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Schools develop mission statements in part to communicate their purposes of schooling to internal and external audiences. The goal of this study is to employ text analytic techniques to analyze school mission statements. Focusing on Arizona and New Jersey's schools, we seek to understand: 1) what themes (topics) emerge from their mission statements, 2) whether local context (politics) and institutional factors (being a charter) mediate topic prevalence, and 3) how similar school mission statements are to one another overall and across select factors. Using structural topic modeling we find that five topics emerge as particularly prevalent, and they address key purposes within the US context related to social, academic, and civic development with an emphasis on a safe environment and a sense of community. Local political leanings have a minor impact on the prevalence of topics but being a charter has a distinct influence. Compared to regular schools, charters are more likely to include themes related to preparing for college, academic approaches, and character and family ties, but they place lower emphasis on community and citizenship themes. School missions display moderate levels of similarity, indicating that a common set vocabulary has permeated schools' missions, though differences remain, including between states. Overall, this study deepens our understanding of the varieties of schools' missions and reveals text analytic techniques are well suited for uncovering them.

Mission statements and public statements of values are widely recognized as important for educational improvement, even if often ignored. The mission statements and supporting documents of Utah's 41 school districts were analyzed to locate prominent themes and significant omissions. An unexpected and disturbing neglect of democratic citizenship aims was found. Recognizing democracy is a complex educational ideal, the author argues for refocusing mission aims on the distinctive qualities of democracy as a way of life to be lived in schools by identifying for both modeling and practice across the curriculum the distinctive manners of democracy beginning with but moving beyond voice and listening.

This paper explored the relationship between graffiti arts and civic education among young people in Nigeria. A mixed methods approach was employed to generate and synthesize empirical data. The study was guided by Barbara Rogoff's social constructivism theory. Findings indicated that graffiti arts and artists were present in Nigeria, driven by desires for self-expression, financial gain, and training opportunities sponsored by NGOs for up-and-coming artists. Writing styles varied, but drawing, mural painting, and styles uniquely African remained dominant. Despite the difficulty of acceptance of graffiti as an art form due to its earlier association with transgressive activities, its engagement as a method for emancipatory, participatory, cultural literacy, dialectical relations, and creative learning tools in both formal and informal settings demonstrated its educational-supportive capacity for young adults. The values that graffiti express can help reorient young adults in their thinking and social agency. To this end, this paper recommends rethinking the way we view and relate to graffiti arts and writers; incorporating graffiti art education into school curriculum reforms in Nigeria; and using an interactive approach, including new media, to understanding graffiti art produced and displayed by young adults.

Purpose: In 2017, the Government of Québec made a high school financial education course compulsory. Anchored in the social studies, it tackles themes like consumer rights, savings, and employment. This paper strives to understand the types of citizenship education they promote. Design/methodology/approach: Our research is based on a content analysis of Québec's financial education curriculum and its textbooks. Findings: This paper reveals that Ministry approved educational materials focus on issues of personal finance and information retrieval tasks at the expense of a critical approach and tasks of a higher intellectual value. Québec's financial education materials therefore seems to foster personally responsible citizens. Research limitations/implications: To understand the use teachers and students make of financial education materials, we must now conduct individual and group interviews with teachers and students, but mostly authentic classroom observations.

Studies on digital rights in education have both gained attention and provided a framework for research, policy and practice in educational research within the field of educational technology. The potential benefits we appreciate in Internet use are inseparable from the maximum risks involved. Faced with this responsibility, individuals demand that their rights and freedoms be guaranteed in the digital environment according to their various roles as students, teachers, families or staff. This scoping review selects and analyses 54 theoretical and empirical studies from the last decade (2013-2023), identifying the main topics investigated as privacy protection in online environments, right to digital security or cybersecurity, and right to digital education. The review underscores the need to guide efforts towards digital education for citizens because the legal regulation of rights and responsibilities is necessary but insufficient. The paper also makes arguments about acceptance, limitations and implications for teacher training.

Service learning (SL) engages students in intentional, collaborative service experiences that promote civic citizenship. The COVID-19 pandemic forced traditional face-to-face SL courses to transition into virtual service learning (e-SL). This paper examines the academic and civic outcomes of an e-SL binational sustainable tourism course for undergraduate students. The course was designed to deliver disciplinary knowledge in sustainable tourism and transborder civic citizenship competencies in the following areas: 1) Ethos, 2) Literacy, 3) Inquiry, 4) Action, 5) Leadership, and 6) Partnership. A post-course student survey was deployed to assess student perspectives regarding the achievement of course outcomes. The findings revealed significant (positive) academic and civic transformations among the students due to the intentionality of the e-SL course design and implementation. Results indicate that e-SL in sustainable tourism education can be an effective pedagogy for inculcating civic learning, responsibility, and engagement among students and future professionals in the field of tourism.

