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Social scientists claim young United States (U.S.) citizens have become disengaged in civic life which jeopardizes democracy (White et al., 2007; CIRCLE & Carnegie, 2003, p.8). As a nation, the U.S. has failed to teach students the skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary for democratic life (White et l., 2007). Social scientists claim young U.S. citizens have become disengaged in civic life since the 1980s (Colby, 2007; CIRCLE & Carnegie, 2003, p.4). Compared to past generations, young citizens in the United States are less engaged in political life and lack an understanding of what it means to be an active and engaged citizen (Colby, 2007; White et al., 2007; CIRCLE & Carnegie, 2003, p.4). The idea of engaged citizenship has become narrowly defined as the simple act of voting, limiting the possibilities of citizens in improving society through community involvement (White et al., 2007). However, social scientists and social science educators have witnessed an increase in volunteerism of young U.S. citizens since about 2000. Along with this increase in volunteerism, other empirical evidence has painted a more positive picture of young Americans’ civic engagement (Zukin et al., 2006). While researchers admit that young U.S. citizens are less politically engaged, young citizens demonstrate an interest in civic engagement (e.g., volunteering and participating in social campaigns) (Zukin et al., 2006). Historically, kindergarten through twelfth-grade (K-12) social-studies education has responded, through a civic-focused curriculum, to the needs of the United States. The nation’s colleges and universities have also traditionally focused on the education of the country’s future civic leaders, paying particular attention to teaching citizenship for the common good while iv promoting civic duty and responsibility. In comparison, little attention has been focused on the civic education of the community college student. The primary focus of community colleges has been to stimulate local economies and provide training for workforce development. In addition to workforce development, community colleges have provided access to under-prepared students who are interested in completing a four-year degree at a university, where civic leadership has been integrated into the curriculum. This research study followed a qualitative phenomenological approach that investigated the attitudes and perceptions of community college students and their civic and political engagement. The researcher collected data pertaining to civic engagement from three sources: open-ended qualitative questionnaires, student focus-groups, and a drawing activity completed by students. This research study was conducted in a large urban community college located in the southeastern region of the United States. Wilson Community College is a pseudonym used to conceal the identity of the college that was used in this research study

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The purpose of this study is to make an investigation of the practices of a selected number of schools in teaching citizenship to determine if these schools are following democratic procedures in their methods of teaching. The evaluation is based upon criteria derived from a study of recent literature in the field of education.

Problema: pilietiškumo sąvokos teorinė samprata mokyklose yra pakankamai gili, tačiau praktinis mokinių požiūris į pilietiškumą kelia nerimą. Ugdymo metodai naudojami tautinės savimonės žadinimui mokyklose - paskaitinio pobūdžio. Vaikams nėra įdomi Lietuvos istorija, literatūra, tautosaka, tad reikalinga ieškoti sąlyčio taškų, kokiais metodais naudojantis būtų galima žadinti vaikų tautinę savimonę. Šio darbo tikslas – atskleisti teatro pamokos, remiantis lietuvių dramaturgija reikšmę pilietiškumo ugdymui. Tyrimo objektas — pilietiškumo ugdymas remiantis lietuvių dramaturgija, teatro pamokų metu. Tyrimo tikslas — atskleisti teatro pamokų reikšmę pilietiškumo ugdymui remiantis lietuvių dramaturgija 10-12 klasėse. Tyrimo hipotezė: lietuvių dramaturgijos analizė ir inscenizavimas teatro pamokų ugdymo procese, keičia ir ugdo mokinių požiūrį į pilietiškumą. Uždaviniai - 1) Išanalizuoti pilietiškumo ugdymo reikšmę, bei teatro pamokų ypatumus jaunuolių ugdyme/si. 2) Atskleisti lietuvių dramaturgijos taikymo ir analizavimo ypatybes 10-12 klasėms, teatro bei lietuvių kalbos pamokose. 3) Ištirti 10-12 klasių pilietiškumo ugdymo, remiantis lietuvių dramaturgija, veiksnius, teatrinės raiškos procese. 4) Parengti, 10-12 klasių pilietiškumo ugdymo veiksnių, remiantis lietuvių dramaturgija, teatrinės raiškos procese, modelį. Tyrimo metodai: Teorinis — pedagoginės, socialinės, dramaturginės, metodinės ir kitokios literatūros nagrinėjama tema sisteminė analizė; Empiriniai - fokus grupės... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Issue: the citizenship concept in schools has roots, but practical attitude to citizenship is disturbing. Children have little interest in Lithuanian history, literature, folklore, therefore new methods are required to stimulate national consciousness. Objective of this work: reveal theatre lesson's value for citizenship education supported by Lithuanian dramaturgy. Research subject: citizenship education supported by Lithuanian dramaturgy during theatre lessons. Research objective: unravel the value of a theatre lesson in citizenship education supported by Lithuanian dramaturgy to 10-12 grade classes. Hypothesis: Lithuanian dramaturgy cultivates pupil’s attitude toward citizenship using theatrical role-plays. Tasks: 1) Analyze the importance of citizenship education and how theatre lessons impact pupil’s development. 2) Reveal the details in applying lithuanian dramaturgy to 10-12 graders in drama and Lithuanian language classes. 3) Examine citizenship education factors for 10-12 graders in theatrical expression process using Lithuanian dramaturgy. 4) Develop a citizenship education change factor’s model for 10-12 graders in theatrical expression process using Lithuanian dramaturgy. Research methodology: Theoretical — systematical analysis of literature on chosen subject; Empirical — focus groups, teacher’s survey using questionnaire; Mathematical — percentage data analysis. This work reveals: 10-12 graders citizenship education change factors in theatrical expression... [to full text]

