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Recent trends in Western civics education have attempted to secure democratic institutions from perceived threats. This paper investigates how political securitisation historically operated within civics textbooks in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. It further evaluates how Māori, Aboriginal and other Indigenous peoples were variably incorporated or marginalised in these educational discourses.

This discourse analysis evaluates a sample of civics textbooks circulated in Australia and New Zealand between 1880 and 1920. These historical sources are interpreted through theories of decoloniality and securitisation.

The sample of textbooks asserted to students that their self-governing colonies required the military protection of the British Empire against undemocratic “threats”. They argued that self-governing colonies strengthened the empire by raising subjects who were loyal to British military interests and ideological values. The authors pedagogically encouraged a governmentality within students that was complementary to military, imperial and democratic service. The hypocritical denial of self-government for many Indigenous peoples was rationalised as a measure of “security” against “native rule” and imperial rivals.

Under a lens of securitisation, the discursive links between imperialism, military service and democratic diligence have not yet been examined in civics textbooks from the historical contexts of Australia and New Zealand. This investigation provides conceptual and pedagogical insights for contemporary civics education in both nations.

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.

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.

Over the last 40 years, K-12 education has seen a continuous and significant increase in the amount of mandated standardized testing. This rise in standardized testing has led many in the field to question the extent to which these tests are affecting students, teachers and schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore the results of a social studies standardized test, specifically, the Florida Civics End-of-Course assessment.

Researchers used population data for seventh grade students and aggregated countywide proficiency rates from 2013–2016 for comparative statistical measures. Descriptive statistics and regression analyses were utilized to identify emerging trends using mean proficiency percentages when accounting for race, gender and socioeconomic status.

Initial findings indicated disparity within each subgroup (R²=0.511 (2013–2014), 0.500 (2014–2015) and 0.456 (2015–2016)). Following an analysis of the results, the conclusion and implications discuss the influence of standardized testing in social studies education.

This is a large-scale project that has never been done.

Barry Down describes curriculum design in much the same way when he claims that in the years following World War Two Australian civics education was planned under ‘perpetual tension and conflict between the imperatives of capitalism and democracy’. The suggestion seems to be that an ideal democratic education is possible, if short‐term political and economic considerations had not prevented this. I argue that this suggestion is naive. The democratic idea is not static ‘short term prudential requirements of the moment’, whether concerned with war, imperialism, fear of communism, industrial development, or otherwise, create the conditions by which democratic society is defined. This definition is embedded in civics education with the hope that children might perfect that society in adulthood. But visions of the ideal society do not only concern civics education, lessons on right behaviour. Rather, the very world children are educated to see depends on the politics and economics at the time that curriculum is designed. The content of lessons, the way the lessons are taught, and the underlying assumptions about what the world is like ‐ all are constituted by politics. Therefore, to understand civics education it is important to delve deeper and locate the epistemological basis of social studies education in the political context of its time. What children are taught about the social world as a whole should be considered before civics education can make any sense. To make this argument I look at the two curricula used at Victorian primary schools in the mid twentieth century, put in place in 1934 and 1952

Due to the complexities of place and the limited knowledge of citizenship education in rural contexts, the purpose of this paper is to examine civics teachers’ perceptions of place in rural schools and its influence on their decision making about the curriculum.

A qualitative case study design was utilized. Four 12th grade civics teachers were sampled across three rural schools in a southern state. Data came from interviews, classroom observations and teaching artifacts. A constant comparison method of data analysis led to the emergence of a major theme: the paradoxical treatment of place in civic education in rural schools.

Participants implemented place-based pedagogies while simultaneously promoting the narrative that students leave their home communities after graduation due to limited post-secondary opportunities (i.e. place-based learning for future (dis)placements). Participants reconciled leaving narratives and the displaced futures of students by emphasizing “the basics” devoid of place.

The paradoxical treatment of place, as influenced by teachers’ perceptions and civic sensibilities, contrasted with theoretical perspectives on place-based education that emphasize inhabiting and attending to place. Findings suggest the need to prepare rural civics teachers for place-conscious civic pedagogies to challenge paradoxical treatments of place and engender democratic investments in rural communities.

This project presents an opportunity for high school social studies teachers to infuse content on the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit into civics-courses. The federal budget influences countries’ decisions about domestic and foreign policy, making the study of the topic a necessity for understanding economic interdependence, as well as active and engaged citizenship. The national debt plays an important role in efforts to balance competing interests concerning taxes, entitlement programs, and government spending. Social studies teachers have the opportunity to create connections between economic and public policies about the federal budget, national debt, budget deficit, and the content commonly taught in high school civics classes across the United States. Our two-day lesson, Examining the role of citizens in the U.S. budgetary process: A case study, can be infused into the civics curriculum to help high school students begin to understand the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit. We model an inquiry-oriented approach for citizen participation about these topics in high school civics classes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish pre-service teachers’ beliefs about social studies in order to expand upon a debate that has been ongoing for the last few decades. While there always have been various definition since the inception of the field, to date, no single, official definition has been agreed upon among social studies educators. The study indicated that there are a wide variety of beliefs regarding social studies exist among Turkish pre-service teachers. The vast majority of the participants characterized social studies is an integrated field of study, although what they included as tenets of this field varied widely. The majority of the participants cited either “preparing informed citizens” or “improving communication skills” as the sole purpose of social studies.

Given the resurgence of Americans’ interest in the national electoral process and civic issues, social studies educators have a unique opportunity to highlight citizenship education and related activities in K-12 teacher preparation programs. Especially at the elementary level, educators can support pre-service teachers’ mastery of civics content, skills, and critical thinking strategies with experiential, as well as classroom, based learning. This article describes how two educators integrated a field experience component into an elementary social studies methods course to increase students’ civic knowledge and model standards-based curriculum planning. Collaboration with local experts provided opportunities for preservice teachers to start a learning community outside of the classroom, connecting course instruction to real-life civic issues.

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.