This paper theorizes the affective and moral grounding of "best practice" policymaking, particularly how best practice operates as an affective regime that encourages certain affective norms. To illustrate this, the author takes up the example of best practices promoted by the CoE's "Digital Citizenship Education Handbook" for the acquisition of digital citizenship competences. It is shown that the distribution of best practices creates a set of affective conditions--especially through cultivating certain affective skills/competences and ethics/morals--that govern the ways in/though which best practices ought to be appropriately materialized. The paper discusses two implications of this analysis for education policymaking and policymakers. The first implication suggests that there needs to be work informing policymakers how affect works to create regimes of best practice; the second implication emphasizes the importance of working with policymakers to explore how they could challenge affective regimes of best practice.

In accordance with the development of technology, the disinformation known as "fake news" has become a global issue, leading to the labeling of these times as the "post-truth" era. Discussion of global citizenship education, intended to shape citizens with critical thinking abilities, is thus essential in this era. This paper, with reference to media literacy research on the basis of its close connection to digital citizenship, examines the possibilities of pedagogy toward moving beyond the dystopian society of digital monitoring. [This article was translated by Nadezhda Murray.]

Bullying refers to degrading actions, recurring and prolonged, exerted by minors on an equal. Physical or virtual assaults and insults, rejections or intimidations that hinder the victims' school activity and cause them to feel continually threatened are examples of bullying and cyberbullying, which have serious repercussions, not only on the emotional well-being and academic performance, but also on physical and mental health. It is necessary to build a citizenship engaged to education (Global Citizenship Education) to prevent bullying, and to work in other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The solutions must involve families and teachers, particularly in the context of regulated education, where participation can be promoted in a more planned and controlled way. Expert approaches insist on the relevance of the school to prevent aggression and discrimination through critical and reflective attitudes towards the violence that surrounds these situations. It is about teaching students to reject them "ab initio" as inappropriate. The aim of this paper is to identify the characteristics of the interventions aimed at the prevention and detection of physical and psychological violence among school children in various settings and populations, specifically in Spain, as well as their results and controversial aspects. [Note: The page range (9-26) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 9-25.]

The paper investigates the effect of active civic education using project-based learning (PBL) on attitudes towards civic engagement in a heterogeneous society. The study used a qualitative research approach involving a content analysis of responses to open-ended questionnaires, students' reports and weekly discussions with the students. The study examines whether the PBL teaching approach, which was developed in medical schools, can be an effective tool for use in civic studies to promote civic engagement of college students in a multi-ethnic society. Active civic education matters; it prompted non-Jewish minority students in Israeli society to consider future civic engagement, and improved their understanding of the concepts of accountability, transparency, civil and human rights, and the ability of individuals in a democracy to obtain answers from their government. It also underscored their ability and obligation to contribute to their communities.

Purpose: This study investigates the challenges faced by European teachers when assessing student learning of democratic citizenship competences by asking about their experiences and opinions in their teaching practices. Design/methodology/approach: Through focus group interviews conducted with the teachers, we investigate the underlying reasons for teachers' choices of using certain forms of assessment methods while excluding other methods. This paper presents the analysis of interviews with 82 schoolteachers from lower secondary schools in eight European countries (average 19 years of teaching experience) participating in an Erasmus + project. Findings: The teachers' responses uncover a need for teachers to be better equipped with relevant knowledge, tools and approaches to practice formative assessment to develop students' democratic citizenship competences. The current common understanding of the summative assessment of knowledge using simple and standardised tools poses one of the main challenges for teachers to use formative assessment methods. Practical implications: The focus on summative assessment significantly limits the teachers' room to work on democratic citizenship competence. There is a need to strengthen this as a democratic citizenship education as a cross-curricular element in education, with an emphasis on formative assessment, to monitor and support students' democratic values and attitudes.

