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Inclusion is a fundamental aspect of social studies education in general and democratic education in particular. Inclusion is especially important when we consider the possibilities for transnational civic culture and education. The theoretical framework of this study is based upon concepts of positionality, identity, and belonging as they are related to student understanding of communities. A dual-language, third-grade classroom provided the site for this ethnographic study. Data included participant observations, interviews with the teacher and students, and artifacts of student work. Findings illustrate how the students in the study understood the complexity of their identities at a young age and how the teacher used culturally sustaining pedagogy to foster a third space where this understanding was encouraged.

Public schools in the United States are charged with facilitating public deliberation of controversial school curriculum. This often entails managing the negotiations between multiple stakeholders who have very different positions on the proper design and implementation of curriculum. To maintain legitimacy as caretakers of the public interest in a liberal democracy, public schools are asked to recognize all legitimate perspectives in such disputes. But what happens when a perspective is not considered legitimate or in the public interest by the dominant community? When disputes over curriculum ensue, the rights of individuals to have their perspectives included in the curriculum must be considered in tandem with the public school's primary responsibility—to teach students to nurture a democracy. This essay synthesizes frameworks from deliberative democracy theorists to better understand the ways that the process and outcome of public school curriculum deliberation can increase in legitimacy and responsiveness to issues of social justice. To develop and illustrate this theoretical framework, I examine the case of a small group of activists who challenged a curriculum's claim that the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was clearly a mistake. Activist wanted the curriculum to say that the internment was done out of military necessity. I conclude that Gutmann's guidelines of non-discrimination and non-repression must be synthesized with Habermas's guidelines for a proceduralist model of deliberation.

Teachers are often apprehensive about facilitating deliberation in classrooms because conflicts can develop when deliberations surround issues of authentic concern to students. However, conflict is central to deliberation, and the identities and experiences of participants must be reflected in deliberation. These differences challenge the assumptions of neutrality and a common good that can restrain conflict. Harell's article focuses upon many of these aspects of deliberation and the essential role of facilitators as conflicts emerge from deliberation. In my response to Harell, I extend his findings by developing the themes of conflict, identity, and inclusion. These themes are conceptually linked and can guide reflection before, during, and after deliberation. Finally, I discuss the implications for democratic education in general and teacher education in particular.

Public schools in the United States are charged with facilitating public deliberation of controversial school curriculum. This often entails managing the negotiations between multiple stakeholders who have very different positions on the proper design and implementation of curriculum. To maintain legitimacy as caretakers of the public interest in a liberal democracy, public schools are asked to recognize all legitimate perspectives in such disputes. But what happens when a perspective is not considered legitimate or in the public interest by the dominant community? When disputes over curriculum ensue, the rights of individuals to have their perspectives included in the curriculum must be considered in tandem with the public school's primary responsibility—to teach students to nurture a democracy. This essay synthesizes frameworks from deliberative democracy theorists to better understand the ways that the process and outcome of public school curriculum deliberation can increase in legitimacy and responsiveness to issues of social justice. To develop and illustrate this theoretical framework, I examine the case of a small group of activists who challenged a curriculum's claim that the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was clearly a mistake. Activist wanted the curriculum to say that the internment was done out of military necessity. I conclude that Gutmann's guidelines of non-discrimination and non-repression must be synthesized with Habermas's guidelines for a proceduralist model of deliberation.

Banks (1994) names prejudice reduction as one of five dimensions of multicultural education. Although children develop prejudicial beliefs, attitudes, and values at young ages, research demonstrates that when multicultural knowledge and values are combined with intergroup contact, prejudice is often reduced. In this article, I connect multiple literatures in order to present an overarching picture of prejudice and its reduction in classrooms. First, I describe some negative impacts of prejudice and how prejudice develops at very young ages. Second, utilizing another of Banks's dimensions of multicultural education, I describe the knowledge construction process as a necessary factor in prejudice reduction. Finally, intergroup contact theory and complex instruction are described as a guide for reducing prejudice in classrooms.

This book presents a vision of education for democracy built around promoting equity and social justice. In doing so, Camicia and Knowles challenge many of the common perspectives of democratic education, deliberation, and the common good. The authors have published widely on the topic of education for democracy. This book builds upon their work to assist practicing teachers, teacher educators, graduate students, and educational researchers in understanding the background of education for democracy, as well as new directions for the field.While one of the primary goals of public schools is to teach students how to build better communities, this goal is increasingly difficult given the degree of political polarization within societies. Recent events provide no shortage of challenges to democracy in the United States and beyond. Utilizing theory and research, Camicia and Knowles promote instructional methods that are responsive to changing cultural and political contexts. There is an increasing need to rethink democratic principles and how these principles might be supported in classrooms in order to teach for social justice. This requires a move away from often stated idealistic notions of deliberative democracy, toward a perspective of education for democracy that incorporates aspects of identity, interests, and inequitable power relations within society.

In a qualitative study, 50 pre-service teachers were partnered with 50 elementary students to write each other in dialogue journals responding to texts on public issues. Based upon our analysis of the journals, written reflections from pre-service teachers, and interviews with the elementary teachers in the project, three findings emerged: student motivation for reading and writing increased, both types of students gained perspective consciousness, and elementary teachers found meaningful ways to integrate social studies with language arts. These findings suggest multiple avenues for future research surrounding dialogue journals, student engagement with public issues texts, and teacher education.

Inclusion is a fundamental aspect of social studies education in general and democratic education in particular. Inclusion is especially important when we consider the possibilities for transnational civic culture and education. The theoretical framework of this study is based upon concepts of positionality, identity, and belonging as they are related to student understanding of communities. A dual-language, third-grade classroom provided the site for this ethnographic study. Data included participant observations, interviews with the teacher and students, and artifacts of student work. Findings illustrate how the students in the study understood the complexity of their identities at a young age and how the teacher used culturally sustaining pedagogy to foster a third space where this understanding was encouraged.

Inclusion is a fundamental aspect of social studies education in general and democratic education in particular. Inclusion is especially important when we consider the possibilities for transnational civic culture and education. The theoretical framework of this study is based upon concepts of positionality, identity, and belonging as they are related to student understanding of communities. A dual-language, third-grade classroom provided the site for this ethnographic study. Data included participant observations, interviews with the teacher and students, and artifacts of student work. Findings illustrate how the students in the study understood the complexity of their identities at a young age and how the teacher used culturally sustaining pedagogy to foster a third space where this understanding was encouraged.

This article discusses a case study that explored the potential of nonfiction graphic novels to develop pre-service teachers' understanding of agency in a social studies methods course. White pre-service teachers were aske'd to read one graphic novel and then add frames, re-narrate frames, and reflect on their decisions. The positionalities of researchers, who are White males, and participants were part of our analysis. The researchers found that pre-service teachers made revisions to the graphic novels to change the historical actors' decisions: within the constraints of the historical situation's circumstances; to better fit their own ethical framework; and to critique the author's interpretation of the historical event and the amount of agency assigned to certain historical actors. We also reported findings related to shifts in understanding related to positionality. The pre-service teachers' revisions demonstrated their understanding of historical actors' ability to make choices; however, for most pre-service teachers those decisions were limited by, and insignificant in comparison to, the constraints of societal structures. Most pre-service teachers viewed these structures as operating outside of the realm of ethics that they used to articulate and identify agency, and thus, these structures were not responsive to changes in individual or collective agency. Implications are provided for social studies teacher educators.