Providing citizenship education that reflects Canada’s diverse cultural make-up and that promotes common civic virtues is a challenging task. This research examines how citizenship education is practiced in Ontario, and how teachers’ instruction responds to the diversity found in their classrooms and Canadian society. This qualitative, multiple case study took place in four multicultural Grade 10 Civics classes in Ottawa. The research methodology included non-participant observations of classroom instruction, interviews with each civics teacher and 30 students, and citizenship education-related document analysis. The theories of conceptions of good citizenship (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and approaches to multicultural content integration (Banks, 2003) are the primary analytical lenses. Data analysis followed two phases: within-case and cross-case analyses (Stakes, 2006). Despite shared provincial guidelines, very different types of citizenship instruction occur, shaped by teachers’ personal conceptions of good citizenship. While all teachers stressed the importance of civic knowledge acquisition and aimed to educate active citizens, some emphasized the education of personally-responsible citizens, while others adopted either a participatory or justice-oriented approach to citizenship education. These distinct orientations lead to different approaches to teaching about active citizenship, ranging from an emphasis on conventional citizenship behaviours, to altruistically motivated make-a-difference citizenship participation, to a more thoughtful, politically-oriented citizenship participation that aims to produce societal change. Teachers’ differing conceptions of good citizenship also affect how their instruction responds to cultural diversity. While some teachers tended to avoid discussing issues of cultural and other forms of difference, others made them integral to their instruction. As such, a predominately personally-responsible approach to instruction tends to be blind to cultural difference. The participatory conception of citizenship education pays some attention to cultural difference, but aims to help marginalized people rather than address historical or structural inequality. A justice-oriented approach, in contrast, is the only approach that recognizes the importance of addressing the conflicts and tensions that exist in multicultural societies as an integral aspect of educating for democratic citizenship. This study advances new knowledge of the practice of citizenship education and offers valuable insights to developing education policy and strategies that strengthen educating engaged citizens for pluralistic, democratic societies.

Providing citizenship education that reflects Canada’s diverse cultural make-up and that promotes common civic virtues is a challenging task. This research examines how citizenship education is practiced in Ontario, and how teachers’ instruction responds to the diversity found in their classrooms and Canadian society. This qualitative, multiple case study took place in four multicultural Grade 10 Civics classes in Ottawa. The research methodology included non-participant observations of classroom instruction, interviews with each civics teacher and 30 students, and citizenship education-related document analysis. The theories of conceptions of good citizenship (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and approaches to multicultural content integration (Banks, 2003) are the primary analytical lenses. Data analysis followed two phases: within-case and cross-case analyses (Stakes, 2006). Despite shared provincial guidelines, very different types of citizenship instruction occur, shaped by teachers’ personal conceptions of good citizenship. While all teachers stressed the importance of civic knowledge acquisition and aimed to educate active citizens, some emphasized the education of personally-responsible citizens, while others adopted either a participatory or justice-oriented approach to citizenship education. These distinct orientations lead to different approaches to teaching about active citizenship, ranging from an emphasis on conventional citizenship behaviours, to altruistically motivated make-a-difference citizenship participation, to a more thoughtful, politically-oriented citizenship participation that aims to produce societal change. Teachers’ differing conceptions of good citizenship also affect how their instruction responds to cultural diversity. While some teachers tended to avoid discussing issues of cultural and other forms of difference, others made them integral to their instruction. As such, a predominately personally-responsible approach to instruction tends to be blind to cultural difference. The participatory conception of citizenship education pays some attention to cultural difference, but aims to help marginalized people rather than address historical or structural inequality. A justice-oriented approach, in contrast, is the only approach that recognizes the importance of addressing the conflicts and tensions that exist in multicultural societies as an integral aspect of educating for democratic citizenship. This study advances new knowledge of the practice of citizenship education and offers valuable insights to developing education policy and strategies that strengthen educating engaged citizens for pluralistic, democratic societies.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from OhioLINK ETD abstract webpage (viewed Feb. 2, 2010) Advisor: Mark Bracher. Keywords: Literature; Multiethnic; Pedagogy. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Vivian Fueyo, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Elementary and Early Childhood Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Feb. 24, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-123). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ59169.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-238). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ71599.

