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The "International Society for the Social Studies Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. It contains the following papers: (1) Teacher Perceptions of Authentic Pedagogy: A Case Study of Professional Development in an African American High School's Government Class (Christopher Andrew Brkich); (2) Characteristics of Effective Secondary Level History Teachers (Brad Burenheide); (3) Teaching Secondary Social Studies in Inner-City Schools (Chris Busey); (4) Using the 2008 Election to Teach Political and Social Concepts (Chris Busey and Stewart Waters); (5) Culturally Responsible Teaching: A Pedagogical Approach for the Social Studies Classroom (Brandon M. Butler and Alexander Cuenca); (6) The Battle for Stalingrad: An Interactive Approach towards Learning about World War Two (Jeff Byford); (7) Are We Ready for Another Curriculum Revolution? Evaluating the Strength and Weaknesses of the New Social Studies Projects (Jeffrey Byford, Eddie Thompson, and Cody Lawson); (8) Whitewashed: Social Studies and Raceless Pedagogies (Prentice T. Chandler); (9) Social Studies Professors Theorizing: Insights from Two Decades of Deliberation and Collaboration (Richard H. Chant and Jeffrey Cornett); (10) Revisiting Political Socialization in Secondary Education: A Study of Government Classes in Three Demographically Diverse Schools during the 2008 Presidential Election (Wayne Journell); (11) Heritage Language Learners and the Social Sciences (Christopher John Kazanjian); (12) Global Citizenship Education in the Classroom: A Collaborative Canadian Study (Marianne Larsen); (13) Thematic World History: A Defense and Field Report (Christopher Dean Lee); (14) Utilizing a Personality Template in Differentiating Potential Teaching Styles of Pre-Service Teachers (Sean M. Lennon and Jeff Byford); (15) Who's Responsible for Citizenship Education? Views from Pre-service Educators (Leisa A. Martin); (16) SHOW & TELL: Choosing Appropriate Scaffolding Techniques to Make Social Studies Concepts Comprehensible to English Language Learners (Joyce Nutta and Carine Strebel); (17) Integrating Technology into Teaching Social Studies Methods Course: A Classroom Example (James Oigara); (18) You Tube as a Learning Tool (Russell Owens and Barbara Fralinger); (19) A Case for Infusing Content on Students with Disabilities into Social Studies Teacher Preparation Programs (Kimberly Pawling); (20) Universal Design for Learning in the Social Studies Classroom (Kimberly Pawling); (21) Thinking Critically or Thinking or Thinking Historically: Which Objective do we choose in Secondary History Classrooms? (Anthony Pellegrino); (22) Got History? An Examination of Attitudes, Content Knowledge, and Perceptions Related to Historical Fiction in a Children's Literature Pre-service Course (Sherron Killingsworth Roberts, Vicky Zygouris-Coe, and Patricia Crawford); (23) Enhancing History Instruction with Online Auctions (Kirk Robinson and Scott M. Waring); (24) Utilizing Film to Teach Social Issues (William B. Russell III); (25) Images of the Holocaust: Using Holocaust Art to Promote Higher Order Thinking Skills (William B. Russell III and Stewart Waters); (26) Talkin' the Talk and Walkin' the Walk: The NCSS Position Statements Regarding Controversial Issues Instruction (Kimberlee Sharp); (27) Cross-Border Education: A Basis for Wider Cross-Cultural Communication between Thailand and Cambodia (Sunida Siwapathomchai); (28) Identifying Culturally Responsive Practices in Classrooms Serving Haitian and Haitian American Students (Martha Scott Lue Stewart, Kevin Meehan, and Rosalyn Howard); (29) An International Model: Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Cultural Diversity (Brenda S. Thompson); (30) Making the Most of Existing Technology in the Elementary and Middle Grades Social Studies Classroom (Scott M. Waring and Amy J. Good); (31) U.S. Monuments and Memorials: Incorporating the Art of Remembering into the Social Studies Curriculum (Stewart Waters); (32) Promoting Global Citizenship by Analyzing Social Issues and Human Rights Violations of the WWII Era (Stewart Waters and William B. Russell III); (33) Using Digital Storytelling for Vocabulary Instruction (Susan Wegmann); and (34) Film, Arts and Culture as Community Outreach Tools: Perspectives from Singapore (Victor Yu). (Individual papers contain references.)

