This text-reader brings together powerful readings that critically situate issues of education in the context
of the major cultural, moral, political, economic, ecological, and spiritual crises that confront us as a nation
and a global community. It provides a focus and a conceptual framework for thinking about education in light of
these issues. Readers are exposed to the thinking of some of the best and most insightful social and educational
commentators. Critical Social Issues in American Education: Democracy and Meaning in a Globalizing World, Third
Edition, is intended to work on two levels. First, it helps readers to develop an awareness of how education is
connected to the wider social structures of cultural, political, and economic life. Second, it encourages not only
a critical examination of our present social reality but also a serious discussion of alternatives--of what a transformed
society and educational process might look like. The editors' goal is to deliberately engage readers in connecting
the work of teachers to an ethically committed, politically charged pedagogy. The assumption on which they base
the text is that educators must see their work as inextricably linked to the broader conflicts, stresses, and crises
of the social world--it is not otherwise possible to make sense of what is happening educationally. What happens
in school, or as part of the educational experience, reflects, expresses, and mediates profound questions about
the direction and nature of the society we inhabit. The text is organized thematically into five sections, which
address, respectively, social justice and democracy; consumerism, culture, and public education; marginality and
difference; moral and spiritual perspectives on education; and globalization and education. Each section is preceded
by a brief essay that introduces the readings. This Third Edition includes many new readings and addresses issues
that have more recently emerged as especially significant--such as concerns about the implications of globalization
and the post 9/11 world, commercialism, violence, and the ever-increasing influence of high stakes testing. This
compelling text is relevant for a wide range of courses in educational foundations, educational policy, curriculum
studies, and multicultural education that address the social context of education, cultural and political change,
and public policy.