Social Issues and Service at the Middle Level

Edited by:
Samuel Totten, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Jon Pedersen, University of South Carolina

Published 2009

(orginally published by Allyn & Bacon 1997)

This book provides a powerful and clear picture of some of the outstanding programs designed and implemented in the United States to provide young adolescents with rich, meaningful, and powerful learning activities with community service.

The book is comprised of two parts with 18 essays and an introduction. The essays reflect a range of experience. Part 1, "Social Issues," includes: (1) "Social Issues in the Middle School Curriculum: Retrospect and Prospect" (James A. Beane); (2) "Challenging Barriers: A Unit in Developing an Awareness and Appreciation for Differences in Individuals with Physical and Mental Challenges" (Pauline S. Chandler); (3) "Implementing an Interdisciplinary Unit on the Holocaust" (Regina Townsend; William G. Wraga); (4) "The Homeless: An Issue-Based Interdisciplinary Unit in an Eighth-Grade Class" (Belinda Y. Louie; Douglas H. Louie; Margaret Heras); (5) "Making Plays, Making Meaning, Making Change" (Kathy Greeley); (6) "Teleconversing about Community Concerns and Social Issues" (Judith H. Vesel); (7) "Using Telecommunications to Nurture the Global Village" (Dell Salza); (8) "New Horizons for Civic Education: A Multidisciplinary Social Issues Approach for Middle Schools" (Ronald A. Banaszak; H. Michael Hartoonian; James S. Leming); and (9) "Future Problem Solving: Preparing Middle School Students to Solve Community Problems" (Richard L. Kurtzberg; Kristin Faughnan). Part 2, "Service," contains: (1) "Alienation or Engagement? Service Learning May Be an Answer" (Joan Schine; Alice Halsted); (2) "Service Learning: A Catalyst for Social Action and School Change at the Middle Level" (Wokie Weah; Madeleine Wegner); (3) "The Community as Classroom: Service Learning at the Lewis Armstrong Middle School" (Ivy Diton; Mary Ellen Levin); (4) "Incorporating Service Learning into the School Day" (Julie Ayers; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend); (5) "Science-Technology-Society: An Approach to Attaining Student Involvement in Community Action Projects" (Curt Jeffryes; Robert E. Yager; Janice Conover); (6) "Calling Students to Action: How Wayland Middle School Puts Theory into Practice" (Stephen Feinberg; Richard Schaye; David Summergrad); (7) "Our Forest, Their Forest: A Program That Stimulates Long-Term Learning and Community Action" (Patricia McFarlane Soto; John H. Parker; George E. O'Brien); (8) "Every Step Counts: Service and Social Responsibility" (Larry Dieringer; Esther Weisman Kattef); and (9) "The Letter that Never Arrived: The Evolution of a Social Concerns Program in a Middle School" (Robyn L. Morgan; Robert W. Moderhak).