Russell Francis Farnen Knihy

This interdisciplinary book has contributions from scholars in the US, the EU, Korea, and Hungary from the fields of political science and education, sociology, communications, social work, and psychology. The major topics are political culture and socialization, education and learning theory, and communications, media, and politics. Specific topics include constructive patriotism, national pride, political socialization, public diplomacy, authoritarianism and democracy, political cynicism, race and politics, civic education, gender and politics, the Internet and political media use, and electoral politics. This collection provides a fresh perspective on current issues such as political culture/socialization and civic education/media use. Readers interested in politics, history, sociology, psychology, communications, and education will discover many new perspectives on everyday life and politics.

This volume is a collection of ideas of the past, present and future interrelationships among political science, education, socialization and public policy analysis, using both American and international perspectives and research findings. In addition to a thorough discussion of political socialization findings in a cross-national context, this book also uses a taxonomic approach in conceptualizing U. S. civic education during the 1960s and 1970s, with an update on the state of U. S. citizenship education in the 1980s. What is proposed here is a practical new model for organizing our political education curricula; one which is analytical, allows for a dynamic synthesis and stresses the importance of active decision-making and policy analysis as key elements in participatory democracy and citizenship education. Concluding recommendations, comments, interpretations and challenges to political educators and researchers complete this unique theoretical and empirical approach to political education.