In EVERY DAY IS A GIFT, Tammy Duckworth takes readers through the amazing-and amazingly true-stories from her incomparable life. In November of 2004, an Iraqi RPG blew through the cockpit of Tammy Duckworth's U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. The explosion, which destroyed her legs and mangled her right arm, was a turning point in her life. But as Duckworth shows in EVERY DAY IS A GIFT, that moment was just one in a lifetime of extraordinary turns. The biracial daughter of an American father and a Thai-Chinese mother, Duckworth faced discrimination, poverty, and the horrors of war -- all before the age of 16. As a child, she dodged bullets as her family fled war-torn Phnom Penh. As a teenager, she sold roses by the side of the road to save her family from hunger and homelessness in Hawaii. Through these experiences, she developed a fierce resilience that would prove invaluable in the years to come. Duckworth joined the Army, becoming one of a handful of female helicopter pilots at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She served eight months in Iraq before the attack that took her legs and nearly her life. She then spent thirteen months recovering at Walter Reed, learning to walk again on prosthetic legs and planning her return to the cockpit. But Duckworth found a new mission after meeting her state's senators, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin. After winning two terms as a U.S. Representative, she won election to the U.S. Senate in 2016. And she and her husband Bryan fulfilled another dream when she gave birth to two daughters, becoming the first sitting senator to give birth. From childhood to motherhood and beyond, EVERY DAY IS A GIFT is the remarkable story of one of America's most dedicated public servants.

The biography of Carl Schurz is a story of an amazing life. At the age of 19, Schurz, a student at the University of Bonn, became involved in the Revolution of 1848. Participating in the revolutionary army, he managed to escape through a sewer during the siege of Rastatt, flee across the Rhine to France, and come back to rescue his professor, Gottfried Kinkel, from a jail near Berlin. This deed made him famous, and when he came to American in 1852, Schurz was nominated for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin on the Republican ticket. He quickly rose in the party and was the head of the Wisconsin delegation at the 1860 National Convention. He worked hard for the cause, and Lincoln rewarded him with the post of Minister to Spain. At the outbreak of war he returned to join the Union Army, became a Major General, and took part in several important battles. After the war, he moved to Missouri, was elected Senator from that State, and became a role model for his fellow German Americans. In 1871 he became one of the main figures in the Liberal Republican movement, and in 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Interior. After his retirement from the cabinet, Schurz became active in the politics of New York, as an advocate of municipal and civil service reform. He was a leading Mugwump who supported Grover Cleveland in 1884 and at the end of his life became a violent opponent of imperialism. He died in 1906. Carl Schurz, the man, his story, his ideals and his example, are particularly appropriate today because of the light his life sheds on the never-ending problems of immigration, assimilation, and the retention of ethnic identity. Carl Schurzas career furnishes a modelexample for all of these.

Whereas our nation was once united in purpose, today it is bitterly divided. Why? Racial discrimination, diminishing educational opportunities, poor economic mobility, greedy corporations, and an unresponsive federal government have combined to create two Americas. Presented in Gerston's characteristic, no-holds-barred style of wit and candor, Reviving Citizen Engagement: Policies to Renew National Community casts a harsh light on the current state of American public policy. It then offers approaches to healing some of the country's most pressing problems. The book begins with an assessment of the extent to which America has become a fractured society and the residual damage from the social implosion. It then examines the fragile condition of the 21st century electorate and a political system where private power too often has overcome values intended to protect the public good. The author argues it isn't American entitlement run amok, but suggests there really is a powerful disconnect. The large number of Americans who have been left out of the system are no longer engaged citizens. This development represents a monumental threat to American democracy, for our democracy can succeed only if its people believe they have the opportunity to succeed. This book not only provides evidence of our frayed society but also includes recommendations for strengthening America's social fabric. It details the steps we can-and must-take to repair, rebuild, and renew American society. Gerston contends they are within our reach if we are willing to make the sacrifices long overdue in what historically has been recognized as the world's most powerful and successful nation.

Between the 1950s and 1970s, Black Power coalesced as activists advocated a more oppositional approach to fighting racial oppression, emphasizing racial pride, asserting black political, cultural, and economic autonomy, and challenging white power. In Concrete Demands, Rhonda Y. Williams provides a rich, deeply researched history that sheds new light on this important social and political movement, and shows that the era of expansive Black Power politics that emerged in the 1960s had long roots and diverse trajectories within the 20th century. Looking at the struggle from the grassroots level, Williams highlights the role of ordinary people as well as more famous historical actors, and demonstrates that women activists were central to Black Power. Vivid and highly readable, Concrete Demands is a perfect introduction to Black Power in the twentieth century for anyone interested in the history of black liberation movements.