This study examined partisan elections in large urban school districts in Canada. It investigated the extent to which the existence of political parties in a school board election serves to aggregate the educational attitudes and opinions of candidates. Also, it investigated the extent to wbich political parties aggregate differences in the personal characteristics of candidates. Further, it measured the extent to which their educational opinions and attitudes are related to their personal characteristics. The study used information collected from 29 candidates who ran for office in a 1978 Vancouver (British Columbia) school board election. The results showed that the existence of political parties does serve to aggregate the educational attitudes and opinions of candidates running for school board office. The parties present the voters with distinctly different ideological and policy positions on educational questions. In addition, little relationship exists between personal characteristics of candidates and their educational attitudes and opinions. Finally, the paper concludes that certain advantages do exist for partisan school board elections in large urban school districts. (Author/LD)

This paper examines attitudes toward policies intended to enhance the political rights and representation of indigenous populations. The analysis is based on a parallel set of questions about the under-representation and the expansion of rights for minority groups that were asked of populations in three countries. Election studies administered in Australia, Canada and New Zealand asked respondents a series of questions regarding support for government assistance for aborigines, self-government, and guaranteed representation. We examine several explanations for variations in the support of majority populations for these policies. Specifically, we examine how perceptions of threat, values such as post-materialism and personal identity structure preferences for the expansion of rights. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the results for building support for expansion of political rights for indigenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most analyses of electoral support of third parties consider the correlates of this support at election time. Existing explanations of support for smaller third parties focus on voter distrust of/alienation from major parties, lack of/declining identification with a major party and the strategic calculations voters who fail to vote sincerely. The focus on election time support of third parties can mask theoretically interesting and important dynamics that may characterize trends in support for such parties between elections. This paper develops a dynamic model of electoral support for the New Democratic Party (NDP): a small, ideological third party in Canada. Espousing a social democratic ethos, the NDP serves as a classic example of a small, ideologically-committed third party.The analysis considers the extent to which two types of factors explain trends in electoral support for the NDP: economic conditions and strategic calculations. The economic voting literature finds that incumbent support is influenced by economic conditions in a reward-punishment fashion. While deteriorating economic conditions may undermine incumbent support, it may also be the case that these same conditions strengthen support for small, non-governing parties such as the NDP. In particular, because the NDP is a left-wing party, it is expected that support will be prominently influenced by changes in the unemployment rate. Secondly, a variation of the strategic vote theorem is considered. Specifically, the hypothesis is that NDP support is a function of time elapsed from the previous federal election and expected time to the next federal election. As a result, it is expected that NDP support will be greatest at the projected midpoint between federal elections because the costs of expressing a sincere electoral preference are lowest at this point.The proposed paper develops a time series analysis using quarterly economic and vote intention data from 1977-2001. Results indicate support for both of the central propositions of the paper. Findings will be discussed in light of contributions to comparatively understanding electoral support for third parties. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early studies of Canadian partisanship argued that the concept of partisan identification, as understood in the U.S., does not apply to the study of Canada. This began a debate about whether partisan identification in Canada was similar to the type of attachment held by Americans. Throughout this debate, the role of political parties in influencing the nature of their partisans has been only modestly studied. Other than arguing that weak partisanship is the result of institutional arrangements or the brokerage style of the parties, studies of partisanship have not considered whether the nature of the identification varies between the parties. In other words, do some parties encourage American-style partisanship and others something else? The connection between parties and partisans is of particular interest given the changes that occurred in the Canadian party system since 1993. Not only do the current parties vary in age, reputation and focus, but they also differ in terms of their ideological intensity. This paper addresses the characteristics of partisanship in the various parties of the Canadian party system since 1993. Is Canadian partisanship uniform, or does it vary by party? Are certain partisans more loyal, more intense, and more stable? Do these characteristics vary systematically by party? This paper tackles these questions using data from the Canadian Election Studies of 1988-2006. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jean Chretien was the first Canadian leader since Laurier to win three consecutive majorities. This paper analyzes aggregate election data from before, during, and after the Chretien era to assess Chretien's personal impact on the electoral process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of economic effects on the vote is a commonplace, but the stability of the effect across space and time is not. Particularly intriguing is the possibility that a major effect of campaigns is to prime the economy, and so increase its salience as election day approaches. The body of evidence for this claim is small, only weakly specified, and is already controverted. The paper approaches this question by examing the ten rolling cross-sectional election surveys conducted in Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States since 1988. The basic approach centres on an examination of over-time changes in the impact of economic retrospections on vote choice over the course of each election, The theoretical stakes in the analysis are considerable. Economic priming is presented as a case in point for elections as mainly enlightening events, so the paper will assess the generality of the enlightenment claim. Microfoundations for economic voting remain understudied in general, a shortfall that this paper addresses by introducing real time. This attention to over-time dynamics combined with the variety in electoral settings should also help elucidate the institutional conditions for economic voting. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a vast literature on the possible causes of low and declining turnout in Western democracies. Most of these studies explicitly or implicitly argue that we should be concerned that fewer citizens go to the polls. The argument tends to be that low turnout is a problem because rich and better educated citizens are far more likely to vote than poor, less educated citizens and that this makes for unequal influence and representation. There are two related underlying assumptions here. The first is that rich and poor citizens in fact differ significantly in their policy preferences. The second is that if these non-voters were to turnout, election results would be significantly different from what they are at present. However, while the view that low turnout constitutes a democratic dilemma is widely held and oft stated (Piven and Cloward 1988; Verba et al. 1995; Lijphart 1997; Putnam 2000), few if any of these studies provide empirical evidence for the accuracy of these assumptions; even fewer examine the question outside the American context. We test these propositions using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study. Our analysis entails two steps. First, we analyze differences in opinion between voters and non-voters across a wide spectrum of policy areas covering economics, social policy, national unity and others in order to assess the extent of divergent views between voters and abstainers. Next, we test the hypothesis that the outcome of the 2000 Canadian Federal Election would have been appreciably different if all citizens were to have voted by simulating universal turnout. The paper will make a significant contribution by providing an empirical assessment of some widely held but seldom tested propositions and also by extending the analysis of the consequences of low turnout beyond the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a notable secular decline in turnout in Canada in recent elections, but there has been little research to date on the partisan consequences of that decline. In this paper, we simulate various turnout rates in the 1997 Canadian national election in Quebec and the rest of Canada based on probabilities derived from multinomial logit estimates. In Quebec, higher turnout is associated with greater support for the Bloc Quebecois and weaker support for the Liberals. In the rest of Canada, higher turnout is associated with greater support for the Liberals and weaker support for Reform. Support for the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives is not significantly affected across broad ranges in turnout rates. We interpret these results as support for the conventional wisdom of turnout’s effects on partisan outcomes, and believe that our methodology offers the opportunity to investigate the probable effect of turnout on partisan outcomes in a variety of electoral contexts where survey data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from the Canadian Election Studies to analyze the evolution of gender gaps in vote choice since 1965. It shows that a ‘modern gender gap’ has emerged in Canada, not because women have been moving to the left, but because women have been less likely than men to move away from the left. It then goes on to determine whether the changing nature of the gender gap in NDP voting can be explained by structural and situational changes in women’s–and men’s–lives. It concludes that these changes can provide only a very partial explanation of the process of gender realignment in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I provide an initial descriptive account of the characteristics and policy attitudes of the supporters and swing voters of the major federal political parties and the position taking of the parties with respect to these groups. In particular, I ask: (1) who are these core supporters and swing voters? (2) what kinds of policies do they want? and (3) what policy positions do the parties take relative to these groups? Drawing on a pooled dataset of the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Canadian Election Studies and the voting records of the party leaders in House of Commons roll calls over the same period, I find that while swing voters in general (as well as the swing voters associated with each party) tend to largely reflect the characteristics of the broader adult population, the core supports of each party often differ substantially from the mass public. I also find that, on several selected salient policy debates during this period, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, and the Bloc Québécois often faced tension between the policy preferences of their respective core supporters and swing voters, although these differences - with the partial exception of the Conservative Party - were typically modest in scope. In virtually all situations in which a party's core supporters and its swing voters noticeably differed, I find that party's leader favored the aggregate position of its core supports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conservative majority government produced by the 2011 federal election came as something of a surprise, although the potential for such as outcome was always present. Achieved with just 39.6% of the total vote (the second smallest in Canadian history), the Conservative victory was nevertheless a convincing one. Adding a net gain of 21 seats in Ontario to its strong base in the West, the Harper Conservatives benefitted both from the collapse of the Liberals and the splitting of votes between opposition parties as the NDP surged. Only in Quebec, where they lost four seats (including three Cabinet ministers) and