This article aims to suggest a model of critical literacy in English as a Foreign Language (hereafter EFL) contexts. The paper will introduce previous critical literacy models in first or second language teaching and learning and those in EFL contexts. Then, several empirical studies based on the models are introduced suggesting important issues to consider in implementing critical literacy in EFL contexts. A model of critical literacy in EFL contexts is, consequently, suggested with the three key elements for successful critical literacy implementation in EFL contexts, language for criticality development, affects and criticality development and citizenship and criticality development. The model pursues balancing conventional literacy education, critical literacy education and citizenship education. The researchers suggest balancing conventional skill-based literacy, affective pedagogy, and citizenship education with the development of critical literacies. Teacher-initiated practice and guidance, incorporation of community-sensitive topics and materials, and students' active participation are key elements practitioners should consider in their adaptation of critical literacy instruction in EFL contexts.

In the ongoing pandemic context, short-term study abroad opportunities remain limited for many students. As a result, there has been a need for universities to develop educational innovations for home context learning to meet institutional intercultural learning aims. The purpose of this action research paper is to outline how a small-scale e-learning innovation was designed based on characteristics of intercultural citizenship education to encourage connections with, and responsibility towards, communities beyond national borders. The innovation involved critical exploration of a student-selected social issue using online texts, and reflections and blogging on the issue from individual, local, national, and international perspectives. A qualitative content analysis of reflections in blogposts of 49 students showed that the majority expressed connections with intercultural citizenship, though a minority rejected international identifications. The paper offers a timely and systematically designed intercultural e-learning innovation, implementable in other contexts, to support intercultural learning in a context of limited study abroad.

In this paper we present the analysis and interpretation of data collected during an intercultural virtual exchange undertaken in 2020 in which students from Argentina and the USA explored how trauma and suffering associated with COVID-19 can be channeled through collaborative artistic multimodal creations, and how approaching this in a productive way can lead to self-transformation in terms of intercultural and civic growth. To obtain unbiased data, we did not give the students information on the Council of Europe's Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC; 2018) which was fundamental to our conceptualization. Here, we apply an ex post facto research method to explore which of the 20 competences for democratic culture included in the RFCDC were mobilized and deployed by our students during this project. We do so by analyzing their multimodal artistic creations, social actions, and their civic statements from the perspective of the RFCDC definitions and descriptors. Findings indicate that the virtual exchange project contributed to the cultivation of 'democratically and interculturally competent citizens' as conceptualized in the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture.

While traditional civic education in the United States is inextricably linked to notions of a public sphere, this paper argues that the digital era requires a reimagining of this premise. The opaque nature of digital spaces makes it difficult for young people to understand how large of an audience they are interacting with and to what extent a conversation that may feel private is rebounding across public contexts. In this conceptual paper, we (1) use semiotic squares to present publicly private and privately public as two ways to reinterpret traditional presumptions about the role of "the public" in civic education and (2) present the implications of these blended spaces for civic education and civic learning. The paper asks, what does it mean to prepare young people for interaction in the "public" sphere within our classrooms today? By drawing on a vignette of teacher practice, we articulate what civic education could be for students around the world in the 21st century.

Project Citizen is a civic education curriculum used across the US and internationally in 75 countries, but research centers' roles on Project Citizen lack literature. This paper examines the findings of a preliminary study designed to answer the "How does citizenship education occur through project-based learning via a research center at a university in the US?" question. In this case study, which is one of the qualitative research methods, the study group comprises faculty members, teaching assistants, teachers, and administrators working in the College of Education and research center with Project Citizen's applications. The great majority of the participants were from the field of social studies education The data were collected through semi-structured interview forms, audiotaping, and observation. The transcription of the data set is done by using Dragon Professional software. Findings revealed that the mission of the research center's structure, studies, personnel, and budget is an essential factor; the research center plays an active role in addressing the problems of its practice by providing the teachers with the necessary in-service training support and student guidance. Besides, there are suggestions to be taken into account in the study of establishing a similar research center. The results show that research centers will have an essential role in extending project-based civics education.