What does it mean for a society to be modern ? What beliefs, habits and behaviour does a modern state require of its citizens? How can these be fostered? In many non-Western contexts, modernization has tended to be equated with Westernization, and hence with an abandonment of authentic indigenous identities and values. This is evident in the recent history of many Asian societies, where efforts to modernize spurred on by the spectre of foreign domination have often been accompanied by determined attempts to stamp national variants of modernity with the brand of local authenticity: Asian values, Chinese characteristics, a Japanese cultural essence and so forth. Highlighting (or exaggerating) associations between the more unsettling consequences of modernization and alien influence has thus formed part of a strategy whereby elites in many Asian societies have sought to construct new forms of legitimacy for old patterns of dominance over the masses. The apparatus of modern systems of mass education, often inherited from colonial rulers, has been just one instrument in such campaigns of state legitimation.

This book presents analyses of a range of contemporary projects of citizenship formation across Asia in order to identify those issues and concerns most central to Asian debates over the construction of modern identities. The book main focus is on schooling, but also features other vehicles for citizenship-formation, such as museums and the internet; the role of religion (in particular Islam) in debates over citizenship and identity in certain Asian societies; and the relationship between state-centred identity discourses and the experience of increasingly globalized elites.

With chapters from an international team of contributors, this interdisciplinary volume will appeal to students and scholars of Asian culture and society, Asian education, comparative education and citizenship."

Are elections out of fashion? Does it matter if voters don t show up at the polls? If yes, is legal enforcement of voting compatible with democracy? These are just a few of the questions linked to the thorny problem of electoral abstention. This book addresses the hot question whether there is a duty to vote and if this is enforceable in the form of compulsory voting.

Divided into three parts, Anthoula Malkopoulou begins by expertly presenting the importance of compulsory voting today, situating the debate within the contemporary discussion on elections, representation and democracy. In part two, she questions the historical origins of the idea in Europe. In particular, she examines parliamentary discussions and other primary sources from France, Belgium and Greece, including a few additional insights from other countries, like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia. Focusing especially on the years between 1870 and 1930, the reader learns about the historical actors of the debates, their efforts to legitimate punishment of abstention through normative arguments, but also their strategic motivations and political interests. While discussions at the beginning of the century focus on introducing compulsory voting, Malkopoulou criticizes its misuse and discusses the debate over its abolition after the Second World War, exposing the contingency of relevant normative claims today and the conditionality of compulsory voting.

From ancient times until today, you learn about the ideological debates, their political context and how the problems of equal representation and political accountability persist through the ages."

David E. Toohey s Borderlands Media: Cinema and Literature as Opposition to the Oppression of Immigrants is an in-depth analysis which explores the immigrant experience using a mixture of cinema, literary, and other artistic media spanning from 1958 onward. Toohey begins with Orson Welles s 1958 Touch of Evil, which triggered a wave of protest resulting in Chicana/o filmmakers acting out against the racism against immigrant and diaspora communities. The study then adds policy documents and social science scholarship to the mix, both to clarify and oppose undesirable elements in these forms of thought. Through extensive analysis and explication, Toohey uncovers a history of power ranging from lingual and visual to more widely recognized class and racial divisions. These divisions are analyzed both with an emphasis on how they oppress, but also how cinematic political thought can challenge them, with special attention to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. David E. Toohey s Borderlands Media is an essential text for scholars and students engaged in questions regarding the effect of media on the oppression of immigrants and diaspora communities.

One Dream or Two? is a critical historical, constitutional, and philosophical examination of Martin Luther King Jr's understanding of justice-his "Dream"-from within the context of the American political tradition. Nathan Schlueter introduces King's "I Have a Dream Speech" and then isolates elements of his larger vision for social justice-paying special attention to issues of racial discrimination, political economy, civil disobedience, and the relationship between politics and religion-situating those elements within historical, rhetorical, and political context.

Why do countries differ substantially in the size of legal permanent immigration to the United States since 1965, even after the repeal of the discriminatory national origins quota system? The author demonstrates that development theory, world system theory and immigrants' social network theory all contain partial truths, but not one of them captures the entire immigration process. Here cross-national differences in the size of post-1965 immigration are shown as the outcomes of multi-dimensional forces, including the source country's development, U.S. involvement in the country, immigrants' resources, and the interactions of these factors. Scholars and readers interested in immigration, demography, sociology, history, international relations, cross-national analysis and social change will find this book an interesting and useful addition to their list of resources.

