There is urgency for teacher educators to instruct preservice teachers in the core tenants of social justice education. This urgency is based upon the ever-growing shift in the American demographic landscape and the responsibility of educators to teach for equity, justice, identity and community within classrooms across the U.S. Preservice teachers report feeling inadequately prepared to educate for social justice when entering the formal classroom setting. Feelings of incompetence in social justice teaching pedagogy expressed among preservice teachers coupled with minimal examination in the literature of the effects of teacher education practices that aid in the readiness to teach for social justice provided the foundation for this study. This study examined experiential methodology that can prepare preservice elementary teachers to teach for social justice, particularly within an elementary social studies context. Specifically, the study focused on two primary research questions: (1) How do preservice elementary teachers in a social studies methods course conceptualize teaching for social justice within an experiential framework? (2) In what ways did preservice teachers operationalize teaching for social justice in the practicum classroom? Also examined was how development of community in an elementary social studies methodology course fostered the understanding of teaching for social justice among preservice teachers. The findings of this study highlight preservice teachers were able to conceptualize building communities with experiential methods to teach for social justice and how doing so created an effective learning community within the methodology class. Although the preservice teachers valued the implementation of experiential methods into their social studies methodology to foster the teaching of social justice, substantial difficulties were expressed in their incorporation of experiential methods in the practicum environment due to a lack of confidence, teaching competence or collegial support. Recommendations for teacher education programs are also discussed.

In time, more historical documents have become accessible through various technological modes including the Internet, CD-ROMs, and local databases. Teachers are now able to infuse a rich variety of resources into lessons with relative ease. This study measured expert historian heuristics in secondary students engaged in analysis of technologically-enhanced historical documents relating to women in the early United States republic. Nine 10th grade Advanced Placement world history students from an urban high school in the southeastern United States were assigned randomly to one of three conditions: paper historical documents, HTML historical documents, and HTML historical documents with simulated, limited Internet access. Using a think-aloud protocol developed by Jonassen et al. (1999), the qualities and frequencies of expert historian heuristics were measured. The findings support and enhance previous research related to how secondary students learn history while performing a task using primary and secondary source documents and the effects of hypermedia technology. Most of the time, students engaged in a simplistic read-and-react pattern, except for two participants who recognized greater levels of subtext. The two students account for slightly more than 50% of all heuristics. Moreover, the students in general failed to perceive nuances between the documents, engaged in presentism, and viewed history as a uniform expansion of civil rights and increased opportunities. However, all the participants achieved some level of understanding indicating that women enjoyed fewer rights than their white, male counterparts. In the HTML groups, the participants moved within and between the documents with greater frequency and nonlinearly. While in the Internet group, forays to the simulated Internet invoked a high proportion of expert heuristics and resulted in statements of clear understanding. The results imply that computer technologies promote authenticity and learner control. Furthermore, expert heuristics can help students manage information from the Internet. In addition, the paucity of heuristics exhibited by most subjects suggests a lack of prior knowledge and inexperience with historical documents. This may be a result of the way history is taught in the schools. The results are discussed within the framework of previous research and the cultural wars.

Focus of interest in this article are the concepts of globalization and civic citizenship and the questions are; what is required to be a global citizen, and how to work with this in civic education. The concept of civic citizenship implies democracy. A citizen is an independent and (to some extent) educated decision maker and actor, not a mere subject loyal to the sovereign. So whenever speaking of a global citizen democracy is implied. But the world is not a democratic place as such. Most of it in fact is quite undemocratic. The question therefore is how it is possible to act as a citizen (as a democrat) in global space. The article argues that this will only be possibly if citizens are capable of dealing with complex societal problems and to understand their own role as citizens (democrats) in relation to these problems. The argument is firstly that problems and issues in global space are complex and can only be understood interdisciplinary. Therefore the ability to reflect problems interdisciplinary is crucial to the global citizen. The second argument is that the ability of self-reflection is necessary for citizens in their efforts to understand, maintain and develop their own (democratic) identity and (democratic) values and practices in relation to the complexity and unfamiliarity of the various non-democratic identities, values and practices in a global space. Therefore it is suggested that students in civic education need to develop competencies of reflection on interdisciplinarity and self-reflection-as-citizen as key tools for analyzing societal problems and to act democratically on them. And it is suggested that dealing with interdisciplinarity requires use of second order concepts and that self-reflection as citizens requires third order concepts

