NCCRESt

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Democratic Values

• "E Pluribus Unum": What Does it Mean? How Should We Respond?
  Charts the intellectual history of competing conceptions of national unity, diversity, and ethnic identity. Explicates three models: monolithic integration (monocultural assimilation of diversity), pluralistic preservation (diversity and unity as equal values), and pluralistic integration (stressing consensus about core civic values while acknowledging the compatibilities and tensions regarding unity and diversity).
• Citizenship, Diversity and Distance Learning: Videoconferencing in Connecticut
  Profiles a videoconference that brought together two seventh-grade classes in Connecticut. Over several days, white, middle-class, rural students discussed topical issues with urban black students.
• Common Schools/Uncommon Identities: National Unity and Cultural Difference
  This book examines issues of national and cultural identity in a multicultural society. It focuses on the educational aims of societies that are committed to liberal democratic principles, societies that support members of different cultural groups so that these groups may flourish.
• Community Service in a Multicultural Nation
  Examines human qualities that undergird citizens' commitment to the common good in diverse societies, suggesting that community service fosters such qualities. Planned interactions across social barriers are necessary to develop qualities of citizenship for pluralistic nations.
• Dare We Criticize Common Educational Standards?
  Offers a critical discussion on the issue of educational standards by (1) clarifying issues surrounding educational standards, (2) critically examining the assumptions underlying popular discourse about standards, and (3) offering and arguing for an alternate perspective based on democratic ideals. Discusses the impact of this on classroom teaching.
• Democratic Dispositions and Cultural Competency: Ingredients for School Renewal
  This article argues that the current school reform movement of high-stakes testing is misguided. It advocates that democratic dispositions and cultural competency be included in the major goals of schooling and proposes that the purpose of schooling should be determined through public deliberation within diverse communities.
• Diversity Within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society
  Discusses 12 essential principles to help schools teach democratic values in a multicultural society. Derived from findings of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel to review and synthesize research on diversity, principles are organized into five categories: Teacher learning; student learning; intergroup relations; school governance, organization, and equity; and assessment.
• Embracing a Democratic Vision of the Community College: A Critical Multicultural Response to Recent Debates
  Discusses "Strengthening Collegiate Education in Community Colleges" (J. S.
• Equity Pedagogy: An Essential Component of Multicultural Education
  Equity pedagogy involves teaching strategies and environments that help diverse students attain necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes for functioning effectively within a just, democratic society. The article examines how equity pedagogy interacts with other dimensions of multicultural education (content integration, knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, and social structure).
• Expanding Conceptions of Community and Civic Competence for a Multicultural Society
  Connects the concept of diversity to the symbiotic relationship between individuality and community in the United States. Maintains that cultural awareness is a valid and realistic response to global interdependence and changing demographics.
• Focus on Human Rights
  Maintains that educators have been at the forefront in the quest for equal opportunity. Asserts, however, that there is resistance to recognizing and removing bias from the curriculum and instructional materials.
• Leaders of Color as Catalysts for Community Building in a Multicultural Society
  Presents a vision of multicultural education as a validating and inclusive process for non-European ways of knowing. Classifies multicultural education as inclusionary, emancipatory, liberatory, critical, and transformative.
• Multicultural Education and the Civic Mission of Schools
  This paper discusses key elements of current multicultural challenges of the traditional civic mission of schools. It appraises these challenges to suggest their strengths and weaknesses--contributions and pitfalls--with regard to fundamental U.S.
• Multicultural Education in the New Century
  Democratic societies require citizens committed to realizing democratic ideals. Multicultural education helps unify a nation deeply divided along racial, ethnic, and class lines.
• Multicultural Education. Theory to Practice
  Teachers from two urban elementary schools completed surveys about their multicultural education practices. The surveys examined demographics, content integration, instructional and grouping practices, and parent-community involvement practices.
• Multiculturalism: Intersubjectivity or Particularism in Education?
  Educators, theorists, and community leaders must consider which conceptual template is appropriate for a dynamic, diverse, and productive society and school. Intersubjectivity (stressing empathy, justice, and freedom) avoids the conformity espoused by the extreme right and the Balkanization dangers inherent in far-left recommendations.
• Multiple Literacies and Critical Pedagogy in a Multicultural Society
  Multiple literacies are needed to meet the challenges of today's new technologies and multicultural society. Media literacy is necessary because media culture strongly influences people's world view.
• Nourishing Conversations: Urban Adolescents, Literacy, and Democratic Society
  Explores the implications of literacy instruction aimed at "nourishing conversations" about life experiences in literacy classrooms. Emphasizes the sense that students made of their lives when they were allowed to raise their voices through literacy.
• Pedagogy, Politics, and Schools: Films about Social Justice in Education
  Reviews six films about issues related to multicultural and social justice education in the United States: "It's Elementary: Talking about Gay Issues in School"; "Starting Small: Teaching Children Tolerance"; "In Whole Honor?"; "Children Talk about AIDS"; "Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary"; and "'Good Morning Miss Toliver.'" (SM).
• Reforming Schools in a Democratic Pluralistic Society
  Issues related to race, class, and gender diversity have been silenced in most school reform efforts. To meet future national and global needs, reforms must incorporate diversity issues, promote democratic ideas, and help students acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to construct civic, moral, and just communities.
• The Political Correctness Controversy Revisited
  Maintains that the inclusion of diverse views to enhance understanding is one of the central tenets of education. Briefly summarizes the arguments for and against multicultural education and calls for a more tolerant and open dialog between conservative and liberal factions.
• The Role of a European American Scholar in Multicultural Education
  Attempts to broaden the theoretical base and practical applications of multicultural education by examining the contributions of European American educators to the process. Advocates members of the dominant culture using their own lives as starting points for studying how that culture is maintained.
• Transforming Elementary Social Studies: The Emergence of a Curriculum Focused on Diverse, Caring Communities
  Examines six elementary social studies textbook series for the absence or presence of multicultural perspectives. Identifies Houghton Mifflin and Macmillan as opposite ends of the spectrum.