The idea of citizenship can be seen as a unifying element in understanding contemporary social change and social problems: in The Condition of Citizenship, Bart Van Steenbergen presents and discusses various illustrations of this theme. Outlining the traditional linkages between citizenship and public participation as well as national identity and social welfare, the book shows the relevance of citizenship for a range of current issues extending from global change through gender to the environment. The areas investigated include: the challenge of internationalization to the nation state and to national identities; the contested nature of citizenship in relation to poverty, work and welfare; the implications of gender inequality; and the potential for new conceptions of citizenship in response to cultural and political change. Reappraising the roots of citizenship and relating it to contemporary social issues, this work will be essential reading for students of sociology, political science, social policy and related fields. "The organizers of the conference from which this book arose and its editor are to be congratulated for a collection of essays which, individually and as a whole, are scholarly and to the point in their tackling of important issues." --Journal of Public Policy

This book examines the convergence of conservation and security efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. The author presents a unique analysis of the history of Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, a federally protected border wilderness area. Beginning in the early 1990s, changes to U.S. immigration policy dramatically altered the political and natural landscape in and around Cabeza Prieta. In particular, the increasing presence of Border Patrol has contributed to environmental degradation in wilderness. Complicated human rights concerns are also explored in the book. Protecting wildlife in an area with high rates of undocumented border-crossing and smuggling results in complex and sometimes controversial conservation policies. Ultimately, the observations and analysis presented in this book illustrate ways in which the politics of race and nationalism are subtly, but significantly, interwoven into border environmental and security policies.

This lively, moving narrative provides the first comprehensive account of the emigration of nearly 500,000 Soviet Jews to the United States between 1967 and 1997. By weaving a wide variety of immigrant voices and photographs together with historical, journalistic, social service, and psychological studies of Soviet Jewish immigration, this book offers a comprehensive and highly readable introduction to the history, politics, and culture of this important new American population. Topics covered include the varied reasons for their exodus from the Soviet Union, what they found in the United States, the communities they created there, and the cultural problems they encountered. The author, an expert on this group, dispels stereotypical notions about Soviet Jewish immigrants by exploring the tremendous social, political, and cultural diversity of the nearly half million Soviet Jews now living in the United States. Making abundant use of interviews and photographs, this book is as accessible as it is informative. It opens with a history of Jewish life in the Soviet Union as remembered by elderly immigrants. Theirs are gripping memoirs of the turbulence of revolutionary Russia, the horror of Nazi occupation, Josef Stalin's post-war assault on surviving Jewish leaders, and the emergence from the ashes of a flourishing Jewish counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. Immigrant voices narrate the history of this Jewish exodus, which began as a protest movement by a handful of courageous activists and developed into a mass migration. The second half of the book vividly evokes life in Soviet Jewish communities across the United States, from the crowded urban landscape of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, tothe palmy, smoggy enclave of West Hollywood, California. Class, gender, and cultural and political divisions are all addressed in this fascinating portrait of a complex and diverse community.

The operation of public services at both domestic and European levels is becoming a subject of considerable interest to researchers and policy makers alike. This book examines the economic and political implications of public services alongside a detailed analysis of their legal impact. Through this analysis, a new concept of constitutional citizenship is identified; a concept which would give consumers, as well as employees, new rights. The book also examines the new doctrine of services of general economic interest, as enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty, and the impact it will have on public services. The privatization of public services and the resulting impact on consumers is also dealt with.

Melting Pot Soldiers is the story of how immigrants responded to the drama of the Civil War. When the war began in 1861, there were, in most states in the North, large populations of immigrants (primarily from Western Europe) whose leaders were active in American politics at the local, state, and national level. A characteristic feature of the formation of the Union armies was the role played by politicians in the recruitment of the regiment, the basic unit of the army. There were dozens of such regiments, mostly German and Irish, but also a Scandinavian unit, and there was an attempt to form a Scottish regiment. As the war progressed and casualties mounted, these regiments gradually lost their ethnic composition. Ethnic entrepreneurs were the key figures in the organization of these regiments, and such men ordinarily intended to parlay their military service into a post-war political career. Some succeeded; some lost their lives. The book stresses the social and political situation in the Union states from which the phenomenon of the ethnic regiments emerged, the individual leaders involved, relationships with the larger society, political fighting within and between the various ethnic groups, and the impact the war had on the ethnics. Central to this book is the theme that the war promoted assimilation - something of a paradox given the creation of separate regiments. Most immigrant volunteers, by the way, served in regiments that were not of specific ethnicity.

