scholarly journals Practicing Resistance and the Struggle over Power as Democratic Citizenship

Author(s):  
Juliane Mora

Teaching democratic citizenship has never been more vital, particularly given the dismissive attitude and direct attempts to undermine democratic institutions exemplified by the Trump administration. In addition, traditional approaches to teaching citizenship foreground the underlying values of self-governance, knowledge of the different branches of government, and the skills for behaving within this system (i.e., voting) but lack a broader intellectual framework to guide those actions (Parker, Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life, 2003). Parker, a critical multicultural educator, argued that this approach has rendered participatory citizenship superfluous and ignores more central concerns, namely, how people can live together justly while honoring their multiple individual and group identities (i.e., gender, race, class, religion, etc.). This essay focuses on the task of living together justly and offers one example of how this might be promoted through the communication studies curriculum.

Author(s):  
Steven C. Pan ◽  
Timothy C. Rickard ◽  
Robert A. Bjork

AbstractA century ago, spelling skills were highly valued and widely taught in schools using traditional methods, such as weekly lists, drill exercises, and low- and high-stakes spelling tests. That approach was featured in best-selling textbooks such as the Horn-Ashbaugh Speller of 1920. In the early 21st century, however, skepticism as to the importance of spelling has grown, some schools have deemphasized or abandoned spelling instruction altogether, and there has been a proliferation of non-traditional approaches to teaching spelling. These trends invite a reevaluation of the role of spelling in modern English-speaking societies and whether the subject should be explicitly taught (and if so, what are research-supported methods for doing so). In this article, we examine the literature to address whether spelling skills are still important enough to be taught, summarize relevant evidence, and argue that a comparison of common approaches to spelling instruction in the early 20th century versus more recent approaches provides some valuable insights. We also discuss the value of explicit spelling instruction and highlight potentially effective ways to implement such instruction, including the use of spelling tests. Overall, our goals are to better characterize the role of spelling skills in today’s society and to identify several pedagogical approaches—some derived from traditional methods and others that are more recent—that hold promise for developing such skills in efficient and effective ways.


Author(s):  
Reza Biria ◽  
Farahnaz Liaghat

The present study sought to explore the efficacy of a brand-new approach to teaching writing called mentor text modeling in neutralizing trade-off effect between accuracy and fluency in writing tasks with different levels of cognitive complexity. To this end, a total of 60 (30 male and 30 female) Iranian EFL learners were randomly selected and assigned to three groups of comparison, each containing 20 (10 male and 10 female) learners. Employing a pretest/posttest experimental design, learners of the three groups received instruction on advanced writing during an 11-week course. At the commencement of the course, the learners’ fluency and accuracy in writing were gaged through three writing tasks with high, moderate, and low levels of cognitive complexity. Having been exposed to the same instructional input, the learners of each group underwent writing instructions based on one of three approaches to teaching writing, namely, mentor text modeling, product-based approach, and process-based approach. At the end of the study course, the learners’ writing performance was assessed on three tasks parallel to the pretest measures. Results of running correlation analysis indicated that contrary to the two traditional approaches to teaching writing, mentor text modeling was capable of improving accuracy and fluency simultaneously and, as a result, was found to be effective in neutralizing the trade-off effect between accuracy and fluency in writing tasks with high, moderate, and low cognitive complexity levels. The study’s finding may urge EFL teachers to include mentor texts while teaching writing to realize a balanced improvement in EFL learners’ writing competence. 


Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore

This chapter illustrates the deeply entrenched prejudice of political philosophers, including some democratic theorists, against “the rule of the dumb many.” It offers a critical literature survey showing how most traditional approaches to democracy either deny or circumvent the question of the people's competence to rule, with the exception of a tiny but growing literature on “epistemic democracy.” In fact, with the exception of the latter, the question of the cognitive competence of average citizens and the related question of the performance of democratic institutions either raises profound skepticism or is avoided altogether in contemporary democratic theory, both positive and normative. As a result, many theories and justifications of democracy tend to be competence insensitive, either denying that citizens' political incompetence is a problem or circumventing what they do see as a problem through an “elitist” definition of democracy as rule by the elected enlightened.


2019 ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Rena Upitis

The chapter opens with a broad introduction to the ways music is important throughout our lives and then addresses the crux of the issue: teachers often wish to approach music more creatively but feel that they lack the expertise to do so. This leads to a discussion of the limitations of traditional approaches to teaching music and a description of the overall tone of the book—namely, one that combines anecdote and example and does not shy away from describing the struggles that are an inevitable part of learning to teach in new ways. Children’s notations, produced when they create their own music, are introduced and then contextualized developmentally by juxtaposing music notations with other forms of symbol-system development (e.g., drawing the human figure). The chapter invites teachers to enjoy children’s musical offerings by viewing these works as the magical, funny, ingenious, and treasured gems that they are.


