Comfort Women: Enhancing Students’ Global Awareness through Human Right Education

Abstract

Teaching about the comfort women of World War II offers a compelling case study for the social studies classroom and human rights education. The topic will educate students to become knowledgeable about the larger world and its dark histories that have been omitted or scarcely mentioned in U.S. history textbooks. This article provides high school social studies teachers with the historical background of comfort women, rationales for including this topic in social studies curriculum, and teaching strategies and resources that teachers can use in their classrooms.     

Ready,Set, Go … Again: Renewing an Academy–Agency Child Welfare Partnership

This article presents a case study of the renewed partnership between a midwestern public child welfare agency and a midwestern university school of social work. The partnership, which includes educating BSW and MSW students, preparing frontline child welfare case managers, and providing leadership training for supervisors and managers, demonstrates relational capital, relational embeddedness, and transparency, all of which are criteria for trust and strong partnerships. We discuss the unique development of collaborative relationships through the history of the partnership. This study provides an exemplar of how the academy and the agency communities can inform each other to enhance the well-being of children and families.     

School Counselors Supporting African Immigrant Students' Career Development: A Case Study

School counselors play a critical role in preparing adolescent immigrant students to be college and career ready by attending to the complex variables that promote and inhibit career development. This article provides an illustrative case study of a Somali immigrant student's educational journey to highlight the academic and familial challenges that she encountered while attending U.S. schools. Through this case study, the authors discuss the issues immigrant high school students experience and present culturally responsive practices that school counselors can use to address career development. These culturally responsive practices include developing a strong knowledge of students’ backgrounds and cultures, designing small group interventions that are timely and sensitive to immigrant students’ needs, and strengthening school–family partnerships.     

SPECIAL EDUCATION OR RACIAL SEGREGATION: Understanding Variation in the Representation of Black Students in Educable Mentally Handicapped Programs

The disproportionate representation of black students in special education programs has been well documented, yet explanations for the overrepresentation are rare. Using a unique sample of U.S. public school districts (N = 981), this article examines the effects of local racial and political-economic structures, school district characteristics, and school desegregation politics on the representation of black students in educable mentally handicapped (EMH) programs. The findings demonstrate that a minority presence in the school district and economic resources and black political resources in the community as well as various dimensions of school desegregation politics are associated with the representation of black students in EMH programs. This research provides further evidence that racial differences in educational placement are related to structures of opportunity in school districts and the communities they serve and that the placement process should be the focus of continued study.     

The Unintended Effects of Private School Competition

We examine whether competition from private schools improvespublic school performance and expenditure. It is difficult methodologicallyto isolate the effect of competition, but we use new measuresof competition in both the public and the private school sectorand a data set comprising detailed background information onmore than 35,000 public school students in the Danish vouchersystem. This design provides a relatively firm support for theconclusion that competition does not improve achievement ofpublic school students but that it increases public expenditureper student. Finally, we argue that there may be several goodreasons for this.     

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND SCHOOL SEGREGATION IN HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA, 1987–1999

This article draws upon the political economy and urban ecology of race perspectives to examine trends in school segregation for schools located various distances from environmental hazards. We study trends in segregation among eighty-four public grade schools between the years of 1987 and 1999 in the Hillsborough County (Florida) School District. After controlling for the percentage of students eligible for free lunch, we find that grade schools nearer to environmental hazards became disproportionately black and Hispanic while grade schools situated farther from hazards became disproportionately white. These results are consistent with a political economy of race perspective. We argue that the observed relationship between public school racial and ethnic composition and environmental hazards is likely the result of long-term historical processes that shaped geographic patterns of racial segregation.     

The School Success Profile Online

SUMMARY

This article provides an overview of the purposes, development, and implementation of the School Success Profile Online (SSP)–a computerized, self-report survey for middle and high school students. The SSP takes advantage of World Wide Web technology and the increasing access of public schools to computers and the Internet to assess students' perceptions of their neighborhoods, schools, peers, and families, as well as their own psychological and physical health and school performance. The individual and group profiles generated by the SSP can help school social workers identify areas of concern, plan their interventions with students, and evaluate the impact of their efforts at the end of interventions.     

The Social Studies Teacher and the Course in Occupations

Introducing students to the segregated history of America's public beaches and pools can provide teachers with a novel approach to the study of racism in U.S. history. While most students are aware of segregation in housing, schools, and theaters, many are surprised to learn about the segregated history of America's public waters. This article provides a brief history of America's segregated public beaches and pools using Florida as a case study, offers pedagogic strategies, and presents resources that are helpful for teaching about this important period in U.S. history.     

