Journal of Social Science Education (JSSE - Universität Bielefeld)
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Maintaining Interest in Politics: ‘Engagement First’ in a U.S. High School Government Course
Get PDFPurpose: Increasing students’ political interest has been a longstanding goal of civic education. One way to trigger students’ interests in political issues is by engaging them first in an attention grabbing activity (i.e., assigning them to roles). Because it is important to examine not only how roles may trigger political interest, but also students’ political interest afterwards, we asked: What happens to students’ interest in political issues after engagement first?Methodology: Drawing from Schwartz and Bransford’s (1998) ‘A Time for Telling’, we conducted a case study of three students, who experienced ‘engagement first’ activities in a class, and report on their interests about political issues in one particular activity. Findings: While role-play can help trigger students’ political interest. Our findings show that for students to maintain political interest, they need follow-up opportunities to engage in meaningful activities around politics.Research implications: Role assignment is a good way to trigger political interest, but productive disciplinary engagement can be coupled with engagement first to extent students’ political interest.Practical implications: Classroom activities that hope to support students’ political interest may need to include both ‘engagement first’ and further scaffolds for students to engage productively with politics
Mock Elections in Civic Education: A Space for Critical Democratic Citizenship Development
Get PDFPurpose: Preparing citizens for participation in pluralist democracies also requires a type of citizenship education that fosters critical democratic citizenship (CDC). This study inquires into an educational activity with a long history in many EU-countries: mock elections. It explores the extent to which elements of CDC-literacy, competences and identity are commonly fostered in education related to mock elections in the Netherlands, and teacher rationales in this regard. Methodology: A qualitative study was conducted. Data from semi-structured interviews with teachers from eight schools were analysed using thematic analysis.Findings and implications: Data analysis revealed an emphasis on offering a participatory experience. Five elements of critical democratic citizenship were commonly advanced in mock election related education in these schools. Teacher narratives also revealed how teachers had different understandings about political identity and their role in advancing identity development. Findings suggest that there is ample opportunity to intensify attention to CDC-development in education related to mock elections in Dutch schools. Further research into students’ political identity development processes during political simulations in different political and educational contexts is required to further academic debate about desirable support by teachers and governments in high-quality political education project
Review of the Book: Westheimer, Joel, 2015. What kind of citizen? Educating our children for the common good, New York and London, Teachers College Press
Get PDFConstraints and Meaning-Making: Dealing With the Multifacetedness of Social Studies in Audited Teaching Practices
Get PDFPurpose: The backdrop of the article is the emergence of an international and politically motivated ambition that aims at standardising the purpose and outcomes of teaching practices via various forms of outcome controls. This ambition of standardisation is discussed in a Swedish context in relation to social studies teaching, which, at its core, has highly diverse and sometimes conflicting aims and purposes. The purpose of the article is to analyse tensions that arise in practice as ten experienced Swedish social studies teachers implement outcome-focused reforms in their teaching, and to critically discuss implications for social studies teaching.Method: Interviews, observations and a conceptual framework built on Paul Ricœur’s discussion on the concept of practical reason has been used to analyse tensions that arose when the teachers implemented standardised tests and grading.Findings: Teaching practices shifted from social studies extrinsic dimensions (emphasising an open and individual understanding from social issues) toward social studies intrinsic dimensions (emphasising knowledge about a predetermined content) as a result of policy changes, teachers meaning-making of the reforms, and in relation to external constraints. In conclusion, it is argued that this shift risks circumscribing tools that can be used to deal with inherently complex subject dimensions
Clarifying the Characteristics and Exploring the Collaboration of Citizenship and Character Education in South Korea
Get PDFPurpose: This paper seeks to illuminate the background of citizenship and character education in South Korea in order to better determine a means of collaboration between the two goals.Method: The paper is based on the qualitative analysis of the official documents and law in relation to citizenship and character education.Findings: The paper finds the differences and the similarities of citizenship and character education and there are increasing needs for both educational initiatives in terms of social and national development of South Korea
Class Council between Democracy Learning and Character Education
Get PDFPurpose: Class council has become a popular approach for character education and democracy learning in German schools. However, it is not clear if the expectations are met in social practice.Approach: The data was gained with an ethnographical multiple method approach within three contrasting secondary schools. The study is informed by practice theory, theory of school and theory of social pedagogics.Findings: Logics of the school and logics of social pedagogy clash in class council. Opportunities for a democratic and social pedagogically framed school are inevitably limited. Class council focusses more on personal development and character education and much less on political or democratic education. Certain forms of class council subtly aim at student’s approval of undemocratic practices; therefore, class council sometimes camouflages a de-politicization of the school.Research Implications: A comparison of democracy learning and character education in different pedagogical institutions is recommended for further research. The methodology of reconstructing logics of school and logics of social pedagogy from a practice theoretical and ethnographical perspective should be elaborated.Practical implications: Teachers need reflective competencies in order to recognize the limitations of participation in practice. While aiming at the ideal of the mature, civically engaged and socially competent citizen, the limitations of participation and the responsibilities of societal institutions like schools should be made subject of learning, as well.