1987 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Thatcher

Christian theology is an important perspective for theorizing about education. This article develops a possible theological perspective on religious education. RE these days is seldom Christian education. It is dominated by secular assumptions: it is to be open, multi-faith and descriptive. What might a Christian theology of education say of these developments? In section 1 the question is raised why RE should be taught in schools at all. In section 2 a theological analysis of what may be called ‘the climate of unbelief’ is attempted, and it will be shown how several of the assumptions of the new RE arise directly out of this. In section 3 some fresh criticisms of the phenomenological approach to religion are made, which if they are sound, will indicate that this approach need not be preferred to more traditional approaches to teaching religion. In section 4 it is suggested that both the alleged fact of modern secularity and the fear of religious absolutism provide no grounds for embracing a purely descriptive approach to religion. There is a simple, practical conclusion – there should be more Christian Studies and less Religious Education in schools.


2009 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zvi Bekerman

In this essay, Zvi Bekerman reveals the complicated and dynamic negotiation of individual and group identities for communities engaged in peace and reconciliation education. By looking closely at the experiences of students, teachers, and parents at one integrated bilingual Arabic-Hebrew school in Israel, Bekerman finds that while children are often able to reach beyond the boundaries of ethnicity and religion,adults struggle to negotiate their sociohistorical positioning with their goals for peace. Everyday practices—from recognizing the exceptionality of students who participate in religious practices outside of their ethnic background to segregating national ceremonial events—promote static and nationalistic notions of identity that limit the potential of these schools to advance authentic and meaningful change for peace. Bekerman calls on us to teach our students to become artists of design who can help construct new ways of living together.


2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 321-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Pippa Norris ◽  
Ronald Inglehart

AbstractAlthough democratic institutions existed long before gender equality, at this point in history, growing emphasis on gender equality is a central component of the process of democratization. Support for gender equality is not just a consequence of democratization. It is part of a broad cultural change that is transforming industrialized societies and bringing growing mass demands for increasingly democratic institutions. This article analyzes the role of changing mass attitudes in the spread of democratic institutions, using survey evidence from 70 societies containing 80 percent of the world's population. The evidence supports the conclusion that the process of modernization drives cultural change that encourage both the rise of women in public life, and the development of democratic institutions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Mohammad Reza Keramati ◽  
Robyn M. Gillies

Cooperative learning (CL) is a teaching and learning pedagogy that has been used widely in school but there is limited information on instructors’ perceptions of CL nor observations of how CL is implemented in higher education settings. In this study, we used an interpretative-qualitative approach to investigate the advantages and challenges of embedding CL in instructors’ teaching in Iran and Australia. Data were collected through interviews and observations and thematic analysis method was used to analyse the data. Results showed that despite challenges such as the lack of familiarity with CL and how it can be implemented in university curricula, issues associated with assessment, and time constraints, CL created an interactive, pleasant, and safe environment for deep learning in both countries. The findings showed that there were challenges in Iran such as a tendency to use traditional approaches to teaching, insufficient understanding of how to establish teamwork, and a lack of up-to-date teaching resources. In Australia, changing courses, working with external students, catering for individual differences, and building positive relationships were some of the challenges of implementing CL. We believe that these challenges can be overcome if university instructors are prepared to address them.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-78
Author(s):  
Memmy Dwi Jayanti

The purpose of this study to describe the language selection mom used ethnic Osing Giri in the distric, the village of Penataban, Banyuwangi-East Java. The language used is the language communities in Banyuwangi Osing, Java, and Madura for the third ethnic coexistence. Womg Osing or Lare Osing is a native of Banyuwangi, Osing language is a direct descendant of the ancient Javanese language yet very different dialect. The method used is descriptive method of providing data refer capably involved (SLC), consider ably involved free (SBLC), and interview. The results showed that the choice of language on ethnic family Osing Indonesian in there is an influence in terms of education and employment. Indonesia introduced the use of language in children is the language used in everyday family. Such circumstances indicate that the Indonesian experience growth in public life, expecially in rural districts Penataban Giri, Banyuwangi


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rannveig Traustadóttir ◽  
James G. Rice

The right to vote is a fundamental right of citizenship in democratic nations, and participation in elections in one of the most important acts undertaken by citizens. Although these rights are guaranteed to all citizens, international research shows that disabled people are widely excluded from participation in elections. Disabled people are less likely to vote than non-disabled people and often encounter various obstacles when they try to participate in elections. This article discusses the voting participation of disabled people in consideration of the international research. The main barriers that disabled people encounter in the voting process will first be outlined. This will be followed by questions concerning the effects these obstacles produce, not only for disabled citizens, but what this means overall for the health of democracy and democratic institutions when a portion of the citizenry encounter serious obstacles concerning their basic civil rights. Icelandic research in this field is extremely limited and no systematic statistical data exists on the participation of disabled people in elections, or politics in general, in this country. Based on data drawn from sources from two of the largest disabled people’s organization in the country, the focus here is on the experiences, circumstances and opportunities for disabled people to participate in elections in the country. The findings draw attention to the obligations of the state to promote and ensure the participation of disabled people in politics and public life in light of the recent ratification in Iceland of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).


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