Post-9/11, terrorism is an increasingly common spectacle. Daily, its news has become embedded into the fabric of contemporary life. But as wars fighting terrorism fail to cease the reproduction of such extraordinary violence, what role should education play to expand the freedom from terror? Mired in a perpetual terrorist dialectic, how should citizens of an interdependent world be cultivated? Particularly novel is the emergence of a pedagogical discourse that holds education as both a cause of and cure for terrorism. Presupposing poverty a main source of discontent and schooling a crucial vehicle to social mobility, governments increasingly employ education to ‘counter’ terrorism. Growing numbers of terrorists are being ‘re-educated’ for de-radicalization and social reintegration. Few studies have focused on the interrelations between education and terrorism; of those that have, the deeper theoretical questions have gone largely unasked. Problematizing the dominant discourses of terrorism and the use of education to combat the hearts and minds of terrorists, this thesis seeks to ground the pedagogical expansion of the freedom from terror on a more robust conceptual framework. With the aim to reexamine the interrelationship between terrorism and education, and conceptualize how the latter expands the freedom from the former, the methodology is interdisciplinary and ultimately philosophical. Each approach to understanding terrorism, from political economy to history to sociology, is briefly adopted before being undermined by the next. Through such a Socratic method, each discourse is betrayed by the exposition of internal contradictions and conceptual inadequacies. Because the scientific method fails to address questions concerning what terrorism is, who terrorists are, why the freedom from terror is justifiable, and how education can expand such freedom, the use of philosophical critique and reasoning is essential to conceptualizing pedagogical answers to the problem of terror. Paradoxical and insufficient, conventional discourses of terrorism and counterterrorism fail to address the fundamental problem in such misrecognitions and miscommunications. Found crucial to the perpetuation of the cycle of terror are the monological formulations of absolute moral principles and the sociological reproduction of fundamentalist attitudes and behaviors. Such a conceptual framework implicates the recognition of terror in human interactions ranging from the social to the political. To transform such terroristic dispositions requires meaningful interchange between those with different mentalities and practices. Through sharing narratives and not only criticism, interlocutors can enhance their epistemological and moral capabilities to imagine and pursue different beings and doings. Thus, fostering intercultural dialogue and building interdependency are essential to cultivating the freedom from terror through pedagogical means. From studies on ‘homeland security’ to ‘re-education’ programs for captured ‘enemy combatants’, the governmental deployment of education to counter terrorism warrants more thought and research. Reinterpreting the discourse of terrorism provides a substantively new framework for educational research and imperatives, particularly the cultivation of intercultural learning. This thesis provides justification for such an intercultural education, an emancipating process that cultivates visions of a different world, one free of terror. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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In this paper, students' bilingualism and multicultural experiences are examined as cognitive resources for mathematization. Capitalizing on the view of language as action, and on students' familiarity with certain experiences through direct participation, the study includes a conceptual framework, never used with bilingual mathematics learners, to investigate how bilingual students organize and coordinate actions to solve mathematical problems about familiar and unfamiliar experiences in English and Spanish. The study used a research methodology to investigate two questions: (a) How do bilingual students' mathematize familiar experience problems and unfamiliar experience problems in Spanish and English? (b) What do differences and similarities in bilingual students' mathematization across problems and languages reveal about experience and bilingualism as cognitive resources? Findings show important differences. In problems about familiar experiences, students generated more productive actions, more reflective actions, and less unproductive actions than in problems about unfamiliar experience. As for the bilingualism, students used Spanish and English differently. When solving problems in Spanish, they framed actions more socially by including partners or sharing the action with partners, whereas in English they framed actions more individually, more depersonalized, excluding partners and instead relying on words in problems to justify their individual actions. This suggests that reinventing mathematics and themselves as mathematical thinkers is part of using their bilingualism and experiences as cognitive tools, and attention to how they use each language for each type of problem can reveal substantial knowledge about how bilinguals learn mathematics. / text