In this lesson students will read to uncover hidden truths about the many contributions of enslaved Africans to the development of the United States. They will express their understanding by writing a text-based claim supported by evidence to show how African Americans paved the way for other marginalized communities to fight oppression, so the principles of American democracy apply to all people in America.

The anniversaries of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, provide us an opportunity to reflect upon who we are as Americans, examine our most fundamental values and principles and affirm our commitment to them, and evaluate progress toward the realization of American ideals and propose actions that might narrow the gap between these ideals and reality. The following lessons are designed to accomplish these goals.

This course introduces the unique characteristics of militaries and explores the roles they play in the societies they are constructed to defend, with a special focus on the relationships between the military and their civilian leaders and popular publics. Topics include a modern history of relations between US presidents and the military, coups and military governments, public trust in the military, racial integration of the military, and the military-industrial (and tech!) complex.

Introductory course on American Government, designed also to prepare for the College Board's CLEP subject matter exam.

 American Government is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester American government course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including Insider Perspective features and a Get Connected Module that shows students how they can get engaged in the political process. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. American Government includes updated information on the 2016 presidential election.Senior Contributing AuthorsGlen Krutz (Content Lead), University of OklahomaSylvie Waskiewicz, PhD (Lead Editor)

Have you ever stopped to think about the incredible risks the Founding Founders took when they rebelled against British authority? They were starting a war with the greatest military power of the time even though they did not have a mighty fighting force themselves. And they were fighting for a type of government that most people thought was impossible. In this video mini-course, Professor Sarah Burns of the Rochester Institute of Technology explains the historical and philosophical context of the American Revolution from the changing role of the British army in the colonies to Radical Whig theory.

The US has a long history of political differences and protest arising from economic inequality, racism, ethnicity, religion, & “cultural” conflict. All too often our democratic processes have failed to adequately address our challenges. Civil unrest and violence have resulted. Expressions of extremism are becoming increasingly prominent and threatening. Please use the links provided to explore these issues.

Designed as a core or supplementary text for upper elementary, middle and high school teachers and students, Building Democracy for All offers instructional ideas, interactive resources, multicultural content, and multimodal learning materials for interest-building explorations of United States government as well as students’ roles as citizens in a democratic society. It focuses on the importance of community engagement and social responsibility as understood and acted upon by middle and high school students—core themes in the 2018 Massachusetts 8th Grade Curriculum Framework, and which are found in many state history and social studies curriculum frameworks around the country.

This class looks at the birth and international expansion of an American industry of political marketing, with a special emphasis on Latin America. We will focus our attention on the cultural processes, sociopolitical contexts and moral utopias that shape the practice of political marketing in the U.S. and in different Latin American countries. By looking at the debates and expert practices at the core of the business of politics, we will explore how the “universal” concept of democracy is interpreted and reworked as it travels through space and time. Specifically, we will study how different groups experimenting with political marketing in different cultural contexts understand the role of citizens in a democracy.

Citizen participation is everywhere. Invoking it has become de rigueur when discussing cities and regions in the developing world. From the World Bank to the World Social Forum, the virtues of participation are extolled: From its capacity to “deepen democracy” to its ability to improve governance, there is no shortage to the benefits it can bring. While it is clear that participation cannot possibly “do” all that is claimed, it is also clear that citizen participation cannot be dismissed, and that there must be something to it. Figuring out what that something is — whether it is identifying the types of participation or the contexts in which it happens that bring about desirable outcomes — is the goal of the class.

Not all people are born equal or free but there is an expectation of both when you are a citizen of the United States. Our struggles to earn the base level of representation are quickly forgotten as we look for another group to demonize. In my unit we will discover why George Washington was ahead of his time with his warning about "factions" and how their existence makes freedom and equality harder to bridge. As we trek through time highlighting issues such as the abolition of slavery, support for women's suffrage, and the challenges that face Asian and LGBTQIA communities my hope is that student understand the sacrifices made to be accepted and to earn the right to vote but more importantly the difficulty in being welcomed into American society.