The past decade has been witness to a growing concern with the political, moral and social capacity of young people to demonstrate ‘active citizenship’. Alongside the introduction of citizenship education in schools there has been evidence of increased political and public anxiety about how young people integrate within their local communities. All of this has taken place in the context of broader social policy debates about how individuals demonstrate social responsibility in late modern, advanced liberal democracies. This study investigated how young people define and experience active citizenship in their everyday, real world settings. It comprised workshops and focus groups with 93 young people aged 14-16 living in the East Midlands. Using an adaptive theory design, the investigation utilised definitions generated by young people to build an applied theory of active citizenship. Young people in this study defined active citizenship in terms of membership and status, social responsibility and to a lesser extent, political literacy. Through a process of deliberation, they determined six concepts to be most important in thinking about active citizenship. These were ‘rights’; ‘responsibilities’; ‘care for others’; ‘control’; ‘making decisions’, and ‘respect’. These concepts were explored in relation to the everyday experiences of young people. Young people experience active citizenship differently within and between each context of their lives (proximate, community and institutional levels) showing high degrees of related skills and awareness. Whilst communities and institutions offer some opportunities for young people to test and develop citizenship identities, they also present significant barriers.

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of personal, social and citizenship education (PSCE) in fostering positive self-esteem in two instrumental case studies which took place in two classrooms of 7-10 year old children (N=40) in France during the 2007-2008 school year. The study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodologies including a self-esteem survey administered to pupils in the two case-study classrooms as well as to students in two control classrooms (N=47) at the beginning and end of the school year. Throughout the course of the year a series of semi-structured interviews was also conducted with six focus children selected from each class (2 high, 2 medium and 2 low self-esteem children) as well as with the two class teachers and the parents/step-parents of the focus children. In addition, the study included non-participant observation which focussed on the participation and behaviour of the focus children during PSCE lessons and other lessons through the use of three separate observation schedules. The study found evidence of the important influence of significant others, in particular, parents, peers and teachers, on the focus children’s self-esteem. Although the quantitative analysis of the self-esteem questionnaires showed no statistically significant increase in self-esteem at the group level over time, the qualitative findings indicate that teachers’ relationship with their students, their promotion of responsibility and self-efficacy, and their careful implementation of PSCE practices contributed to increases in individual children’s self-esteem. There was also evidence that the implementation of PSCE activities contributed to improvements in children’s peer relations.