This study aimed to compare 6th grade students who used learning objects and did not use learning objects in their social studies lessons in terms of their academic achievement, attitudes toward the lesson and engagement in the lesson. Further it investigated the teachers&rsquo / and students opinions about using learning objects in the instructional process. To achieve the aforementioned aims, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data throughout the spring semester of 2011-2012 academic year. The participants of this study were 137 students studying at the 6th grade in a public primary school in Bolu. An experimental study was conducted to compare students&rsquo / achievement, their attitudes toward social studies lesson, and their engagement in the social studies lesson with and without using learning objects. Using the survey method, students&rsquo / evaluations of their learning objects were examined. Students were observed in the classroom environment during the experimentation in order to reveal how they used the learning objects. Teachers and students were interviewed to elicit their opinions about using learning objects in the instructional and the learning process. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and variance, and inferential statistics like paired-samples t-test, independent samples t-test, Mann Whitney U-test, Wilcoxon signed rank test for paired samples test and Spearman&rsquo / s rho test. On the other hand, qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis. The quantitative findings of the study showed that experimental group students&rsquo / scores were significantly higher than those of the control group students in the social studies achievement test, attitude scale and course engagement scale. Students in the experimental group had positively evaluated the learning objects of the study. In addition, positive correlation was identified between the achievement and course engagement, and between the achievement and learning object evaluation scores. The qualitative results of the study indicated that the characteristics and design principles of learning objects influenced the course achievement, attitude and engagement of students. These emerging results and the discussion have some important implications for teachers and instructional designers. The study contributes to a well-grounded understanding of learning objects approach and provides a basis for further empirical studies on learning objects.

The current state of the social studies classroom comprises one of uninspired students using unexciting textbooks as their guide for learning U.S. history (Hope, 1996; NCES, 1993; Banks, 1990; Wakefield, 2006). With multiple intelligences gaining popularity in education, renewed hope exists for social studies to produce quality textbooks with differentiated instruction to reach all learners. The purpose was to design a rubric for measuring the presence of multiple intelligences structured tasks in teacher's editions of four 11th grade U.S. history textbooks. Using 1995 to 2007 as a purposeful sample of consistent authorships and similar publications, the study looked at teacher's editions of U.S. history textbooks to create a reliable and valid rubric for measuring the presence of multiple intelligences tasks in the teacher's editions of four high school history textbooks. Using this analytical rubric, the researcher analyzed trends of tasks offered in teacher's editions of textbooks to determine whether multiple intelligences tasks were being offered. Findings suggested that teacher's editions do reflect a MI/directive framework over a non-directive framework, with MI/directive tasks appearing much more frequently. However, linguistic/verbal tasks were more likely to appear as the MI/directive task of choice over other categories. Changes were noted in number of tasks found in mid-1990s editions to mid-2000s editions with a decrease in verbal/linguistic and spatial/visual tasks in The Americans. Yet Pathways to the Present saw an increase in spatial/visual tasks. Hence, it is implied that textbook publishers have not embraced MI whole-heartedly and have not met all learner's needs in terms of curriculum design. Furthermore, textbooks authors and publishers need to incorporate more variety in learning tasks to include other categories of multiple intelligences.

