About
217
Publications
99,219
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5,008
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Introduction
Joel Westheimer is University Research Chair in the Sociology of Education at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and education columnist for CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning show. He is co-founder and executive director of Democratic Dialogue, a group of researchers dedicated to the critical exploration of democratic ideals in education and society. Westheimer grew up in New York City and currently lives with his wife and two children in Ottawa, where, in Winter, he ice-skates to and from work.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (217)
Background/Context
Social scientists, policymakers, and commentators have long assumed that Western democracies enjoy relative stability because of deep commitments to a culture of democratic governance. But those commitments are quickly fading in almost every developed and developing democracy around the globe. In the same period in which support...
Children and Schools During COVID-19 and
Beyond: Engagement and Connection Through Opportunity
https://rscsrc. ca/sites/default/files/C%26S PB_EN_0.pdf
The Ottawa Citizen
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/westheimer-year-onecovid-
19-laid-bare-the-inequalities-in-education
DianeRavitch.net.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rb9ohzj9dro77ko/DianeRavitch-Westheimer.pdf
The Toronto Star [and syndicated to 17 other newspapers]
Leuven, Belgium: The European Association for Research
on Learning and Instruction/Dordrecht
Lead chapter in H. Berkessel,
W. Beutel, S. Frank, M. Gloe, T. Grammes, and C. Welniak (Eds.). Demokratie als
Gesellschaftsform: 7. Jahrbuch Demokratiepädagogik. (Democracy as a form of society: 7th
Democracy education yearbook)
DianeRavitch.net.
https://dianeravitch.net/2020/04/03/advice-to-parents-forget-the-worksheets/
The Ottawa Citizen. ottawacitizen.com/opinion/westheimer-forget-trying-to-be-your-kidssubstitute-school-teacher-during-covid-19
[and syndicated to 19 other newspapers].
The author discusses what it means to be a “good” citizen in a democracy, whether schools are teaching children to be good citizens, and ways to implement citizenship education in schools.
https://osstftoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/SafeReturnforAll-
Final.pdf
Towards a better world? Global citizenship education and the United Nation’s
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In A. Wulff. (Ed.). Grading goal four: Tensions, Threats, and Opportunities in the Sustainable Development Goal on Quality Education
Belief in the fundamental importance of civic education for democracy has been long-standing. But if educators can agree that schools have an essential role to play in preparing students for informed engagement in civic and political life, they cannot seem to agree on what that means. The very same efforts that are applauded by some are viewed as m...
NEPC Review: The Case for Educational Pluralism in The U.S. Boulder, CO:
National Education Policy Center
Teaching About Economic Inequality in a Diverse Democracy: Politics, Ideology, and Difference - Volume 50 Issue 4 - John Rogers, Joel Westheimer
Special symposium on Teaching and Learning About Inequality
(Journal of record of the American Political Science Association, mailed to all 15,000 members)
The Learning Team.
Edmonton: The Alberta Teachers’ Association
Our Schools, Our Selves. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Manitoba Association of School Superintendents Journal
In W. Parker (Ed.) Social Studies Today:
Research and Practice
Current school reform policies that emphasize standardized tests and a narrow
curriculum leave students without skills they need to participate effectively in
democratic societies. This article exposes these reforms as inadequate and draws on
research regarding school-based programs that seek to teach good
citizenship to detail three visions of cit...
Alarms are being sounded around the globe over the increasing commercialization of public knowledge for private profit. Whether you are a farmer, a medical patient, or a library user, these developments impact your daily life.
Knowledge privatization holds growing sway over the choice of the foods you eat, the medicine you take, the software you us...
Alberta Teachers Association
Magazine. Summer.
This handbook seeks to present a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of social justice in music education. Contributors from around the world interrogate the complex, multidimensional, and often contested nature of social justice and music education from a variety of philosophical, political, social, and cultural perspectives. Although many chapt...
The only time I remember my mother speaking directly, and with great sadness, about leaving Germany on a kindertransport at the age of 10, was when I was back in Frankfurt with her some 40 years later. I was 19 or 20 years old. We were waiting for a train together, just she and I, in the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (central station).
In I. Nuñez, C. Laura & R. Ayers (Eds.) Diving In: Bill Ayers and the Art of Teaching into the Contradiction
In E. Wayne Ross (ed.), The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities, Fourth Edition
In Woyshner, C. & Waks, L. (eds.).
Leaders in Social Education: Intellectual Self-Portraits
Costco Connection [5 million readers].
Toronto: Costco. Summer.
In A. Abdi & P. Carr (eds.) Educating for democratic consciousness: Counter-hegemonic possibilities. Ch. 16.
M.A.S.S. Journal: The Official Magazine of the Manitoba Association of
School Superintendents. Spring
Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education,
James Banks (Ed.)
There is an old parable about a passer-by seeing a man on his hands and knees searching the ground on a corner under a streetlight. ‘What are you looking for?’ the passer-by asks. Hunched over on his hands and knees, the man replies ‘I’ve lost my car keys.’ The kind passer-by immediately joins him in his search. After a few minutes searching withou...
Academic Matters. March
Reprinted in University World News. June 6, 2010, issue 127.
Public Safety
Canada, Government of Canada
