Why do America's public schools seem unable to meet today's social challenges? As competing interest groups vie over issues like funding and curricula, we seem to have lost sight of the democratic purposes originally intended for public education.

Public schools were envisioned by the Founders as democratically run institutions for instilling civic values, but today's education system seems more concerned with producing good employees than good citizens. Meanwhile, our country's diversity has eroded consensus about citizenship, and the professionalization of educators has diminished public involvement in schools.

This volume seeks to demonstrate that the democratic purposes of education are not outmoded ideas but can continue to be driving forces in public education. Nine original articles by some of today's leading education theorists cut a broad swath across the political spectrum to examine how those democratic purposes might be redefined and revived. It both establishes the intellectual foundation for revitalizing American schools and offers concrete ideas for how the educational process can be made more democratic.

The authors make a case for better empirical research about the politics of education in order to both reconnect schools to their communities and help educators instill citizenship. An initial series of articles reexamines the original premise of American education as articulated by important thinkers like Jefferson and Dewey. A second group identifies flaws in how schools are currently governed and offers models for change. A final section analyzes the value conflicts posed by the twin strands of democratic socialization and governance, and their implications for education policy.

Spanning philosophy, history, sociology, and political science, this book brings together the best current thinking about the specifics of education policy--vouchers, charter schools, national testing--and about the role of deliberation in a democracy. It offers a cogent alternative to the exchange paradigm and shows how much more needs to be understood about an issue so vital to America's future.

This book addresses the challenges faced by arts organizations, schools, and community-based settings when designing program evaluations and measuring artistic engagement and experience. With contributions from leaders in the field, this volume is an exemplary collection of complete program evaluations that assess music, theater, dance, multimedia, and the visual arts in a variety of contexts.

School shootings are a topic of research in a variety of different disciplines-from psychology, to sociology to criminology, pedagogy, and public health-each with their own set of theories. Many of these theories are logically interconnected, while some differ widely and seem incompatible with each other, leading to divergent results about potential means of prevention. In this innovative work, leading researchers on the topic of school shootings introduce their findings and theoretical concepts in one combined systematic volume. The contributions to this work highlight both the complementary findings from different fields, as well as cases where they diverge or contradict each other. The work is divided into four main sections: an overview of current theoretical approaches and empirical models; application of these theories to international cases, including Columbine (USA), Emsdetten (Germany), and Tuusula (Finland); a critique of the influence of the media, both in the portrayals of past events and its effect on future events; and finally an overview of existing models for prevention and intervention, and measures of their success. The result is a comprehensive source for current research on school shootings, and will provide a direction for future research.

An exploration of how educational institutions have been portrayed in horror film, this book examines the way that scary movies have dealt with the issue of school violence, focusing on movies set in high schools, colleges, and summer camps.

This book brings together leading scholars researching the field of gender, sexuality, schooling, queer activism, and social movements within different cultural contexts. With contributions from more than fifteen countries, the chapters bring fresh insights for students and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, education, and social movements in the Global North and South. The book draws together both theoretical and empirical contributions offering rich and multidisciplinary essays from scholars and activists in the field focusing on outreach work of QSM (Queer Social Movements) in schools, queer activism in educational settings, and the role of QSMs in supporting and informing queer youth.

This book explores how antiracism theories can be translated into practice within formal education, as well as in other educational programs outside schools, as very often racism occurs outside the school environment. Combating racism both in and out of school therefore increases the chances of overcoming issues of racism. As racism continues to plague the world, efforts to combat it deserve more attention and diversification across all walks of life. In education, such efforts benefit from being modeled within the framework of antiracism education, rather than simpler multicultural and intercultural theorization and understanding which have proved popular. As such, this book critiques integration and multicultural programs, and instead highlights the advantages of grounding such programs within an antiracist framework. This book demonstrates why and how antiracism education is key to challenging issues of racial injustice at a time when multiculturalism and interculturalism have being proclaimed "dead". It will be highly relevant to researchers and students working in the areas of Education and Sociology, particularly those with an interest in antiracism methodologies.

