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Teaching Ethics & Social Justice

Resources for educators

The web resources below provide an abundance of lesson plans, teaching guides, and articles related to a variety of social justice and human rights topics.

Teaching Tolerance:  http://www.tolerance.org/teach/

Includes thousands of classroom activities for teachers from Tolerance.org.

PBS Teacher Source: http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/

Home to a searchable database of lesson plans.

Rethinking Schools Online: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/

Includes a searchable archive of past articles, and also offers an extensive library of discipline-specific resources available for purchase.

National Geographic’s Education Guide: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/education/

Educator resources from a geographic perspective, also overlapping with sustainability, diversity, and the human condition.

Facing History and Ourselves: http://www.facinghistory.org/

Seeks to “...engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry.” Focuses primarily on the Holocaust, but also covers other examples of genocide.

Human Rights Education Associates: http://www.hrea.org/index.php

Offers study guides introducing a variety of social issues, several lengthy teaching guides, and well as professional resources for teachers of human rights.

Ed Change: http://www.edchange.org/

Connects educators dedicated to equity, diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice and offers opportunities for collaboration on resources, workshops, and projects that contribute to progressive change.

Educators for Social Responsibility: http://www.esrnational.org/

Aim to “make teaching social responsibility a core practice in education so that young people develop the convictions and skills to shape a safe, sustainable, democratic, and just world.”

Teaching for Change: http://www.teachingforchange.org/

An impressive catalog of books that challenge educators to teach from a social justice perspective.

We also recommend the following print resources:

Bigelow, Bill, Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Barbara Miner and Bob Peterson, eds.  1994. Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice (Vol. 1). Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Karp, Stan, Brenda Harvey, Larry Miller, and Bill Bigelow, eds.  2001. Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice (Vol. 2).  Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Makler, Andra.  2000.  “What does justice look like?”  In Andra Makler and Ruth Shagoury Hubbard (eds.), Teaching for Justice in the Social Studies Classroom: Millions of Intricate Moves (pp. 209-222).  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Adams, Maurianne, et. al., eds. 2000. Readings for Diversity and Social Justice: An Anthology on Racism, Antisemitism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism & Classism. Routledge.

Adams, Maurianne, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, eds. 1997.  Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge.

Ayers, William, Jean Ann Hunt, and Therese Quinn, eds. 1998. Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader. New York: Teachers College Press/New Press.

Christensen, Linda. 2000.  Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word.  Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

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