Culture is a crucial facet in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. (TEFL) Hence, we shall in this paper discuss the theories underpinning this concept and how we can utilize these epistemological and ontological understandings to promote the TEFL field and the higher education task. Henceforward, we have answered the following question: How to move from the essentialist view of culture to the non-essentialist view of culture, and why it is essential to do so in 21st century English as a Foreign Language context? To answer the proposed question, we have discussed the essentialist and non-essentialist dichotomy of the culture concept and how both frameworks affect TEFL and intercultural language teaching (ILT) differently. In this regard, we aim to help EFL policymakers, EFL teachers, and students alike shift their attention towards the merits of adopting a non-essentialist understanding of the culture concept in the ILT. First, this article covers the theories of culture to understand this concept from different anthropological perspectives. Second, we relied on Byram's Model (1997) critiques to demonstrate how a misunderstanding of culture as a concept can be damaging. Third, after critically discussing the relevant literature, we recommended an anti-culturalist perspective in the EFL context to improve the ILT experience. This article concludes with recommendations for EFL and ELT policymakers and EFL teachers and students alike. The proposals mainly focus on shifting the attention towards a non-culturalist approach towards culture.

In narrative style, this paper looks at how a particular teaching-learning event, a meeting in 2003 between Canadian high school students and their Costa Rican host families in Pedrogosso, Costa Rica, unveils pedagogies of global citizenship. By interweaving insights obtained from scholars of education, experiences of students, and reflections by teachers, the author shows how learning for world citizenship often happens in unexpected and unscripted circumstances, when teachers are absent--although, not without responsibility.

Canadian school jurisdictions have taken steps to accommodate objectives to advance cosmopolitan education reflecting principles such as global citizenship, compassion, tolerance, responsibility, and respect within school curricula and educational practice. At the same time, a parallel set of reconciliation-related educational reforms, aligned with the Calls to Action that accompanied the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report, have also gained urgency. Elements of reconciliation processes complement visions of cosmopolitanism, including objectives to foster dialogue and understanding between groups and advancements towards more holistic orientations to pedagogy and knowledge. However, conceptually and in practice, several tensions emerge, especially in a context in which educational priorities are contested. In this paper, we explore these connections and tensions with reference to findings from our research examining public perspectives on educational reforms to support reconciliation.

This paper provides an overview of the problematic state of Philippine democracy that has long been attributed to the nation's history of colonial rule, widespread poverty and inequality, oligarchic structures, and dysfunctional institutions. It focuses on the role of education and Social Studies Education, specifically, in cultivating in Filipino citizens skills and attitudes necessary for active participation in deliberative democracy. Drawing from Dewey's philosophy of progressivist and democratic education, Peirce's notion of community of inquiry, as well as Lipman's Philosophy for/with Children, it sketches how Social Studies situated in classroom communities of inquiry will help develop communitarian dispositions and inquiry skills that are indispensable in a healthy and vibrant democracy. While it is recognized that there are numerous other pedagogies that aim at similar purposes, it is argued that the community of inquiry enables a unique and robust learning process that allows students to think reflectively, explore various contexts and experiences, question their assumptions, identify their prejudices, and make their own conclusions through deliberative, intersubjective dialogue.

Background: Within the current labor market, continuously changing and accelerating since the COVID-19 crisis (World Economic Forum, 2021), the educational system must offer a pedagogical alternative to face and anticipate these 21st century changes and demands (OECD, 2018). Based on the four-dimensional education framework, from the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR), the online learning literature, and students' perspectives, the Beyond Education (BE) organization has proposed a series of interactive online pedagogical programs aiming to develop 21st-century competencies in school-age students. Methods: The aim of this paper is to propose both quantitative and qualitative data analyses of the first pilot program: "BE a Global Citizen" through a semi-experimental study, using a mixed-method approach, analyzing the pre- and post-tests results of 26 students aged 16 to 18 years old. Results: Analyses presented evidence of the program's efficacy at developing 21st century competencies in students, particularly those competencies targeted by the program, which were significantly increased. Conclusions: Although these are promising results, a replicability study needs to be done on a larger sample in order to generalize the results.

Purpose: Scholars are increasingly paying attention to the characteristics of effective citizenship education. The systematic use of data to maximise student learning, also called an output-driven approach, is often presented as a powerful predictor of student outcomes. However, its effectiveness has not been studied in citizenship education. Therefore, this paper aims to theoretically reflect on whether an output-driven approach is also feasible for citizenship education. Methodology: We distinguish five building blocks of an output-driven approach and elaborate on their applicability in citizenship education. While doing so, we draw attention to the normative notion in citizenship education and the quality and availability of measurement instruments for citizenship competences. Both may challenge the application of an output-driven approach, particularly given the relatively young tradition of measuring citizenship competences. Findings: We conclude that an output-driven approach in citizenship education seems feasible, provided that the characteristics of citizenship education are carefully considered.