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The current thesis explores conditions for participation in interview interaction. Drawing on the ethnomethodological idea that knowledge is central to participation in social situations, it examines how interview participants navigate knowledge and competence claims and the institutional and moral implications of these claims. The data consists of, in total, 97 audio-recorded interviews conducted as part of a national Swedish evaluation of support interventions for children exposed to violence. In three studies, I use discursive psychology and conversation analysis to explicate how interview participants in interaction (1) contribute to and negotiate institutional constraints and (2) manage rights and responsibilities related to knowledge. The findings of study I and study II show that child interviewees actively cooperate with as well as resist the constraints of interview questions. However, the children’s opportunities for participation in this institutional context are limited by two factors: (1) recordability; that is, the focus on generating recordable responses and (2) problematic assumptions underpinning questions and the interpretation of interview answers. Apart from restricting children’s rights to formulate their experiences, these factors can lead interviewers to miss opportunities to gain important information. Also related to institutional constraints, study III shows how the ideal of model consistency is prioritized over service-user participation. Thus, the three studies show how different practices relevant to institutional agendas may hinder participation. Moreover, the findings contribute to an understanding of how issues of knowledge are managed in the interviews. Study II suggests the importance of the concept of believability to refer to people’s rights and responsibilities to draw conclusions about others’ thoughts. And the findings of study III demonstrate how, in evaluation interviews with social workers, children’s access to their own thoughts and feelings are based on a notion of predetermined participation; that is, constructed as contingent on wanting what the institutional setting offers. Thus, child service users’ low epistemic status, compared to the social workers, trumps their epistemic access to their own minds. These conclusions, about recordability, believability, and predetermined participation, are based on interaction with or about children. However, I argue that the findings relate to interviewees and service users in general. By demonstrating the structuring power of interactive practices, the thesis extends our understanding of conditions for participation in the institutional setting of social research interviews.

Baigiamojo darbo tema: Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto akademinio humanitarinių ir socialinių mokslų personalo kvalifikacijos kėlimo sistemos tobulinimas. Darbo tikslas: Ištirti ir patikrinti Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto akademinių humanitarinių ir socialinių mokslų darbuotojų kvalifikacijos kėlimo sistemą ir pateikti pasiūlymus šios sistemos tobulinimui. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Išanalizuoti Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto vidinę bei išorinę aplinkas, atlikti įstaigos SWOT analizę bei identifikuoti problemą; 2. Atlikti empirinį tyrimą, kurio tikslas nustatyti VPU akademinio humanitarinių ir socialinių mokslų personalo kvalifikacijos kėlimo poreikius, esamus tobulinimosi būdus, bei pageidaujamus kvalifikacijos kėlimo būdus; 3. Atlikus tyrimą, gautus rezultatus išanalizuoti bei pateikti vadybinius sprendimus. Tyrimo metodika: pasirinkta atlikti apklausą raštu anoniminių klausimynų pagalba. Pasirinktas empirinis kiekybinis tyrimo metodas. Darbo rezultatai: 1. Išanalizuotos VPU vidinės bei išorinės aplinkos, identifikuota problema. 2. Atliktas empirinis tyrimas, kurio metu išsiaiškinti VPU HSM akademinio personalo kvalifikacijos kėlimo poreikiai, esami tobulinimosi būdai bei nustatytos pageidaujamos kvalifikacijos kėlimo priemonės. 3. Išanalizavus tyrimo rezultatus pateikti vadybiniai sprendimai, kaip galima būtų patobulinta kvalifikacijos kėlimo sistemą. / Bachelor’s graduation thesis topic: The improvement of qualification development system of humane and social sciences academic employees in Vilnius pedagogical university. Main goal: To examine the qualification development system of humane and social sciences academic employees in Vilnius pedagogical university and to propose the suggestions for system improvement. Goals: 1. To analyze the internal and external environment of Vilnius pedagogical university and to determine the existing problem; 2. To do an empirical research that aim is to ascertain the qualification improvement demand of humane and social sciences academic employees of Vilnius pedagogical university, also to ascertain the existing qualification development methods and the desirable methods for qualification improvement; 3. To analyze the received data; and to propose the managerial solutions. The methodology of research: Survey was performed by anonymous paper questionnaires. The empirical quantitative method was chosen for research. Results: 1. Analyzed internal and external environment of Vilnius pedagogical university; 2. Accomplished empirical research that revealed the demand for qualification development, existing methods for qualification development, also ascertained the desirable qualification development methods. 3. After analyzing the research data, the managerial solution were given, how to improve the qualification development system.

