Search results

In the wake of the 2016 US presidential election and the political turmoil that has ensued since, the need to prepare youth as active, well-informed citizens is self-evident. Middle and high school students have the potential to shape public and political opinion and encourage others to engage in collective, grassroots civic efforts to enact positive change in their communities through social media and face-to-face communication (CIRCLE Staff, 2018). Action civics has emerged as a promising civic education practice for preparing young people for active and informed civic participation. By providing students with the opportunity to “engage in a cycle of research, action, and reflection about problems they care about personally while learning about deeper principles of effective civic and especially political action” (Levinson, 2012, p. 224). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This interpretive qualitative case study utilized Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) citizen typology to examine 30 fifth through ninth graders’ conceptions of citizenship, civic action and advocacy as a result of their participation in an action civics inquiry project that took place during summer civics camps.

Findings show that overall, students’ conceptions of citizenship remained relatively unchanged after participating in the summer civics camps; however, students did develop increased understanding of advocacy and were more readily able to identify the “root causes” of community issues.

Implications of this study add to a small but growing body of literature on the outcomes of action civics programs and may inform the design and implementation of these kinds of programs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how preservice teachers conceive of and implement social actions on their college campuses related to a chosen social problem developed in a young adult novel and to examine how social action projects develop teacher candidates’ critical literacies.

This qualitative exploratory multiple case study (Stake, 2005) investigated 70 pre-service teachers on two college campuses over two semesters as they engaged in social action projects. The researchers engaged in layers of open and thematic coding through the theoretical lens of critical literacies.

Preservice teachers engaged in a range of direct and indirect action and, as a result, experienced varying levels of self-efficacy and impact. While most felt their endeavors were successful, those who conducted awareness campaigns noted an inability to measure the effects they had on their communities. Their development of critical literacies through social action was evidenced in the partnerships across campus they established as well as their levels of engagement with peers and local officials.

While the results of conducting social action with youth in secondary classrooms are well established in the literature, lesser well known are ways to engage preservice teachers in such endeavors. This study illustrates not only how teacher candidates can engage in social action as aligned with young adult literature but also offers insights gained from those processes.

To showcase the importance of digital citizenship in the current era. This article compares the nine features of digital citizen provided by Ribble and Bailey (2007) with a case study conducted in a multicultural setting and identifies the tensions between ethics, religion and cultural norms in that environment.

A case study approach has been used in this research. Why case study? Because it is unique and provides in-depth, unique and invaluable findings. Case studies researchers have contributed to the development of case study research from diverse disciplines. Historical examples of case studies go back as far as the nineteenth century with the biography of Charles Darwin (Stewart, 2014). The dominance of positivism in science in the late 1940 and 1950s in social science sidelined qualitative approaches such as case studies. Although case study research was often criticized for its inability to support generalizations, and thus, provided limited validity and value as a research design (Merriam, 2009; Stewart, 2014), case study research provides intensive analysis of an issue. A Case study is intrinsic, instrumental and collective (Stake, 1995, 2006). Case study research encourages the detailed enquiry of a unit of analysis within its context.

Findings show that current society needs to be educated on the nine aspects of digital citizenship. In the current era, changes are so rapid that every now and then, there must be collaboration and cooperation between different agencies to ensure that the tension between religiosity, cultural norms and ethics would be able to find some common ground. With more knowledge and wisdom on human rights, sustainability education and project-based learning in Civics Education, teachers, students, parents and community should often meet to decide on controversial issues and find ways to ensure that each one in society has the knowledge, skills and values for digital citizenship to grow and flourish.

The article is original in nature and has much social impact.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of recent examples of action competence among young people engaged in democratic participatory action in sustainability programs in Australia. It explores examples of priorities identified for citizen action, the forms this action takes and the ways that democratic participation can achieve positive outcomes for future sustainability. It suggests multiple ways for developing action competence that provides further opportunities for authentic and engaging citizen action for youth connected to school- and community-based learning, in new and powerful ways.

This conceptual paper examines international literature on the theory of “action competence,” its significance for education for sustainability (EfS) and the ways it can inform education for young people’s democratic participatory citizenship and civic engagement. It analyses examples of the development of action competency among young people in Australia, including the problems and priorities identified for citizen action, the forms this action takes and how it can achieve positive outcomes for sustainability. Following this analysis, the paper suggests multiple ways for developing action competence in EfS in schools and communities in new and powerful ways.

Developing EfS to increase democratic and participatory action among young citizens is now widely regarded as an urgent education priority. There are growing exemplars of school and community organizations’ involvement in developing EfS learning and teaching to increase participatory citizenship. Young people are being empowered to develop a greater sense of agency through involvement in programs that develop action competence with a focus on sustainability in and out of school. New forms of participation include student action teams and peer collaboration among youth who are marshaling social media and direction action to achieve change.