The “Citizenship Complex” is the process by which groups gain full inclusion. To understand it, one must look to the intersection of law, citizenship and the Constitution. The unit aims to provide a more complex history of our nation, to tell a more earnest story of how the American identity became a mosaic of human struggle, and to offer a more robust and enlightening study of these issues so that as students recognize the power of citizenship they will take a more hopeful view of what our nation will look like in the future. By engaging in the sophisticated discussions of the past, identifying why some groups supported each other and scapegoated others, and learning about the importance of supporting efforts at inclusion, our students should become more informed, open-minded, and ready for the globalized world of the 21 st Century.

The unit will focus on four groups that have experienced the “Citizenship Complex”: African-American slaves, women, Asian immigrants, and the LGBTQIA community. By comparing these groups over time, we will really be able to unearth the cycles behind the Citizenship Complex and understand that American citizenship means at different times in our country’s history.

The unit will teach elements of civics and democracy through the lens of the Presidential election. Students will be asked to research, read, and write about various aspects of civics and democracy, using a wide array of multimedia resources that will include (but not be limited to) literature, music, visual arts, and technology. The goal of the unit is to help students understand the importance of voting and participation while building their knowledge of the election system. The unit will encourage your students to think about government in a new way and connect this remarkable election to their day to day lives. While this unit will be taught during the first marking period, the unit will work at any point throughout the next few years. It is a Social Studies based unit designed for middle school students, primarily in the sixth grade, but can be modified and adapted to fit high school curriculum, grades nine through twelve.

This curriculum unit focuses on children as citizens, and how they can claim ownership of their citizenship. Overall the unit works its way through the rights that children have as citizens and how they can use them to their advantage. It starts with what it means to them to be citizens, two specific rights that they have, and finally how they will use those rights to better their lives. The two rights that we discuss in this unit are education and voting. Those rights are the focus of this unit because I believe that they are the most important to young children and that they will benefit them the most in the long term. Education will provide the foundation for all of their learning throughout their lives, and voting is something that education prepares them for and will later in life affect their community and potentially the nation. I also believe that having an understanding of how voting actually impacts this country could potentially interest them in being active politically in the future.

This course investigates the relationship between urban architecture and political, social, and cultural history of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. It surveys and analyzes archeological and literary evidence, including the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis, the Agora, Greek houses, the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes, and the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia.

Civics is the study of our national government, constitution, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Topics include democracy and other forms of government; legislative, executive, and judicial functions; the political process; and foreign and domestic policies. It also includes a summary of Washington State History and local native sovereignty.

Social Studies Targets:Forms of governmentNature/Purposes of governmentIdeologies of governmentComparative governmentEconomic systems and governmentLearning Targets:Understand how the world is organized politically and nations interact (civics)Identify the differences in philosophy, structure, and the nature of different types of government (civics)Understand the role of sovereignty in the development of different governments and within governments (civics)Compare and contrast democracies with other forms of government.(civics)Understand individual rights and their accompanying responsibilities including problem solving and decision making at the local, state, and international level. (civics)Understand how cultural forces and factors influenced and were influenced by changes in government (Cultural Geography)Identify ways that power can be distributed geographically within a state (Physical Geography)Identify the different types of economic systems (Economics)Understand how different government and economic systems influence one another (Economics)Students will recognize and analyze the ideologies inherent in different economic systems. (Economics)

In recent years both scholars and policymakers have expressed a remarkable amount of interest in the concepts of social capital and civil society. A growing body of research suggests that the social networks, community norms, and associational activities signified by these concepts can have important effects on social welfare, political stability, economic development, and governmental performance. This discussion based course examines the roles played by these networks, norms, and organizations in outcomes ranging from local public goods provision and the performance of democracies to ethnic conflict and funding for terrorism.

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Harper's Editor Emeritus Lewis Lapham for a discussion of his career and the history of Harper's Magazine. Lapham compares print to electronic media, analyzes the corruption of language by politics, and reflects on the incompatibility of democracy and empire. He concludes with a devastating critique of the Bush administration and its impeachable offenses. (59 min)