This thesis explores the connections between dialogue, education and democracy. It begins by asking: ‘what are the implications of dialogic theory for democratic education’? In doing so it draws on concepts from the work of Arendt, Biesta, Dewey and Wegerif: dialogic space as a productive metaphor for education; an ontology of difference in which meaning emerges through dialogue; and authentic democratic action as ‘coming into being’ in negotiation with others. It then asks, ‘Can we teach for democracy?’ by looking at recent practices of citizenship education in Britain. It argues that genuine democratic education must consider students as already being citizens rather than as citizens-in-training, and must offer them opportunities to express their values in action. A theory of ‘responsible leadership’, based on a ‘pedagogy of challenge’, is proposed as a means to enable students to develop the skills and dispositions needed for democratic participation. Short courses in leadership education for teenagers are identified as sites to test this theory. Two empirical studies are detailed, which use a longitudinal case-study approach primarily based on student interviews. The first was a two-day school-based course for academically able 13-18 year olds; the second was a five-day outdoor residential course for 16-18 year olds. Both studies found significant development in students’ skills and dispositions for learning, including: openness to others’ ideas, confidence, greater self-knowledge and better communication skills. In both cases, students’ personal dispositions and insights endured. However, lack of opportunities for democratic action after the courses meant that learned collaborative skills were not strongly embedded; this also meant that ‘responsible leadership’ was not often demonstrated subsequently. Nonetheless, the studies present strong evidence for the transformative power of a pedagogy of challenge, which demands further research.

It is widely agreed that effective citizenship, whether in well-established democracies or in those in transition to democracy, require some educational preparation. In post-apartheid South Africa, education policy and subsequent curriculum development placed participatory democracy and active citizenship at its centre. Although South African education policy documents have a maximalist tone in places, they collectively reflect a minimalist conception of citizenship and of citizenship education. The focus of my critique of citizenship education policy is the tendency manifest in the state policy documents to undermine democratic participation and active citizenry, conceptions first developed and put into practice in the Greek city-state of Athens. The conception of education for citizenship does not guide the practice in terms accessible to the school’s democratic community. State policy’s concept of students’ democratic participation and representation does not reflect a representative model of democracy in South African schools. Furthermore, extant policy does not envisage democratic citizenship education that is enjoyed by a significant proportion of the South African learners. This minimalist conception of citizenship and of citizenship education is not appropriate for the South African context. This thesis, further, mounts a defence of compulsion, arguing that within the theoretical framework of current theories of the Athenian prototype of democracy, deliberative and representative democracy, compulsory schooling and compulsory citizenship education can be justified on the grounds that they promote individual autonomy and build social cohesion ― towards the common good in South Africa. The recently proposed compulsory citizenship education programmes are not compatible with compulsory citizenship education that is designed to promote active, critical and inquiring South African citizens. These value-based education documents promote obedience, if not unquestioning loyalty, to the South African government. Moreover, neither the Bill of Responsibilities nor the School Pledge offer possible strategies for getting from where we are to where we ought to be. In the final analysis, post-apartheid citizenship education policy’s lack of conceptual clarity, coherence and consistency can be attributed in large part to the conflicting forms and conceptions of citizenship in South Africa. The goals of citizenship education in South Africa would be better served by cosmopolitan ideals, that is, preparing South African learners to act in a local, national and global scale.

The literature pertaining to action competence in the field of environmental education (EE), and active citizenship in the field of citizenship education (CE), were reviewed for this research. This review reveals an indeterminate collection of attributes that are associated with both action competence and active citizenship. This research introduces the term action-competence-associated attributes to refer to them. The purpose of this research is to explore how children’s participation in primary school eco clubs might afford opportunities for the development of these attributes. The justifications for this purpose are founded in the literature in the fields of environmental and citizenship education, in current educational policy in England, in practice in primary schools in England and in my personal research interests and philosophical principles. A transactional methodology frames the research, which comprises a multiple case study using participant observation and interviews. The data gathered from the two cases of primary school eco clubs, were subjected to both theory- and data-led thematic analysis. The emergent themes suggest how participation in eco clubs affords opportunities that contribute to the on-going development of children’s action-competence-associated attributes. This research makes three distinct contributions to knowledge. The first concerns the potential for eco clubs to enable primary schools to address the non-statutory framework for CE. A variety of different contextual factors influence how this takes place. The second contribution is the development of an analytical framework from action competence that may be useful for other researchers seeking to use action competence research to interrogate their own data .The third is the application of Biesta’s (2011) concept of the ignorant citizen to the school teachers in this research. The ignorant school teacher, by her/his very ignorance, is shown to influence the development of particular action-competence-associated attributes that might otherwise not be effected.