In this dissertation, I used practitioner research to examine the process of revising a civics course to better emphasize justice. This dissertation relies on the central idea that civics education can be transformed by redefining “good” citizenship and adopting an action-oriented approach to civic education and civic life. This study used an embedded mixed methods design and explored the following research question: What are the experiences of teachers when they implement a curriculum built on justice-oriented compelling questions and how did their students experience this curriculum? This study explored three sub-questions. The first sub-questions that I explored was: How did teachers react to the process of changing the curriculum towards civics for justice? The second sub-question was: Did a shift toward justice-oriented curriculum change the teachers’ understanding of the purpose of civics? If so, how? The third sub-question was: Did a shift toward justice-oriented curriculum influence the teachers’ experiences? If so, how? These questions allowed me to explore if and how teachers and students can shift from thinking about “good” citizenship in terms of personal responsibility to thinking about it in terms of participation in civic life and activism for justice. It also allowed me to evaluate the extent to which teachers can successfully use a justice-oriented action civics project in a time when democratic institutions are in crisis. As part of a team of three U.S. government teachers, I designed new compelling questions to reflect a justice orientation, created lessons and activities that sought to build justice skills and knowledge, and implemented an action civics project consistent with participatory and justice-oriented definitions of “good” citizenship. I examined the impact on our teaching practices and the learning of our students. I found that our curricular shift allowed the teachers to provide more opportunities to students to practice justice-oriented skills including vision and strategic action. I also found that the students experienced an increase in civic efficacy and agency because of this change. Additionally, I found that teachers experienced a renewed sense of purpose and a redefined idea of rigor after participating in this study. While locally generated, these findings have global implications for teaching civics for justice and democracy. The findings in this study also have implications for educational research and democratic professional development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/44455 |
| Date | 18 May 2022 |
| Creators | Carney, Mary Margaret |
| Contributors | Martell, Christopher C. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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