This book, authored by K-4 elementary educators, working at a publicly funded non-profit charter school, illustrates the power of culturally responsive teaching and learning as it becomes embedded in the New York State Education Curriculum. Educators, families, and community members contributed to this unique program with the goal of enhancing learning environments by applying the languages and cultures of their students in their classrooms. Strong, carefully attentive, school leadership encouraged culturally responsive teaching and learning with the belief that children in this urban, economically stressed area could demonstrate significant academic and social/emotional gains. Readers of this book will witness culturally responsive lessons, family interviews, and whole school events that honor languages and cultures represented in the school. Sample classrooms' culturally responsive lessons tied to the curriculum, are presented. Additionally, qualitative and quantitative student academic and affective gains are analyzed. Moreover, this book clearly demonstrates the talents, vision, and compassionate care given to children and their families by exceptional educators. A CRTL Montage was created for this book. It includes classrooms, children, teachers, family, and community members. Teachers collected CRTL experiences and presented them to Producer, Dean Meghan Miller and Director, Designer, Dean Pamela Smith. They also received support for the montage from Instructor Allen Lauricella, and Graduate Assistant Elizabeth Kenny, Syracuse University, Newhouse School.

Paradigm debates in the educational research community are a frequent if not common occurrence. How do paradigm debates in other educational fields, such as curriculum and supervision, shape educators' understanding and practice? In this volume, it is suggested that educators' adherence to particular views of curriculum and supervision is influential in guiding their beliefs and subsequent actions. For example, a widely accepted belief is that if an individual adopts a mechanistic view of the curriculum, then s/he is likely to deliver a curriculum grounded in pre-established objectives and evaluate student achievement in relationship to formulated objectives. Postmodernists contend that such educators are bound by rigid bifurcation and a constrictive linear logic. In supervision, educational leaders who favor leadership styles comprised by autocratic behaviors, tend to create school climates that favor a top-down approach to human relationships. Autocratic leaders rely on hierarchical organizational structures and styles that seek to instill compliance and subordinance. Yet prospective administrators who want concrete proposals put in practice find modern perspectives of supervision helpful. In contrast, postmodern supervisors allege that such leaders disallow the emergence of relevant and authentic relationships that might occur when conventional hierarchical structures are diminished and open lines of communication between teachers, students, administrators become normative.

The chapters in this book present an in-depth analysis of how an individual's predisposition towards modern and postmodern views of curriculum and supervision are likely to influence: (1) curriculum development, (2) teaching styles, (3) leadership styles, (4) teacher and student evaluation, and (5) the missions intrinsic to the creation of professional preparation programs that serve to promulgate existing practice or create a new order of teachers and administrator.

* Takes a 'middle way', looking at how progressive and traditional perspectives might complement one another to develop a long-term strategy for wellbeing in schools * Includes strategies, takeaways and case studies to help readers put the ideas in the book into practice * Includes resources for staff training/inset. * Offers a more personalised approach to leadership and wellbeing.

Profound changes in society, government policy and the political landscape, as well as cataclysmic events such as 9/11, have greatly altered perceptions of faith schools and their existence now causes more controversy than ever. Taking a reflective practice approach, this study by people working within faith schools and colleges explores the new hot issues surrounding the subject in a sophisticated way. Looking at the supposed secularisation of the West, the nature of the multi-cultural and multi-faith society, the role of women, the spiritual development of children and most of all, the form that the tolerance of religious diversity should take in liberal societies, this book encourages readers to re-examine their assumptions and to consider faith schools as a part of the future of the English schooling system, within a multi-cultural society. This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of Children's Spirituality.

Originally published in 1971,this volume is much more than a history of the Girls' Public Day School Trust; it examines the growth of educational opportunities for girls and is set against a background of changing social attitudes and ideas. The book is mainly concerned with a small group of schools which pioneered girls' education in the nineteenth century; schools which to this day, whether maintained, direct grant or independent are all concerned to provide the best possible educational opportunities for development and fulfilment to their pupils.

Originally published in 1971, this volume unravels the complicated history of the religious question in British education. The background of the key Acts of Parliament which established the dual system - of Church and Local Authority school - is examined. The changing policies of different religious groupings are analyzed, and their outcome in legislation brought out.

This book, The Challenges of School Reform: Impact, Implementation, and Sustainability, explores why reforms todate have failed to live up to expectations, and it discusses promising practices and strategies for sustaining increased student achievement. This work expands on the ideas and themes discussed in the first two volumes in this series on education policy: The first book-Talented Teachers: The Essential Force for Improving Student Achievement-examines the importance of teacher quality. Years of research have repeatedly confirmed what we inferred to be true-outside of the home environment, the quality of a student's teacher has the strongest impact on learning. After talented teachers were found to be a powerful component for bettering education, the second book-Improving Student Achievement: Reforms that Work-introduces reform ideas and programs that positively impact both teacher quality and student work. Now, The Challenges of School Reform: Implementation, Impact, and Sustainability deepens these discussions by exploring the answers to questions regarding ensuring the longevity and sustained success of effective school reform.

