A new Council of Europe reference framework of competences for democratic culture! Contemporary societies within Europe face many challenges, including declining levels of voter turnout in elections, increased distrust of politicians, high levels of hate crime, intolerance and prejudice towards minority ethnic and religious groups, and increasing levels of support for violent extremism. These challenges threaten the legitimacy of democratic institutions and peaceful co-existence within Europe. Formal education is a vital tool that can be used to tackle these challenges. Appropriate educational input and practices can boost democratic engagement, reduce intolerance and prejudice, and decrease support for violent extremism. However, to achieve these goals, educationists need a clear understanding of the democratic competences that should be targeted by the curriculum. This book presents a new conceptual model of the competences which citizens require to participate in democratic culture and live peacefully together with others in culturally diverse societies. The model is the product of intensive work over a two-year period, and has been strongly endorsed in an international consultation with leading educational experts. The book describes the competence model in detail, together with the methods used to develop it. The model provides a robust conceptual foundation for the future development of curricula, pedagogies and assessments in democratic citizenship and human rights education. Its application will enable educational systems to be harnessed effectively for the preparation of students for life as engaged and tolerant democratic citizens. The book forms the first component of a new Council of Europe reference framework of competences for democratic culture. It is vital reading for all educational policy makers and practitioners who work in the fields of education for democratic citizenship, human rights education and intercultural education.

El libro recoge 38 aportaciones sobresalientes al IV Congreso Europeo de Psicología Comunitaria representativas del trabajo teórico, práctico e investigador realizado por psicólogos comunitarios en Europa y Latinoamérica, agrupadas, según el tema, en 4 capítulos. El capítulo 1 presenta los valores sociales de varias poblaciones así como algunas dinámicas educativas y transculturales de esos valores en nuestros días. En el capítulo 2 se hacen reflexiones y propuestas éticas sobre el trabajo comunitario en tiempos de conformismo. Los artículos del capítulo 3 analizan comunidad -y su vivencia psicológica- como temas centrales de la Psicología Comunitaria y del debate social moderno y postmoderno. El capítulo 4 agrupa experiencias e intervenciones comunitarias en los ámbitos de emigración, salud, política y educación. En dos capítulos adicionales, los compiladores, introducen y sacan conclusiones teóricas y prácticas de lo expuesto el libro, identificando la comunidad, el poder, la ética y los valores como temas nucleares. El volumen es de interés para estudiantes, académicos y practicantes de “lo social” desde distintas perspectivas y profesiones...The book gathers 38 contributions to the IV European Congress on Community Psychogy representative of the theoretical, practical, and research work done by community psychologists around Europe and Latin America. Depending on their contents, papers are grouped in 4 chapters. Chapter 1 presents values held by different social populations as well as some educational and cross-cultural dynamics of today’s social values; chapter 2 contains ethical reflections and proposals on community work in a time of conformism; papers in chapter 3 analyze community—and its psychological perception—as a central topic of both community psychology and the modern and postmodern debate; chapter 4 assembles community interventions and experiences on the areas of migration, health, politics, and education. In 2 additional papers, the editors introduce the book and draw theoretical and practical conclusions on its contents, identifying community, power, ethics, and values as its core themes. This volume is of interest for students, scholars, and practitioners of “the social” of different fields and views.

Towards a Just Society: The Personal Journeys of Human Rights Educators Edited by Abraham Magendzo K., Claudia Duenas, Nancy Flowers, and Natela Jordan Topic Book 8, Human Rights Education Series, 2015 In TOWARDS A JUST SOCIETY twenty-five educators from around the world respond to the question: How and why did you commit yourself to human rights education? Their highly personal narratives recount the diverse ideological perspectives and life experiences that have shaped their work in this growing field."

Is popular culture merely a process of creating, marketing, and consuming a final product, or is it an expression of the artist's surroundings and an attempt to alter them? Noted Argentine/Mexican anthropologist Néstor García Canclini addresses these questions and more in Transforming Modernity, a translation of Las culturas populares en el capitalismo. Based on fieldwork among the Purépecha of Michoacán, Mexico, some of the most talented artisans of the New World, the book is not so much a work of ethnography as of philosophy—a cultural critique of modernism. García Canclini delineates three interpretations of popular culture: spontaneous creation, which posits that artistic expression is the realization of beauty and knowledge; "memory for sale," which holds that original products are created for sale in the imposed capitalist system; and the tourist outlook, whereby collectibles are created to justify development and to provide insight into what capitalism has achieved. Transforming Modernity argues strongly for popular culture as an instrument of understanding, reproducing, and transforming the social system in order to elaborate and construct class hegemony and to reflect the unequal appropriation and distribution of cultural capital. With its wide scope, this book should appeal to readers within and well beyond anthropology—those interested in cultural theory, social thought, and Mesoamerican culture.

The North American Mosaic has four overarching features. First, it is, to the extent feasible, based on comparable information on the status and trends of major indicators of the state of the environment in Canada,Mexico, and the United States. Second, the report confirms that these three countries together make up an incredibly complex, dynamic, and interconnected ecosystem in which humans play a dominant and decisive role. Third, the report raises important and sometimes disquieting questions concerning the sustainability of some current trends. Finally, the report is a reminder that our economic, social, and physical well-being are utterly dependent on the life-sustaining services provided by nature. This report emphasizes the importance of developing mutually compatible economic, social, and environmental goals and policies across the three-country region.

In 2011, political protests sprang up across the world. In the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United States unlikely people sparked or led massive protest campaigns from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. These protests were made up of educated and precariously employed young people who challenged the legitimacy of their political leaders, exposed a failure of representation, and expressed their dissatisfaction with their place in the aftermath of financial and economic crisis. This book interrogates what impacts--if any--this global protest cycle had on politics and policy and shows the sometimes unintended ways it continues to influence contemporary political dynamics throughout the world. Proposing a new framework of analysis that calls attention to the content and claims of protests, their global connections, and the responsiveness of political institutions to protest demands, this is one of the few books that not only asks how protest movements are formed but also provides an in-depth examination of what protest movements can accomplish. With contributions examining the political consequences of protest, the roles of social media and the internet in protest organization, left- and right-wing movements in the United States, Chile's student movements, the Arab Uprisings, and much more this collection is essential reading for all those interested in the power of protest to shape our world.