chapter considers schools' democratic roles from an…

Teacher education is charged with the goal of training teachers who will prepare the next generation of citizens. Since Horace Mann's common schools, teachers have been the purveyors of political education, often through teaching patriotic songs and celebrated historical events and individuals. Through liberal education and critical pedagogy,…

In everyday language, whether a school is described as "public" or not is determined by the way it is funded and by who is allowed to attend it. Ideally however, a public school should also be defined and evaluated by its unique goal--to renew a public by providing the young with the skills, dispositions, and perspectives required to…

The author presents evidence of "glaring gaps in U.S. students' civic knowledge, motivation, and interest." From the inception of the United States through the mid-20th century, he writes, civic education was at the center of U.S. schooling. Since then, however, there has been a decline in civics instruction, fueled by increasing…

Public institutions of higher education are charged with "preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens for our democracy" (American Association of State Colleges and Universities [AASCU] 2003, 1). Many institutions have fulfilled this mandate by becoming educational partners with Debate Watch, a program of the Commission on…

Rancorous dialogue among political opponents is nothing new in the American political system. However, in the past two decades or so, pundits and scholars have noted an increase in the overall intensity and frequency of incivility among elected officials and citizens. At the collegiate level, many universities have undertaken some form of civility…

This up-to-date, candid examination of women's careers in education and leadership in education describes the pitfalls, triumphs, and future promise of female leaders in education. Despite the gains women have made in higher education over the past few decades, and an increasing number of well-qualified female candidates, they are still…

This article examines the historic uses of the phenomenon recently defined as "Deep Politics" to shed light on the underlying realities of the contemporary War on Terror. Deep Politics describes the multiple uses of misinformation to marshal public sentiment in directions desired by dominant political and economic forces. Facing the reality of…

What could the principle of a parental right to educational authority mean for democracy in the long run? Taking its starting point in three models of educational authority, this article questions the current permissive attitude to a parental right in this area. It does so in the light of the shortcomings of such a right with regard to pluralism…

This article examines how interest groups in Hong Kong have politicised national history, an unpopular school subject, for their own political ends and allied themselves with the PRC against the SAR government and its policy of not making it a single, independent, compulsory core subject in the school curriculum. The article argues that this has…

Attention to virtual space is growing in Russia. Russian politicians have an interest in the Internet: the president has his own blog and reads Twitter, and the United Russia Party is starting to work with the iPad on a mass scale. Opposition leaders and movements are not lagging behind either. Online surveys of various Internet resources are…

Cinemas are an important site of learning for young people. Far from being a passive means of instruction, films aimed at children and young people provide an opportunity for a nation's youth to interact with films' messages both in and outside the cinema. From deciding which films to attend, to discussing the film's ideas with their peers,…

This review of literature explores current research addressing political bias in higher education. The perception of a pervasive liberal political bias in academia is addressed first. This discussion focuses on the debate surrounding the Academic Bill of Rights, a document that outlines principles defending students' academic freedom and advocates…