Purpose: The paper maps recent developments in civics and social education in primary and lower secondary Romanian education systems, pointing to significant curriculum changes, within the broader competence-based curriculum reform. The analysis aims also to formulate policy recommendations, based on identified challenges. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology uses documentary analysis of curriculum and thematic studies, relevant for the policy reforms and practice conceptualisations in civics/social education. Research limitations/implications: The main findings document the important step forward in promoting civics competencies in Romanian primary education, and social competencies in the lower secondary curriculum. Various challenges affecting the effective implementation of these changes are identified, both at system and school-level. Practical implications: Focus on formal written and taught curriculum. As curriculum reform in upper secondary education is ongoing, the analysis is limited to primary and lower secondary education.

Purpose: The paper provides an overview of the current state of school social science education in Ukraine, whose development is considered in the context of its internal and external challenges. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis of the regulatory documents, school social science curriculum and course syllabi as well as publications and interviews with the stakeholders are the methods applied to identify the mission, content and current challenges of social science education. Findings: The underlying concept is based on universal human, European and national values, respect for Ukrainian traditions and the traditions of other cultures and ethnic groups, principles of democracy, human rights and freedoms. Being a dynamic area of education, school social science is undergoing a transformation under the New Ukrainian School reform focusing on competency based integrative approach to education. The Russian military aggression against the country is another transformation factor that is currently being addressed.

Purpose: This paper discusses developments in citizenship education policy and practice in the Netherlands, and outlines key challenges as faced by the different stakeholders involved. Design/methodology/approach: Our discussion is based on existing research and policy documents in the Netherlands. The authors, from three Dutch universities, are experts in the field of research on citizenship education. Findings: Promoting citizenship education in primary, secondary and vocational tertiary education in the Netherlands has been challenging, particularly in light of the constitutional freedom of education in the Netherlands. Five issues are discussed in this regard: the contents of CE legislation, the normative character of legal requirements, integration of CE legislation in national curriculum aims, clarifying expectations from schools in teaching CE, and teacher education and professionalization.

Purpose: In light of growing attention to promoting democratic learning opportunities in the EU and the US, this study provides insight into student opportunities to engage in the organisation of mock elections in Dutch high schools, and constraints that teachers identify in implementing mock elections. Approach: A survey study was conducted. One fourth of Dutch high schools that organise mock elections through the National NGO for Democracy and Education participated. Findings: Data analysis reveals clear discrepancies between the existing versus the desired (1) participation of student groups invited to the organisation of mock elections and (2) types of student involvement offered in our research population according to teachers. Main constraints that teachers identified are: limited resources for curriculum development; lack of a clear school-policy on citizenship education; and insufficient attention to relevant teacher competences in (post)initial training. Practical implications: our paper concludes with several suggestions for strengthening policies and practices on political and educational participatory practices in schools. in citizenship education. These findings indicate that addressing the material or sensory tokens inherent in such exclusionary discourse may be a useful starting point.

This paper focuses on the relationship between agency and knowledge within the context of rising nationalism and populism. The case is the Czech debate over the reintroduction of civil defence education (CDE). It was abandoned in 1989 but recently, many new and contradictory calls for its return have appeared. We aim to gain an understanding of what the nationalising of education does with actorship in educational governance and how agency is achieved in pushing or criticising nationalist claims in education. The dataset consists of media entries, strategic documents, and interviews. We argue that the populist repertoire intervened significantly in "defining" what is the problem that some groups wanted to solve by a renewal of CDE. This situation stabilised the position of security-military expertise as reasonable knowledge, which concealed the educational nature of the problem and thus denied educational actors a role in agency. The role of the state structures responsible for education was problematised and set the difference of the Czech case in the European context regarding educational governance. We conclude that contemporary nationalists' claims concerning education may be seen as a sign of the changing role of expert knowledge that camouflaged defence education as an educational problem.

The current political climate is characterized by an alarming pattern of global democratic regression driven by authoritarian populist leaders who deploy vast misinformation campaigns. These offensives are successful when the majority of the population lack skills that would allow them to think critically about information in the political sphere, to identify misinformation, and therefore to fully exercise democratic citizenship. Political science has theorized the link between information and power and information professionals understand the cognitive decision-making process involved in processing information, but these two literatures rarely intersect. This paper interrogates the links between information literacy (IL) and the rise of authoritarian populism in order to advance the development of a new transtheoretical model that links political science (which studies power), information science, and critical pedagogy to suggest new paths for teaching and research. We call for a collaborative research and teaching agenda, grounded in a holistic understanding of information as power, that will contribute to achieving a more informed citizenship and promoting a more inclusive democracy.