The Role of Turkish National Holidays in Promoting Character and Citizenship Education
Get PDFPurpose: This article introduces the history and development of Turkish national holidays. It also describes how these holidays being celebrated overtime in Turkey. Thus, the purpose of this article is providing fundamental information regarding Turkish national holidays and discussing possible role of these holidays in promoting character and citizenship education in Turkey.Design/Methodology/Approach: The article is created based on literature review, document analysis and qualitative observations of the authors with the support of several audiovisual materials that show the celebrations of these national holidays. In order to provide the fundamental information (history, development, and etc.) regarding to the holidays, relevant literature presented and synthesized. Also relevant official documents (laws, regulations, and orders) analyzed. Finally, observations of the authors based on their experiences of these national holidays included in the article with the aid of several audiovisuals materials that provided as hyperlink in the text.Findings: After analyzing all materials described above, we concluded that national holidays in Turkey has some aspects that promote character and citizenship education while these national days may have been lost their spirits and passions comparing their early years
Country Report: Civic and Citizenship Education in Italy: Thousands of Fragmented Activities Looking for a Systematization
Get PDFPurpose: In the present paper we describe how civic and citizenship education takes place in Italy, trying to identify strengths and weaknesses, with the aims both of understanding the situation and of identifying possible measures for improvement.Methods: The methodology implies an analysis of the official guidelines by the Ministry in this field, a short view of the research publications of the last 30 years, the informal observation of the daily teaching at school from the personal experience of the authors in Italy.Findings: First of all we study the concept of civic and citizenship education, and focus on the curriculum of civic and citizenship education (aims, teaching approaches, taught time, methods and means) in the school system, including the school culture and the experiences of participation inside school; we investigate the teacher training and role, the informal and non-formal influences in this educational field, and conclude dealing with the student assessment, and the evaluation of the outcomes. In the daily practice there are thousands of activities for civic and citizenship education, but a systematic design is lacking
Teaching About the « Economic Crisis » Today. The Example of French « Economic and Social Sciences »
Get PDFPurpose: In France at the high school the subject matter “Sciences Économiques et Sociales” (economic and social sciences) deals with the present economic crisis. We study the ways it is taught about: words, and explanatory patterns. Design/methodology/approach: We use a specific approach, that we call “semantic holism”, conceiving subject contents as the product of a dual process of didactization and of axiologization of reference knowledge. That implies relating these contents to the social value system and, especially, to the lexicon, set of keywords through which people must think and talk at some point. The analysis starts from the examination of economic and social sciences syllabuses and teaching resources, and leads us to highlight the predominance of the references to standard economics, but this predominance cannot be justified by the state of scientific knowledge.Findings: We show on the contrary a lexicon effect: the subject key notions have been selected in accordance to the lexicon keywords. Therefore the proposed contents seem far from the objective to understanding the major issues at stake today. Research limitations/implications: Then further researches must focus on the ways of teaching about the crisis in spite of the present lexicon