This open access thematic report identifies factors and conditions that can help schools and education systems promote tolerance in a globalized world. The IEA’s International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS) is a comparative research program designed to investigate the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens, and provides a wealth of data permitting not only comparison between countries but also comparisons between schools within countries, and students within countries. Advanced analytical methods provide insights into relationships between students’ attitudes towards cultural diversity and the characteristics of the students themselves, their families, their teachers and school principals. The rich diversity of educational and cultural contexts in the 38 countries who participated in ICCS 2009 are also acknowledged and addressed. Readers interested in civic education and adolescents’ attitudes towards cultural diversity will find the theoretical perspectives explored engaging. For readers interested in methodology, the advanced analytical methods employed present textbook examples of how to address cross-cultural comparability of measurement instruments and multilevel data structures in international large-scale assessments (ILSA). Meanwhile, those interested in educational policy should find the identification and comparison of malleable factors across education systems that contribute to positive student attitudes towards cultural diversity a useful and thought-provoking resource.

What is tolerance and how does it differ from prejudice and discrimination? Is tolerance something that can be learned and therefore taught? Through well articulated discussions, Vogt explores these questions and addresses such issues as: can people be prepared to cope with diversity and equality; how much tolerance is wise and what in particular should be tolerated; what are the direct and indirect ways in which attitudes and values are learned; and do different types of tolerance require educational processes unique for each type? Reading this book will persuade you that the route to creating an environment in which diversity is welcomed is through the successful teaching of tolerance.

The creation of a secular education system was one of the great social experiments designed to break down religious intolerance within society. One element of this design was administrative, involving the creation of non-denominational schools, and another element involved a centralised curriculum. In this collection of essays, political philosophers, lawyers, sociologists, theologians and educators explore the role of state schools in promoting tolerance within 21st century multicultural, religiously pluralistic societies. How may different models of liberalism in the secular state have different outcomes in relation to religious tolerance in the education system? Does a state education system have a role in teaching values such as tolerance, and if so, how is this best achieved? How are epistemology and truth connected with tolerance? How does the ideal of a ‘value free’ secular education mask the values that the secular state teaches? The essays are written from both theoretical and practical perspectives and engage with each other directly to address one of the significant issues of our day. This is the fourth volume arising from a series of conferences on the theme of ‘Negotiating the Sacred’. Previous volumes have included /Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society; Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts; and Medicine, Religion and the Body.

Answers the calls of grassroots communities pressing for integration and increased education funding with a complete rethinking of school discipline In the era of zero tolerance, we are flooded with stories about schools issuing draconian punishments for relatively innocent behavior. One student was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Another was expelled for cursing on social media from home. Suspension and expulsion rates have doubled over the past three decades as zero tolerance policies have become the normal response to a host of minor infractions that extend well beyond just drugs and weapons. Students from all demographic groups have suffered, but minority and special needs students have suffered the most. On average, middle and high schools suspend one out of four African American students at least once a year. The effects of these policies are devastating. Just one suspension in the ninth grade doubles the likelihood that a student will drop out. Fifty percent of students who drop out are subsequently unemployed. Eighty percent of prisoners are high school drop outs. The risks associated with suspension and expulsion are so high that, as a practical matter, they amount to educational death penalties, not behavioral correction tools. Most important, punitive discipline policies undermine the quality of education that innocent bystanders receive as well—the exact opposite of what schools intend. Derek Black, a former attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, weaves stories about individual students, lessons from social science, and the outcomes of courts cases to unearth a shockingly irrational system of punishment. While schools and legislatures have proven unable and unwilling to amend their failing policies, Ending Zero Tolerance argues for constitutional protections to check abuses in school discipline and lays out theories by which courts should re-engage to enforce students’ rights and support broader reforms.

This book examines the historical context of African Americans' educational experiences, and it provides information that helps to assess the dominant discourse on education, which emphasises White middle-class cultural values and standardisation of students' outcomes. Curriculum violence is defined as the deliberate manipulation of academic programming in a manner that ignores or compromises the intellectual and psychological well being of learners. Related to this are the issues of assessment and the current focus on high-stakes standardised testing in schools, where most teachers are forced to teach for the test.

Through a case study of the Los Angeles city school district from the 1950s through the 1970s, Judith Kafka explores the intersection of race, politics, and the bureaucratic organization of schooling. Kafka argues that control over discipline became increasingly centralized in the second half of the twentieth century in response to pressures exerted by teachers, parents, students, principals, and local politicians - often at different historical moments, and for different purposes. Kafka demonstrates that the racial inequities produced by today's school discipline policies were not inevitable, nor are they immutable.

The book addresses issues related to the education of ethnic minority individuals in the multilingual Asian region. It features recent research and practices of scholars aiming to rethink educational policy and practice surrounding the education of ethnic minority students with a variety of language scenarios in Hong Kong and other Asian contexts. It documents how ethnicity and inequality are played out at policy, school, and individual levels, and how these affect the education of ethnic minorities in their host societies. Using a range of methods, from surveys to interviews and document analysis, this book describes the links between language, identity and educational inequality related to ethnic minorities in Asian contexts.