What if the way we (teach and learn to) speak about human rights crises is part of these crises? This conceptual paper sets out to explore the role of a human rights-informed pedagogy of hope in helping learners cultivate languages of hope and advocacy in the context of language education for sustainable development. Recognising that a focus on agency connects critical pedagogies of hope, human rights education, and language education, this contribution argues that the language classroom may become a space of hope by offering stories of hope, change, and transformation to help learners envision a better future and take communicative action towards these futures. Cultivating languages of hope and advocacy highlights the learners' role as active change agents who assume responsibility in the face of their human rights duties and act accordingly. Thus, human rights-informed language education may empower learners to contribute to living together in a more sustainable and just world.

The United Nations (UN) and Council of Europe (CoE) have engaged in the development of a human rights education (HRE) curriculum in Turkey. The study programme for an elective high school course, "Democracy and Human Rights," was first developed as part of the UN Decade for HRE initiative in 1999. The programme was later renewed as part of CoE's Education for Democratic Citizenship and HRE initiative in 2013. This study scrutinises the course's two programmes with a view to providing insights into the role of international agencies in HRE curriculum reforms. The introduction and development of the course--which is possibly the world's longest-lived example of HRE taught as a school subject--was a product of the efforts of the international organisations. After discussing the political-ideological influences of the factions that held power when both programmes were developed, the paper ends with suggestions to improve the effectiveness of international organisations in HRE curriculum reform.

In a critical review of the South African government's Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications (MRTEQ), designed to provide a foundation for teacher education institutions, a stark deficiency emerges in terms of critical Global Citizenship Education (GCE). This paper thus aims to investigate the underpinnings guiding teacher educators' pedagogical practices in developing the capacities their students require for a critical GCE. A case study research design guided by an interpretative paradigm was used. Semi-structured online interviews were conducted among nine teacher educators at a university in South Africa. The adoption of a case study design with a small sample size restricts the generalisability of the findings. The researcher acknowledges this limitation; however, this study was of an explanatory nature, with the objective of gaining in-depth knowledge of the teacher educators' reactions to the interview questions, rather than aiming to generalise the findings. The study establishes a compelling link between teacher educators' familiarity/understanding with GCE, curriculum integration, and the use of technology in the development of globally-minded, critically-thinking citizens. The findings suggest that the majority of university educators favoured soft GCE approaches, whereas a sizable minority embraced crucial GCE qualities. The findings further confirm that when technology is used in the classroom, it helps students work together and think critically, which leads to a significant rise in student autonomy. However, the research reveals significant barriers, such as a lack of technology, a predominant focus on content over meaningful dialogue, and the implications of using either a soft or critical GCE approach. These results underscore the need for addressing these challenges to effectively facilitate respectful discussions and cultivate critical global citizenship in students.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how three world history teachers, despite their stated rationales, nevertheless addressed and reinforced notions of citizenship in their classrooms, both implicitly and explicitly. In doing so, Erin A. Bronstein addresses the following questions: (1) How do the research participants talk about their beliefs about citizenship? (2) How are these ideas of citizenship manifested in their world history classes? and (3) How do the teachers' beliefs and praxes compare to ideas of citizenship found in scholarly literature? Because a central mission of social studies is to foster citizens, and because world history is a social studies subject, one might expect world history teachers to incorporate ideas of citizenship into their courses. However, in this study, she finds that high school world history teachers from the same Midwestern state frequently missed opportunities to draw on, identify explicit references to, or connect with topics related to citizenship in teaching the subject matter.

Building durable peace through education requires addressing the gender ideologies and hierarchies that encourage both direct physical aggression and indirect harm through marginalization and exploitation. Although formal education systems are shaped by gendered patterns of social conflict, enmity, and inequity, schools can help young people to build on their inclination, relationships, and capability to participate in building sustainable, gender-just peace. In this paper, we draw from focus group research conducted with youth and teachers in public schools in Mexico, Bangladesh, and Canada to investigate how young people understood the social conflicts and violence surrounding them and what citizens could do about these issues; and how their teachers used the school curricula to address them. The research revealed that gender-based violence was pervasive in students' lives in all three settings, yet the curriculum the teachers and students described, with minor differences between contexts, included few opportunities to examine or resist the gender norms, institutions, and hierarchies that are the roots of exploitation and violence.