saw their total vote reduced to 16.5% did the Conservatives experience any decline from the vote share that the party had obtained in the two previous elections (Table 1). The question therefore to be addressed in this paper is whether the 2011 outcome represents merely another election victory for the Harper Conservatives or the establishment of a "Harper Dynasty." We will argue that the conditions for the latter interpretation have already been met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults have since long been identified as a group of the electorate least likely to vote. Recent research suggests, however, that turnout among young cohorts is declining rapidly in some countries. It does so at a much faster pace than the turnout among older age groups. In sum, today's youth turns out at lower levels than their parents or grandparents did when they were young. Consequently, the turnout gap between younger and older voters enlarges. The trend towards a widening generational divide has been particularly well documented in Canada and Great Britain. In other countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, the turnout difference between younger and older citizens is however stable through time. This paper contributes to the literature on youth participation by assessing the age gap in voter turnout in a longitudinal and comparative way. After observing patterns in the age gap in turnout, competing hypotheses explaining trends are put to the test. Using time-series cross-sectional analysis, the impact of both characteristics of elections and characteristics of voters on the age gap are assessed. The focus is exclusively on Western democracies for which the age gap can be estimated through election survey data. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research paper which focuses on the impact of individual candidates on the results of the general elections and the formation of government in Canada. It focuses on the impact of constituency campaigns on the outcome of elections, and how a candidate affects the campaign and his party's fundraising abilities in his constituency.

This paper, using the recent debate over same-sex marriage as a case study, concludes that Canadian conservatives have re-committed themselves to winning office and so overcome the 'Tory Syndrome'. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines patterns of visible minority representation in the Canadian House of Commons, assessing whether visible minorities elected to Parliament substantively represent ethnic minority issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties are often portrayed as having a limited ability to influence policy-making. This paper examines the policy capacity of political parties in Canada in relation to their ability to propose distinct policies of their own choosing and design to the electorate and in relation to the concept of the electoral mandate. It demonstrates that decisions as to what to include in election policy platforms are shaped to some degree by existing institutional arrangements and the policy environment, but that the key factor influencing policy content is the strategic actions and decisions of parties themselves. In particular, parties have established the key boundaries of policy debate in Canada and have altered the focus of electoral policy debate through tactical considerations, by what they perceive as the appropriate course of events or by attempting to position themselves in such a way so as to appeal to the broader electorate, including through the use of "wedge" politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News media called the two women competing for the post of Prime Minister in the 1999 New Zealand election "Xena warrior princesses" and described one of them as a "beautifully tempered samurai sword". These metaphors placed the female leaders firmly in the electoral "battleground" while clearly marking them as female. Are female leaders feminsed or masculinised by media coverage of their electoral performances? Our paper analyses newspaper reportage of three national elections that featured competitive women leaders, two elections in New Zealand and one in Canada. We examine the gendered nature of descriptions and framing of the male and female leaders. Given the masculine nature of the state and international relations we anticipated the application of masculine descriptors and antagonistic tactics to male and female leaders alike. This expectation was borne out by our findings, and we argue that the norm of aggressively masterful and adversarial political leadership circulated through media coverage of these three elections, reinforcing the idea of political competition as a battle between heroic warriors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theory of strategic issue framing in electoral campaigns. Unlike issue priming theory, our theory argues that in many elections parties face pressures to address the same issues. As a consequence, parties battle during campaigns to increase the popular appeal of their preferred frames. These mediated frames, in certain circumstances, contribute to modify voters' perceptions of party leaders and voting decision. The theory is tested with data from the 2000 Canadian federal election. Content analyses of party campaign material and media coverage demonstrate how the incumbent Liberals successfully framed the healthcare issue to undermine the credibility of the official opposition. Statistical analyses show that the Liberal framing strategy contributed to significantly alter the election results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTThe paper examines Canadians' views about minority governments, using the 2006 Canadian Election Study. A plurality of Canadian voters thinks that minority governments are a good thing, a substantial change of mind compared to the 60s and 70s. As expected Liberal and Conservative identifiers are more prone to dislike minority governments while NDP and Bloc partisans are more inclined to like them. The better informed are more likely to have an opinion but being more informed does not lead in one particular direction. Liking or disliking minority governments does not seem to have any independent effect on vote choice. Satisfaction with democracy increased slightly more after the election among those who like minority governments. The effect is weak and confined to the most sophisticated fraction of the electorate. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]