"Based on the views of teenagers across Europe and in the Far East, this book argues that we need to reconsider how we judge schools and what they are for. It shows that the treatment of pupils in schools makes more difference to teenagers views on society, and on what it means to be fair, than it does to differences in attainment"--Provided by publisher.

This book documents and compares the social organization and academic arrangement of instruction in two remaining modern, public one-teacher schools in rural Nebraska. Neither school is an educational intervention and both stand far removed from reform consciousness, in both the minds of reformers and in those of the people who inhabit them. Each school's teacher does what comes naturally to her or him and the two teacher engage in remarkable distinct practices. One creates an especially efficient form of traditional, conservative teaching that echoes strongly the old country school recitation. The other sees his work as encouraging his students to think and has created a conversation-based pedagogy to achieve this. For both teachers the school size and rural circumstance play into what they believe they can and cannot do and profoundly shape their teaching practices. teach? The research reported here is concerned with how teachers and students organize themselves and do school that is small is scale. If school size is emerging as some important variable in student achievement and school improvement, and smallness is some key to that variable, then it stands to reason that one-teacher schools still have something to tell us. While the primary audience for this book is teachers, teacher educators and education policymakers, others, such as parents, might pick up this book and see some images of schooling that are both familiar and strange to them. The book offers portraits of instruction that can offer readers something to think with as we consider what it takes to improve school life for our own and other people's children.

This book explores how curriculum reform is interconnected with policy, practice and society. Curriculum reform is increasingly associated with efforts to better the lives of citizens and provide a competitive edge to national prosperity. Educational policy and practice have been the subject of unprecedented convergence worldwide in the quest for so-called 21st century skills. This book offers a case study of curriculum reform within the Republic of Ireland, focusing on antecedents, processes and outcomes of government efforts to evoke fundamental curriculum realignment at lower secondary level. Set against a backdrop of fluctuating economic fortunes and concerns about academic standards and educational equity, this volume has wider relevance beyond Ireland for any system undertaking education reform at scale.

Though there has been a rapid increase of women's representation in law and business, their representation in STEM fields has not been matched. Researchers have revealed that there are several environmental and social barriers including stereotypes, gender bias, and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities that continue to block women's progress in STEM. In this book, the authors address the issues that encounter women of color in STEM in higher education.

Developing Your School's Student Support Teams is a practical manual for schools seeking to establish and sustain coordinated teams in support of students' social, emotional and behavioral health. Every day, students struggle with a range of issues, including traumas, that complicate their learning, engagement, and overall well-being. School psychologists, counselors, social workers and nurses are employed in many school districts, but their schedules often make it difficult to collaborate effectively in developing and implementing comprehensive intervention plans. This book promotes teamwork throughout schools by exploring how interdependent practitioners can come together at the appropriate levels and times to help coordinate school and community resources. This "filtering" process will guide K-12 leaders and service professionals toward systems and decision-making that enable long-term student supports, accurate identification of systemic learning barriers, improved school culture and climate, attention to diverse populations, and more. With these proactive teamwork strategies, school staff will be better prepared to share workload and accountability and to identify and build upon the existing strengths and supports of every student.

"School Choice and Student Well-Being" is a review of research in the area of school choice and adapts Sen's theory of Capability to develop a more complex theoretical framework for understanding education markets. It is a timely contestation. Those for whom public education is a necessity are also those most adversely affected by its perceived failure, a for them, the tension between the rhetoric of the public good and the actualite of everyday disadvantage, between doctrine and reality, deserves better explication.

American Evangelicals and Religious Diversity is a qualitative study of how religion and education intersect at one conservative Christian school. The school is Evangelical and American. The school's curriculum is bible-based and fulfills its state's educational requirements for high school graduation. While the school has an environment that is Evangelical, the students live in a religiously-diverse world. This book documents how three students and their teacher struggle to understand a world that challenges their faith. The context for this understanding is how the teacher presents and the three students come to understand Catholicism, Islam, and the indigenous religions of the Americas. Americans continue to debate whether religious schools are too parochial and do not prepare students to live a diverse society. It is the opinion of the editors that this book should put to rest some of this fear. We read the manuscript with a critical editorial eye but found the story a compelling one which challenged us to review the tenets of our own faith. The author's style of presentation is consistent with good scientific discourse yet impels the reader to a view inside the experience of the subjects of the study. Reading the manuscript was not only an informative experience but a faith affirming one too. We are very pleased to present Kevin Taylor's book, American Evangelicals and Religious Diversity as an important part of our series on research on religion and education.

Winner of the 2016 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award Molly Makris uses an interdisciplinary approach to urban education policy to examine the formal education and physical environment of young people from low-income backgrounds and demonstrate how gentrification shapes these circumstances.