Citizenship education played a crucial role in the 19th century transition from royal sovereignty to democracy in the Nordic region, with folk high schools (FHS) playing an important role. While established to empower the people ("folk") for active participation in society, the contemporary folk high schools have reoriented from their initial national focus to emphasise global citizenship education. The paper traces this development and asks how the identity and practice of the FHS reflect the ideals of human rights education. The article outlines the ideology and history of the Nordic folk high schools and builds an analytical framework for two empirical studies of student texts. The final discussion applies the presented material to shed light on the research question and concludes by suggesting that the Nordic folk high schools can be seen as a regional adaption of human rights education.

Background: Increasingly incorporated into curricula worldwide, Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is a complex and evolving area of education. As the significance of GCE in the classroom grows, so does the need for insight into professional development for GCE educators. Given that many approaches to GCE have typically stemmed from 'global North' contexts, it is particularly important to research this area from 'global South' perspectives. This paper contributes by reporting on a study conducted in an initial teacher education setting in Ghana. Purpose: The study aimed to investigate prospective teachers' viewpoints on GCE. It sought to explore aspects including how preservice teachers understood the orientation, meaning and relevance of GCE teaching and their views on the debates surrounding GCE's underlying approaches and values. Methods: Participants were 16 pre-service teachers who had taken GCE courses during their degree programmes at a university in Ghana. Data were collected through three focus group discussions and analysed qualitatively. Findings: In-depth analysis of the rich data suggested that participants had generally positive perceptions about GCE, whilst observing challenges and tension in the relationships between local, national and global issues. Whereas some were of the opinion that GCE had a neocolonial orientation, focusing on Western elements over other cultures, others expressed the view that GCE content could be reoriented to address local issues as well. Although participants felt that greater practical experience could strengthen their learning, they believed they had obtained adequate skills in terms of content and theory for the teaching of GCE. Conclusion: The study draws attention to the need for educators to be supported from an early stage and throughout their career journeys with professional development in GCE that invites exploration, critical thinking and challenge.

This paper aims to present research on measuring competences for democratic culture. It describes the development of a multiple-item scale that measures competences in teaching democratic citizenship and human rights through religious education. A principal component analysis based on the 135 items of the Council of Europe's Reference framework of competences for democratic culture was carried out in two phases, in order to construct and refine the scale. The result was a 52-item scale divided into six components. This was tested for its reliability, factor structure and validity; firstly on a sample of 123, and secondly on a sample of 403 secondary RE teachers (2018-19). The research scrutinises the concept of democratic competences as being the ability to mobilise and deploy relevant values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and/or understanding. It concludes that these competences are more complex structures than has been assumed.