This dissertation is a critical sociology of sociology in Soviet and post-Soviet Central Asia. It explores the construction of sociology as a field of knowledge, academic discipline and professional practice in Kyrgyzstan (formerly the Kirgiz Soviet Socialist Republic) from 1966 to 2003, focusing on the late and post-socialist project to transform sociology from a heteronomous to autonomous field of knowledge and practice. It draws especially on the sociology of knowledge and science to explore the localised processes through which social scientific knowledge and political power have been co-constituted on the imperial periphery. Through a comparative case study of sociology in Kyrgyzstani universities, as well as smaller case studies of 'public science' in the national press, it reveals how sociologists have negotiated a fundamental tension in the institutionalisation project - the separation of the production of sociological knowledge from the logic of political power, on the one hand, and their simultaneous association, on the other - to establish both scientific legitimacy and social relevance for sociology in the republic. The types of sociology that emerge from this negotiation - the positivist, applied-professional model and the post-positivist liberal-critical model - are interpreted not as inevitable consequences of the Soviet collapse, but rather the product of decisions made by sociologists within particular intellectual and structural constraints and through the lens of partial bodies of theoretical knowledge. The ascendance of positivist and empiricist sociology in the post-Soviet period is explained as a deliberate, if often extremely uncritical, attempt to reorganise the relationship between power and knowledge in Kyrgyzstani society and to democratise the latter. Finally, the dissertation demonstrates that academic debates about the possibility of scientific truth assume deep personal and political significance when conducted in the context of pronounced social fragmentation and inequality, specifically, in the contexts of authoritarianism and neocolonialism.

Den här uppsatsen studerar läroböcker anpassade för gymnasieskolans grundkurser i samhällskunskap för att undersöka läroböckernas beskrivning av politiskt deltagande. Syftet är att undersöka om läroböckerna uppmuntrar till politiskt deltagande. Ytterligare syften är att undersöka om läroböckerna fokuserar på någon form av det politiska deltagandet samt om det finns någon skillnad mellan läroböckerna för de praktiska- respektive de teoretiska programmen. Utifrån tidigare forskning och teori skapades ett analysschema. Analysschemat innehåller fyra fält: parlamentariskt kollektivt politiskt deltagande, parlamentariskt individuellt politiskt deltagande, utomparlamentariskt kollektivt politiskt deltagande samt individuellt utomparlamentariskt deltagande. Med hjälp av de fyra fälten har en kvalitativ innehållsanalys genomförts. Läroböckerna, två för det praktiska programmet och två för det teoretiska programmet, har därefter analyserats var för sig och slutligen jämförts. Resultatet visar att läroböckerna i stor utsträckning uppmuntrar till politiskt deltagande. Ytterligare resultat visar att läroböckerna har ett kollektivt och parlamentariskt fokus på politiskt deltagande. Dessutom visade analysen att läroböckerna för de praktiska programmen presenterade en mer nyanserad bild av politiskt deltagande än vad läroböckerna på de teoretiska programmen gjorde. Dock var resultatet att samtliga läroböckerna presenterade en relativt ensidig bild av politiskt deltagande. / This paper is examining the textbooks adapted for the basic courses in social studies in Swedish upper secondary school, in order to examine the descriptions of political participation. The aim is to investigate if the textbooks encourage political participation. Additional aims are to investigate whether the textbooks focus on some form of political participation, and if there is any difference between the textbooks for the practical and the theoretical programs. Previous research and theory generated in an analytical model. The analytical model contains four fields: parliamentary collective political participation, parliamentary individual political participation, non-parliamentary collective political participation and individual non-parliamentary participation. Based on the four fields, a qualitative content-analysis has been conducted. The textbooks, two for the practical program and two for the theoretical program, have subsequently been analyzed separately and finally compared. The result shows that the textbooks largely encourage political participation. Further results show that the textbooks have a collective and parliamentary focus on political participation. Additionally, the analysis showed that the textbooks for the practical programs presented a more nuanced view of political participation than the textbooks on the theoretical programs did. However, the result was that all the textbooks presented a relatively narrow view on political participation.