It contributes to the literature on multiple ways for developing action competence in EfS.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a protocol for developing students into social actors using young adult (YA) literature in social studies. The world-changing through social action protocol (WSAP) utilizes five recursive steps (P2TripleS): problem posing, problem history, systems thinking, solutions thinking and social action. WSAP is designed to provide secondary social studies teachers with tools to create thematic units, activities and discussions about difficult current issues, such as school violence, bullying, death, or suicide. The purpose of WSAP is to help teachers incorporate strategies to encourage civic action for social justice.

In this paper, WSAP is applied to the YA novel Violent Ends (Hutchinson et al., 2015), which describes a school shooting and its effects from multiple perspectives.

This paper discusses the use of the theoretical framework, WSAP and its five recursive steps (P2TripleS). The protocol developed is a helpful tool for teachers to integrate ELA and Social Studies curriculum in a student-centered, project-based environment while addressing the C3 and Common Core State Standards. The protocol is applied to the YA novel, Violent Ends (Hutchinson et al., 2015) and includes questions and strategies that guide teachers and students to critically think about democratic action and gun violence.

The specific steps of the WSAP protocol will be demonstrated with Violent Ends, providing example activities from this book for practitioners.

This paper is the first to apply the WSAP with a YA text.

This article presents the social studies practices continuum, which is a tool that supports social studies teachers in implementing inquiry-based practices in their classrooms. It was designed by the authors based on similar instruments found in science education and informed by the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards.

The article describes the instrument's creation and describes its use with preservice teachers in teacher preparation programs, inservice teachers during district-based professional development.

The continuum has been used as a reflective tool for teachers and curriculum developers, and as a tool for instructional coaches and administrators to improve teaching practices.

This article offers a new tool for teachers and supervisors to use in improving instruction.

Although social studies teachers are charged with explicitly teaching about citizenship, all teachers in a school implicitly teach about citizenship. That is, in their daily interactions with students, whether specific to subject area content or not, teachers impart lessons to their students about what citizenship is and what it means to be a citizen. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Examining the “powerful” stories of three teachers, only one of whom teaches social studies, this paper focuses on “informal citizenship education” across schools.

It concludes with implications for workers in and beyond the field of social studies education.

Ultimately, it suggests that as notions of citizenship education expand to include informal citizenship education, teachers will better teach students to be effective citizens.

The purpose of this study is to explore the dynamics of critical thinking for informed action within the frame of six sample US states’ Kindergarten-5 social studies content standards.

This study used quantitative content analysis. In addition to describing how the states’ standards present critical thinking for informed action, four variables were included: the enrollment weight of the states, textbook adoption status to advance standards, summative test status for social studies and grade levels.

The results indicate complex variations in context-based critical thinking levels are required by the sample states’ content standards with an extensive orientation toward superficial contextual thinking.

The study provides a new lens with which to make sense of students’ context-based critical thinking, as it relates to the expectations found in standards. It discusses the implications of the states’ K-5 standards on engaging students in critical thinking.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of student voice in secondary school reform.

Through a literature review, it defines the concept of student voice within bodies of research on youth participation internationally.

It notes the ways the USA is distinct and lagging behind. It then looks at the broadening scope of ways that young people have become involved in change efforts. It considers ways that student voice can deepen implementation efforts and strengthen classroom practice. It breaks this discussion into: outcomes for classroom instruction, organizational change, and the relationship between student voice and power. The paper ends with a discussion of the importance of attending to issues of power in youth–adult relationships, including ways to avoid the co-optation of young people.

This paper reviews the most recent work showing how student voice can impact change, with a particular focus when possible on urban secondary schools to fit with this special issue. It updates a previous review of the field conducted ten years ago (Mitra, 2006). Before beginning this review, however, it is important to understand how student voice varies across global contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the philosophy of information, specifically the work of Luciano Floridi, to argue that digital civics must fully comprehend the implications of the digital environment, and consequently an informational ontology, to deliver to students an education that will prepare them for full participation as citizens in the infosphere.

Introducing this philosophy for use in education, the research discusses the ethical implications of ontological change in the digital age; informational organisms and their interconnectivity; and concepts of agency, both organic and artificial in digitally mediated civic interactions and civic education.

With the provision of a structural framework rooted in the philosophy of information, robust mechanisms for civics initiatives can be enacted.

The paper allows policy makers and practitioners to formulate healthy responses to digital age challenges in civics and civics education.