scholarly journals Reconceptualizing civic education for young children: Recognizing embodied civic action

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-46
Author(s):  
Katherina A. Payne ◽  
Jennifer Keys Adair ◽  
Kiyomi Sanchez Suzuki Colegrove ◽  
Sunmin Lee ◽  
Anna Falkner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Head Start ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Civic Skills ◽  
Early Childhood Settings

Traditional conceptions of civic education for young children in the United States tend to focus on student acquisition of patriotic knowledge, that is, identifying flags and leaders, and practicing basic civic skills like voting as decision-making. The Civic Action and Young Children study sought to look beyond this narrow vision of civic education by observing, documenting, and contextualizing how young children acted on behalf of and with other people in their everyday early childhood settings. In the following paper, we offer examples from three Head Start classrooms to demonstrate multiple ways that young children act civically in everyday ways. When classrooms and teachers afford young children more agency, children’s civic capabilities expand, and they are able to act on behalf of and with their community. Rather than teaching children about democracy and citizenship, we argue for an embodied, lived experience for young children.

scholarly journals The Challenges Facing Civic Education in the 21st Century

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Civics Education ◽  
Social Studies Textbooks ◽  
Civic Skills

This essay explores the value and state of civics education in the United States and identifies five challenges facing those seeking to improve its quality and accessibility: 1) ensuring that the quality of civics education is high is not a state or federal priority; 2) social studies textbooks do not facilitate the development of needed civic skills; 3) upper-income students are better served by our schools than are lower-income individuals; 4) cutbacks in funds available to schools make implementing changes in civics education difficult; and 5) reform efforts are complicated by the fact that civics education has become a pawn in a polarized debate among partisans.

Teachers’ perspectives on communication and parent engagement in early childhood education programs for migrant farmworker children

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Head Start ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Parent Engagement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Migrant Farmworker ◽  
Childhood Education

As early childhood education programs in the United States increasingly serve a growing number of children from linguistically and culturally diverse families, understanding teacher practices to better serve these families continues to be an important focus for the profession. In programs that serve migrant farmworker families, little is known about teachers’ communication practices and ways in which teachers promote parent engagement with migrant farmworker families. This article explores the practices of teachers relevant to family communication and engagement in Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs, a branch of Head Start program for farmworker families, mostly of Mexican origin. This study used qualitative methods of in-depth interviews and a focus group to bring forth the perspectives and lived experience of Spanish-speaking and English-speaking teachers working with farmworker families in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Key findings illustrate the role of shared language and culture, mediated language barriers, the reliability of interpreters and written communication, and authentic ways of creating home–school connections with the migrant farmworker community.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

Ban Ki-moon, 2007–2016

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gowan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cautious Approach ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
The Face

During Ban Ki-moon’s tenure, the Security Council was shaken by P5 divisions over Kosovo, Georgia, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Yet it also continued to mandate and sustain large-scale peacekeeping operations in Africa, placing major burdens on the UN Secretariat. The chapter will argue that Ban initially took a cautious approach to controversies with the Council, and earned a reputation for excessive passivity in the face of crisis and deference to the United States. The second half of the chapter suggests that Ban shifted to a more activist pressure as his tenure went on, pressing the Council to act in cases including Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and Syria. The chapter will argue that Ban had only a marginal impact on Council decision-making, even though he made a creditable effort to speak truth to power over cases such as the Central African Republic (CAR), challenging Council members to live up to their responsibilities.

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