Suchergebnisse

In Next Medicine, Walter Bortz shows how the defects of American healthcare threaten the stability of our entire nation. A physician with fifty years of experience and an expert on aging, Bortz argues that the financial interests of biotech and drug companies have eroded the values of the medical profession and placed profit before human wellbeing. Heart disease, for example, is widely treated with drug interventions and invasive surgery--both of which are extravagantly profitable. But daily exercise and a healthy diet can prevent heart disease altogether--for free.

Der verheerende Bürgerkrieg sei eines seiner Motive gewesen, das vorliegende Buch über Bürgerrechte in Liberia zu schreiben, erklärt der Autor. Er gibt einen Überblick über die Geschichte des Landes und arbeitet sodann die verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bereiche in der Art einer Landeskunde ab. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Fragen des demokratischen Staatsaufbaus und der Rechte und Pflichten der liberianischen Bürger. (GIGA-Sbd)

English Language Arts has historically been tied to the civic purposes of schools, and this qualitative study of a social design-based project (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010) examines the intersection of language and literacy learning and youth civic engagement, a problem space I call "Civics English." In this dissertation, I describe and analyze the experimentation and inquiry process of a Professional Learning Community of English teachers in a diverse middle school as they integrated civic learning and action into their English teaching practices. The dissertation examines this teacher team's development and shifts through various tensions and challenges that arise, analyzing through the lenses of Cultural Historical Activity Theory the ways their Professional Learning Community operated as an English teaching activity system attempting to integrate the cultural activity of civic engagement, leading to the teachers' expansive professional learning (Engeström, 2001) about possibilities and challenges of Civics English. The English teachers implemented various civic action projects, including producing and sharing multimodal civic advocacy essays online, composing and presenting children's storybooks about civics issues, and organizing and conducting a Town Hall with local leaders about civic dimensions of allyship and youth sports. This study looks at how, contextualized by these civics activities, they adapt and innovate customary English Language Arts practices, such as reading novels, writing in authentic genres with blended text types, and developing literacy and discourse. As the teachers encounter various tensions that arise in their attempts at Civics English, I present evidence of how these tensions emerge from the contradictions of two intersecting cultural activity systems, and what adaptations and innovations the teachers develop to overcome these tensions. Integrating civics causes shifts in the teachers' practices of literary study, writing, and classroom discussion, as they orient students' learning towards public audiences, collective action, and discursive models of political and professional discourse. I identify how reading literature creates an imaginative space for civic deliberation. And I demonstrate how the Town Hall civics project shifts various dimensions of literacy and language activity by recontextualizing them. The potentials and the constraints of these shifts are examined through studying the teachers' work, students' language and activity, and the civic event's efficacy as an English teaching focal point.

Do state-level exams in civics have a positive impact on young people's civic knowledge? We hypothesize that civics exams have the biggest effect in states where they are a requirement for high school graduation—theincentivehypothesis. We further hypothesize that civics requirements have the biggest effect on young people with less exposure to information about the U.S. political system at home, specifically Latinos and, especially, immigrants—thecompensationhypothesis. We test these hypotheses with the 2006 and 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics test administered to high school students, and with a large national survey of 18–24 year-olds. Across the two datasets, we find modest support for the incentive hypothesis and strong support for the compensation hypothesis.

The character of civics education is dependent on the worldview in which it is embedded. Thus, citizenship education that is not explicitly committed to a vision of democratic citizenship will be shaped by the dominant ideology of our times: neo‐ liberalism. After contrasting neo‐liberal and radical democratic perspectives on civics education, we examine Australia's new civics initiative as an example of how citizenship education becomes embroiled in the broader didactic politics of neo‐ liberalism, thus undermining the democratic values of civics education. We conclude with a call for civics education that is politically committed to the values of radical democracy. Key words: democracy, new civics, neo‐liberalism, Discovering Democracy La nature de l'éducation à la citoyenneté dépend de la vision du monde dans laquelle elle s'insère. L'éducation à la citoyenneté non explicitement vouée à une vision de la citoyenneté démocratique sera donc façonnée par l'idéologie dominante de notre époque : le néolibéralisme. Après avoir comparé les points de vue opposés du néolibéralisme et de la démocratie radicale sur l'éducation à la citoyenneté, les auteurs présentent une nouvelle initiative australienne qui illustre comment l'éducation à la citoyenneté se trouve prise dans l'engrenage de la vaste politique didactique du néolibéralisme et porte ainsi atteinte aux valeurs démocratiques de l'éducation à la citoyenneté. Ils concluent en prônant une éducation à la citoyenneté qui adhère aux valeurs de la démocratie radicale. Mots clés: démocratie, nouvelle éducation à la citoyenneté, néolibéralisme, Discovering Democracy

This paper draws on extended fieldwork in San Diego County to show that suburban residents exhibit a particular set of rights-claims that they make specifically around their residence in their suburban community. These claims are largely made legitimate by homeownership and are based around maintenance of a perceived ideal lifestyle. In addition, I discuss the duties that suburban citizens feel bound to uphold. Residents of the community feel it is their duty to respect the perceived rights of others to maintain a safe, clean, and healthy community. A major focus of this suburban citizenship is an attempt to keep perceived threats away from the community. I illustrate that a suburban form of citizenship springs from a tension and uneasy synthesis between two competing conceptions of citizenship—one based on individual rights-claims and the other based on community membership and involvement.