Comparison of the educational deficiencies of delinquent and nondelinquent students

This article assesses the differences in educational deficiencies between a statewide sample of delinquent students and a matched sample of nondelinquent students. Employing a research design that controls for a series of relevant individual and school variables, the study's findings document that delinquent students are characterized by a series of disproportionate educational deficiencies as compared to their nondelinquent student counterparts. Delinquent students were found to attain lower grade point averages, have poorer school attendance records, be retained more often in the same grade, and receive more school disciplinary actions. The article concludes that these documented educational deficiencies may play an integral role in the process of delinquency and, therefore, pose a number of public policy implications in relation to the prevention and treatment of delinquency.     

Restoring Hope for Syrian Refugees: Social Support Students Need to Excel at School

This qualitative, phenomenological case study was designed to elicit Syrian refugee students’ perceptions regarding the individuals who provide them with the social support needed for academic success. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 male Syrian eighth graders at a public middle school in Lebanon. House's social support framework guided this study and served as the theoretical lens through which data were collected and analysed. Findings from this study revealed teachers, supervisors, and administrators as expected major providers of the social supports that Syrian refugee students need to excel in their studies. However, when students do not find support where they might expect it to be, they adopt coping strategies such as independence, perseverance, self-efficacy, and peer-teaching. These findings are of primary importance to school administrators, humanitarian aid agencies, and policymakers. The article concludes with recommendations for practice and future research.     

The Leadership Role of School Administrators in Intercultural Education

Implementation of effective school programs of intercultural education require the supportive leadership of school administrators. This article provides school administrators, especially those whose schools are being heavily impacted with the diversity resulting from immigration, with an action plan for providing culturally responsive learning experiences for all students. In addition to the four steps of this action plan, the article also provides examples and references to the literature to support school administrators in building more culturally sensitive learning communities.     

Building community-engaged practicum units through anchor institutions: The case of Southside Initiative

ABSTRACT

This article provides the assessment results from a community-engaged field education unit for social work students situated within a neighborhood setting in the South-Central region of the United States. A community-university partnership between several community institutions and a school of social work created the Southside Initiative (SSI) as a means to build capacity within the Oaks neighborhood. This neighborhood lacked professional social workers but was rich in other types of assets. The lessons learned from this initiative provide preliminary understanding about the benefits, complexity, and challenges of building and sustaining community-rooted practicum placements in neighborhood settings.     

Immigration and resiliency: unpacking the experiences of high school students from Cape Verde and Ethiopia

This article explores the complex factors, both individual and social, that contribute to the resiliency and academic achievement of six adolescent African immigrant students from Cape Verde and Ethiopia who were enrolled in a small high school in the United States. The school was designed specifically for recent adolescent immigrant students. Using an in-depth qualitative case study research design, this study provides insight into the educational and social issues confronted by these students and the factors that contributed to their resiliency. The competencies and social capital that students acquired in school and at home were major contributing factors to their resilience and academic achievement. Findings show that these students had a supportive social network of family and friends who had encouraged them to succeed in school and provided mentoring, and material and social resources that helped them to succeed. In addition, teachers encouraged and engaged the students by having high expectations and connecting them to the curriculum in meaningful ways.     

Introducing the Historical Thinking Practice of Contextualizing to Middle School Students

This article describes the design of a social studies unit about the Johnstown Flood of 1889 with a particular emphasis on how specific unit resources engaged middle school students in learning about the geographical and historical context of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. We also report on how the resources supported the teaching and learning of the historical thinking practice of contextualizing.     

Understanding the discipline gap through a cultural lens: implications for the education of African American students

African American students are disciplined at rates that are disproportionately higher than Black students’ statistical representation in public schools. Coined as the discipline gap, racial and ethnic disparities are present in virtually every major school system across the United States. Because African American students seldom share the cultural frameworks of their teachers, the overrepresentation of Black students on measures of school discipline may, in part, be a function of cultural mismatches in the classroom. This article contains a synopsis of what is currently known about the discipline gap, and sets forth suggestions to address the issue. Recommendations focus on the roles of culturally responsive discipline, teacher recruitment and cultural immersion experiences. Irvine’s construct of cultural synchronization serves as the article’s interpretive basis.     

WHITE ENROLLMENT IN NONPUBLIC SCHOOLS, PUBLIC SCHOOL RACIAL COMPOSITION, AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE

This research note presents preliminary research into the relationship between the racial composition of public schools in school districts and the percentages of white students in nonpublic schools in those districts. Specifically, we ask two questions: Is the enrollment of whites in non‐public schools associated with minority predominance in public schools? Is there an association between the enrollment of whites outside of the public school system and the academic performance of students in the public school system? Using two‐ and three‐level hierarchical linear models, we find that school districts that have more whites in nonpublic schools tend to contain public schools with larger percentages of minority students. Further, at both the school and individual levels, achievement test scores tend to be lower in districts in which white students tend to be enrolled outside of the public school system. In addition, the achievement gap between white and minority students tends to be greater in districts with relatively more students in nonpublic schools. These findings are consistent with the argument that the withdrawal of white students from the public school system is negatively related to academic achievement because it tends to concentrate minority students in public schools.     

