Children's Social Consciousness and the Development of Social Responsibility (SUNY series, Democracy and Education)

Breaks new ground in our understanding of the development of social consciousness and social responsibility in young people and the educational practices that promote this development.

This book breaks new ground in our understanding of the development of social consciousness and social responsibility in young people and the educational practices that promote this development. Berman shows that children's awareness of the social and political world emerges far earlier and their social and moral abilities are more advanced than we thought. Drawing on the research literature in such fields as moral development, citizenship education, political socialization, prosocial development, and psychosocial development, Berman provides educators and researchers with the developmental understandings and instructional strategies necessary to enable students to become active, caring, and responsible members of our social and political community.

Sheldon Berman is the Superintendent of Schools in Hudson, Massachusetts. Prior to assuming this superintendency in 1993, he was one of the founders of Educators for Social Responsibility and served as President from 1985 to 1993. He is the co-editor (with Phyllis LaFarge) of Promising Practices in Teaching Social Responsibility, also published by SUNY Press.