Universities are a formative scenario that transforms reality and their actions must go beyond commitment and citizen solidarity. The objective of this review article is to present a study on the conceptualization, definition and education in values, and an analysis of the theoretical-methodological referents of University Social Responsibility. Systematic literature review and bibliometric analyses were carried out in the programs VOSviewer version 1.6.19 and Connected Papers. The results show that strengthening the sense of identity and belonging of the competent professional committed to academic, economic, social and environmental actions, with respect to the place where he/she studies, lives and works, is fundamental to achieve transformations in order to improve the quality of citizenship education. In conclusion, it is necessary to continue stimulating the apprehension of the value of university social responsibility in higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While education is often seen as a main strategy for enabling sustainable futures, youth question the ability of modern schooling to provide them with the necessary tools to mitigate our current planetary crises. In this paper, we argue for the need for more critical insight into how youth understand and envision sustainability. The paper is based on a pedagogical intervention study, with a design inspired by decolonial pedagogy (Pashby & Sund, 2019, p. 38). Data was collected in two interconnected workshops at three Norwegian upper secondary schools. We share reflections communicated by students in conversations during the workshops. The material shows that although the students display criticality and an acknowledgement of the need for alternative ways of thinking, they also express a frustration over not being provided with the necessary tools to express this critique through their current education. We argue that if sustainability is to provide an educational avenue of hope and change, it requires tools that can help students challenge the limitations of modern-colonial habits of being and knowing. As the students suggest themselves, there is also a need for making space for more creative and imaginative pedagogical practices in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article to the special issue "Dialogic pedagogy and democratic education" aims to reflect upon the process of putting this special issue together and to pinpoint some of the most relevant aspects of the articles collected within the issue. Therefore, reverberating one of the editors' perspectives, not only is this paper meant to introduce the DP J readers to the texts compiled in the volume, as well as it is dedicated to giving you, dear reader, a glimpse of the journey taken by the editors and authors. It also tries and situates the issue in its social and historic chronotope to justify the ever-so-present appeal to reinforce, advocate and share theoretical discussions as well as practical accounts which focus on dialogic and democratic educational efforts - both distant and more recent events - that took place in different contexts, and different parts in the world. It's claimed that the several accounts and discussions highlighted in the papers in this special issue provide DP J readers with both hints and strong, factual proposals which might foster new ideas and further actions by those who want to consider dialogic/democratic education either as an end or/and as an act of/for social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a dominant genre of academic writing, research papers can be considered as the locus of reproduction concerning asymmetrical power relations and dominance. Through a purposive sampling consisting of the analysis and evaluation of an argument, the purpose of this study was to divulge the power and ideology latent in the discussion section of the research articles to raise second language learners' awareness of the epistemological foundations and methodological goals and values of the ideologies behind the texts as social structures. By using a practical reasoning framework as an evaluative tool to analyze a text presented in the discussion part of arguments published in research articles, the analysis revealed that the scientific viewpoints exhibit themselves as the premises of these arguments. These world views maintain the dominance of the papers on global academic and social discourses. Understanding the ideological purpose of the article genre is crucial for promoting democratic and equitable education. This assertion highlights the importance of recognizing this function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the perceptions of teachers on how GCE promotes problem-solving skills and conflict resolution in Nigeria. The paper adopted a qualitative research approach of phenomenological design. The purposive sampling technique was used to select 18 participants across the 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria. A semi-structured video conferencing interview was used as a dialogic forum about how GCE promotes problem-solving skills and conflict resolution. The findings revealed that the best approach to use in balancing perceptions on any issues about peace, conflict and social justice is the development of positive values and attitudes by engaging students with transformational pedagogies. National curriculum content needs to be relative to the needs of the learning environment in Nigeria. A national Continuous Professional Teacher Development Programme (CPTD) is required to create a community of Teachers with global skills. This will enable the development of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. The paper concludes that the knowledge of GCE can go a long way in promoting the non-cognitive domain to make students more skilled to live and work in a globalised world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) faces challenges that affect its persistence, including the revival of national populism in many EU member states. Studies have shown that individuals with immigration histories identify less strongly with Europe than individuals without immigration histories. Therefore, fostering a strong identification with Europe is more relevant than ever. This paper will explore the possible historical roots of different levels of identification and examine if differing access to learning opportunities can explain the difference. Drawing on data from the German sample of the International Civic and Citizenship Study 2016, this paper aims to determine the relevance of individual variables and learning opportunities for the development of students' identification with Europe. Multilevel analyses at individual and classroom level were conducted introducing different independent variables. Results show that having no immigration history from outside the EU, being Christian or atheist, and learning about Europe at school are predictors of a stronger level of identification with Europe. The effect of having an immigration history from outside the EU loses significance when socio-economic status classroom composition is entered into the model. We conclude that differences in identification are not due to different access to learning opportunities, but likely due to personal characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the eco-justice ethical criticism, which is the basic methodology of research in this paper, the authors attempt to weave the concept of personal identity as a dialogical virtue, while linked to the process of interaction with a human and, inevitably, more-than-human "otherness", commonly referred to as Nature or the holistic other. Such a gesture serves to go beyond Humanism and turn to what Posthumanism could mean, in order to overcome the questionable narcissistic, supernaturalizing and predatory attitude of the latter. This gives way to seeking groundings for eco-justice ethics, by pointing to a dispossessment and dispossession of the self as a contribution to a new, after all, more intimate degree of relationship mediated by the forms the value love may assume. In line with these assumptions, a new paradigm of education for citizenship is proposed, with relation to alterity and an indispensable form of non-reproductive emancipation, not giving up on the critical exercise of unmasking the practices of naturalization of injustice, namely through carrying out the parrhesiastic function of telling a truth to power. This not only resituates the problem in the educational field, as in the awareness of the more-than-human to be considered, but it also looks for the caring about the natural and human (material and immaterial) "commons". Finally, the main goal of this paper is to redress possible imbalances between the conditions provided by power and the legitimate expectations of peoples, including their eco-systems, without losing sight of the defined emancipatory ethical framework grounded in the values of love, peace, and hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]