The Relationship between High School Sector and Educational Success: Focusing on the Social Background of Private High School Students

This study investigates the influence of high school sector on educational success in Japan. A range of previous research on disparities among high schools has revealed that high school rank (based on the academic ability of pupils, etc.) originated from the democratization of high school. However, given that the democratization of high school is supported by private high schools, high school sector may become a factor for high school ranking. The data used for the analysis are the 2005 National Survey of Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) in Japan. The results indicate that students who enter private high schools have lower academic ability than students who enter public high schools. By contrast, private high school students have greater educational success than public high school students. Moreover, this study reveals that private high school students are generally from a higher social class than public high school students. Given that the use of entrance examinations for private junior high schools has been increasing since the 1990s, in the future, the effect of private schools on educational success may become stronger in not only high schools but also junior high schools. This study thus emphasizes the importance of paying greater attention to the relationship between educational success and the private and public school sectors.     

Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention in a Rural Native American Community

Nationally, the United States has a higher rate of teen pregnancy than any other industrialized nation. Native American youth have a higher birth rate than the national rate. A full-year healthy relationship program, based on Native American teachings, traditions, and cultural norms, was delivered to all eighth-grade students at a rural tribal school and a new group of eighth graders every year for 5 years, to teach healthy relationships and encourage abstinence. This article summarizes the Discovery Dating curriculum and compares the participants in the healthy relationship program to the comparison group, at the end of 5 years, in regards of the number of pregnancies as well as self-reported sexual behavior. The comparison group comprises students in the same community who attended a public middle school, rather than the tribal middle school, but the same public high school. All students had a similar age, socioeconomic status, culture, and ethnicity. Students who received the healthy relationship program (treatment group) had fewer pregnancies than the students who did not receive the healthy relationship program (comparison group). Of those who reported that they were sexually active, the students who received the healthy relationship program (treatment group) reported higher condom use than the students who did not receive the healthy relationship program (comparison group).     

Expressive Free Speech,the State and the Public Sphere: A Bakhtinian–Deleuzian Analysis of ‘Public Address’ at Hyde Park

In this paper I explore how struggles around free speech between social movements and the state are often underpinned by a deeper struggle around expressive images of what counts as either ‘decent’ or ‘indecent’ discussion. These points are developed by exploring what is arguably the most famous populist place for free speech in Britain, namely Hyde Park. In 1872 the state introduced the Parks Regulation Act in order to regulate, amongst other things, populist uses of free speech at Hyde Park. However, although the 1872 Act designated a site in Hyde Park for public meetings, it did not mention ‘free speech’. Rather, the 1872 Act legally enforced the liberty to make a ‘public address’ and this was implicitly contrasted by the state of an expressive image of ‘indecent’ speakers exercising their ‘right’ of free speech at Hyde Park. Once constructed, the humiliating image of ‘indecent’ free speech could then be used by the state to regulate actual utterances of public speakers at Hyde Park. But the paper shows how in the years immediately following 1872 a battle was fought out in Hyde Park over the expressive image of public address between the state and regulars using Hyde Park as a public sphere to exercise free speech. For its part the state had to engage in meaningful deliberative forms of discussion within its own regulatory framework and with the public sphere at Hyde Park in order to maintain the legal form, content and expression of the 1872 Act. To draw out the implications of these points I employ some of the theoretical ideas of the Bakhtin Circle and Gilles Deleuze. Each set of thinkers in their own way make valuable contributions for understanding the relationship between the state, public sphere and expressive images.     

The right to intercultural education: students’ perspectives on schooling and opportunities for reconciliation through multicultural engagement in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

In post-conflict societies, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, education is recognised as a key factor in reconciliation. Yet the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement set in process arrangements that mean that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three constituent ethnic groups (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs) are educated separately. This paper examines students’ right to integrated schooling and an intercultural education, in keeping with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It reports on small-scale empirical research on the impact of integrated and segregated education on students, focusing on the experiences of students who have had access to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s only fully integrated school. There are tensions between the competing educational rights of students and the cultural rights of ethno-cultural communities. Since entrenched political problems hinder the reestablishment of integrated public schooling, the paper considers the potential of service-learning and multicultural community engagement to challenge ethno-nationalist ideas promoted through segregated schools and enable peace and reconciliation.