As the Soviet communist regime gave way to democracy, the emergence of an entirely new political and social landscape had the potential to turn Russian society upside down. In Mothers and Soldiers: Organizing Men andWomen in 1990s Russia, Amy Caiazza looks at the effects of this seismic change on gender roles, and specifically the role of women in a newly democratic Russia. By observing through a gendered lens institutions like the military, and the process of making public policy, Caiazza finds that despite the institutional disruption, the pattern of gender role ideologies maintained continuity from the former times while at the same time embracing aspects of Western feminism.

In 2015, Singapore celebrated 50 years of independence. The Institute of Policy took stock of how the choices people made have led the city-state to where she is today. As achievements are being celebrated, a conversation about the road ahead also begins. With much nation-building efforts premised upon the existence of this imagined community known as 'Singapore', it is an opportune moment to question and reimagine who 'we' are.The book documents the conference proceedings at Singapore Perspectives 2016 where the fourth generation of government ministers presented their thoughts on the social, economic and political future of Singapore and engaged in dialogues with panelists and audience members on the directions the country should take.

The suffragette movement shattered the domestic tranquillity of Edwardian England. This book is an original and searching study of the formidable organization which led this campaign: the Women s Social and Political Union.

With the use of previously unpublished correspondence of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, her colleagues and such political leaders as Asquith, Balfour and Lloyd George, the author views the development of ever more extreme and violent forms of militancy not as a series of amusing exploits and incidents but as the carefully calculated political strategy the suffragettes intended it to be. He examines the reasons for the remarkable effectiveness of militant tactics in making women s enfranchisement a political issue of central importance, and shows why militancy failed to secure this right prior to the outbreak of war in August 1914. He assesses, too, the influence of the vast social and political changes wrought by the war on the ultimate success of the campaign in 1918.

This authoritative book provides a deeply informed overview of one of the most dynamic social movements in Latin America. Focusing on contemporary Indigenous movements in Ecuador, leading scholar Marc Becker traces the growing influence of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), which in 1990 led a powerful uprising that dramatically placed a struggle for Indigenous rights at the center of public consciousness. Activists began to refer to this uprising as a "pachakutik," a Kichwa word that means change, rebirth, and transformation, both in the sense of a return in time and the coming of a new era. Five years later, proponents launched a new political movement called Pachakutik to compete for elected office. In 2006, Ecuadorians elected Rafael Correa, who many saw as emblematic of the new Latin American left, to the presidency of the country. Even though CONAIE, Pachakutik, and Correa shared similar concerns for social justice, they soon came into conflict with each other. Becker examines the competing strategies and philosophies that emerge when social movements and political parties embrace comparable visions but follow different paths to realize their objectives. In exploring the multiple and conflictive strategies that Indigenous movements have followed over the past twenty years, he definitively documents the recent history and charts the trajectory of one of the Americas' most powerful and best organized social movements.

ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. In recent years, the 'city region' has seen a renaissance as the de facto spatial centre of governance for economic and social development. Rich in case study insights, this book provides a critique of city-region building and considers how governance restructuring shapes the political, economic, social and cultural geographies of devolution. Reviewing the Greater Manchester, Sheffield, Swansea Bay City Regions, Cardiff Capital Region and the North Wales Growth Deal, the authors address the tensions and opportunities for local elites and civil society actors. Based on original empirical material, situated within cutting edge academic and policy debates, this book is a timely and lively engagement with the shifting geographies of economic and social development in Britain.

Citizenship as a status assumes that all those encompassed by the term 'citizen' are included, albeit within the boundaries of the nation-state. Yet citizenship practices can be both inclusionary and exclusionary, with far-reaching ramifications for both nationals and non-nationals. This volume explores the concept of citizenship and its practices within particular contexts and nation-states to identify whether its claims to inclusivity are justified. This will show whether the exclusionary dimensions experienced by some citizens and non-citizens are linked to deficiencies in the concept, country-specific policies or how it is practised in different contexts. The interrogation of citizenship is important in a globalising world where crossing borders raises issues of diversity and how citizenship status is framed. This raises the issue of human rights and their protection within the nation-state for people whose lifestyles differ from the prevailing ones. Besides highlighting the importance of human rights and social justice as integral to citizenship, it affirms the role of the nation-state in safeguarding these matters. It does so by building on Indigenous peoples' insights about linking citizenship to connections to other people and the environment and arguing for the inalienability and portability of citizenship rights guaranteed collectively through international level agreements. These issues are of particular concern to social workers given that they must act in accordance with the principles of democracy, equality and empowerment. However, citizenship issues are often inadequately articulated in social work theory and practice. This book redresses this by providing social workers with insights, knowledge, values and skills about citizenship practices to enable them to work more effectively with those excluded from enjoying the full rights of citizenship in the nation-states in which they reside.

First published in 1974, Concepts in Social Administration draws on a wide range of theoretical disciplines to examine a number of concepts which are basic to the study of the social services individually and as a whole. The topics discussed are of vital importance to students of social administration and include the relationship between welfare capitalism and the social services, the definition of need, the distribution of resources, professionalism and the structure of the social services, and the question of consumer influence and the balance of power in the provision social services. Designed especially for teachers and students of social administration, this is a lucid exploration of the philosophy and concepts which are relevant to the discipline of social administration. It offers a framework for the subject which transcends the study of individual services on which most of the literature is based.

Though certainly not a new idea, citizenship education manifests in unique and often unpredictable ways in our contemporary neoliberal era. The question of what it means to be a productive and recognized citizen must now be understood simultaneously along both global and local lines. This edited volume offers an international perspective on citizenship education enacted in specific socio-political contexts. Each chapter includes a pointed conceptualization of citizenship education-a philosophical framework-that is then applied to specific national cases across Europe, Asia, Canada and more. Chapters emphasize how such frameworks are implemented within local contexts, encouraging particular pedagogical/curricular practices even as they constrain others. Chapters conclude with suggestions for productive change and how educators might usefully engage contemporary contexts through citizenship education.

How activist groups across the country adapted their strategies and tactics to their local contexts to keep the protests alive On January 21, 2017, the day after Trump's inauguration, feminist activists and allies across many progressive movements assembled across the United States to express their displeasure with the new President and his agenda. These marches were unprecedented in size, bringing together as many as 5.3 million Americans, with at least 408 protests in cities and towns across the country. These protests were large and dramatic, and had an outsized impact. But, they do not tell the whole story of this wave of contention. Keeping the March Alive follows thirty-five progressive groups founded after the Women's March across ten cities from Amarillo and Atlanta to Pasadena and Pittsburgh to tell the whole story of how some social movement organizations survive and thrive while others falter. Catherine Corrigall-Brown explains how activists navigate their local context and make strategic decisions about tactics, coalitions, individual participation, and online technologies to keep their movements alive. Movements that had the most success in keeping members engaged and active were those that were able to adjust their strategies to their particular local contexts. While in larger and more liberal cities, engaging in expressly political coalitions and cooperating only with other social movement organizations was the most successful strategy, fostering broad coalitions among churches, charities, and businesses was most successful in smaller, more conservative cities. Keeping the March Alive is instrumental in understanding how activism and activist groups can be sustained over time and how larger protest movements can last.

Historically, Afro-Latinos/as have been underrepresented in political offices in the District of Columbia. Isreal G. Mallard explores the social/racial factors that influence the political attitudes of Afro-Latino/a voters, the Latino voting community at-large, and political representatives. Also, the author examines factors such as ethnicity and "pigmentocracy" (skin-color) which play a role in electing an Afro-Latino/a to political office Washington, DC. Furthermore, he provides answers to address the social/racial factors that influence the electability of light-skin and dark-skin self-identified Afro-Latinos/as running for political office in Washington, DC. In addition, he discusses how social/racial factors influence the pathway to political office for self-identified Afro-Latinos/as. He uses a qualitative methodological approach which includes interview participants to provide answers to this study.

Deconstructing the Nation examines the connection between racism and the development of the nation-state in modern France. The author raises important questions about the nature of citizenship rights in modern French society and contributes to wider European debates on citizenship. By challenging the myths of the modern French nation Maxim Silverman opens up the debate on questions of immigration, racism, the nation and citizenship in France to non-French speaking readers. Until quite recently these matters have largely been ignored by researchers in Britain and the USA. However, European integration has made it essential to look beyond national frontiers. The major part of his analysis concerns the period from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s. Yet contemporary developments are placed in a historical context: first through a consideration of the construction of the modern question of immigration since the second half of the nineteenth century, and second through a survey of political, economic and social developments since 1945. There are analyses of the major debates on nationality in 1987 and the headscarf' affair of 1989. Finally questions of immigration, racism and citizenship are considered within the framework of European integration.