Embedding environmental concepts in the minds of young students within a traditional classroom setting poses challenges due to the abstract nature of these concepts and the temporal dilemma associated with environmental change, as students are unable to observe the immediate consequences of their actions directly. To address this, innovative…

The purpose of this dissertation was to scrutinize the complexities involved in the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. The design of each study mirrored key elements in the legislative life cycle specifically as it pertained to civics education policymaking, including problem identification, policy creation, and policy diffusion.…

Calls for more civic education have risen alongside political polarization, social injustices, and threats to democracy. Although civic learning opportunities are disproportionately accessible and often not inclusive, one model has shown promising results. Through School Participatory Budgeting, students deliberate and decide how to allocate funds…

This research aims to examine the impact of interactive online learning material on students' self-efficacy, prepared for achievements related to "digital rights and responsibility" in the Social Studies and Information Technologies and Software course. The study design is a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest paired…

This research focuses on the evaluation of the impact on students' attitudes towards the environment, fostered by their involvement in an educational citizen science project related to the monitoring of physicochemical properties and the detection of (micro)plastics in Portuguese coastal waters. We developed an attitude scale, comprising four…

Developing middle grades students' abilities to be civically engaged and approach their world through a lens of civic-mindedness is an essential component of democratic citizens taking informed action. Leveraging an agency-centered, technology enabled approach, the authors of this article explore the influence authentic civic engagement projects…

The purpose of this research is to determine perceptions of refugee middle school students in Turkey about history subjects taught in social studies classes. Accordingly, the study was designed in the phenomenology model, a qualitative research method. The sample included 58 middle school 7th and 8th grade Syrian students (28 female, 30 male)…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many youth felt disconnected from on-the-ground engagement with their peers, their communities, and the wider society. School closures also impeded progress in some students' abilities to write, speak, and express themselves through various media. A team of interdisciplinary and intergenerational faculty and…

In this article, the authors introduce ways to use disciplinary literacy (DL) instructional strategies to foster civic engagement and reasoning for middle-grade multilingual students. Four phases of DL strategies--"framing," "reading," "discussion," and "writing"--are illustrated with examples from an…

Introduction: For decades the Social Justice concept in education has been studied alongside and the possible implications of its use as a tool to promote more prosocial societies. Based on Nancy Fraser's multidimensional Social Justice Model, a program was designed to promote prosociality in 6th grade primary school students. The main objectives…

This study aimed to investigate how the community-based socioscientific issues program (SSI-COMM) affected middle school students' sense of place (SOP) and character development as citizens. We designed and implemented SSI-COMM on fine dust, abandoned pets, and recycling issues that were closely related to the students' local communities. SSI-COMM…

This study contributes to a body of research exploring sets of learning experiences for developing global competencies among middle childhood social studies teacher candidates. This multi-year study examines data related to teacher candidates' global knowledge, skills, and dispositions using a convergent parallel mixed methods design. Findings…

Promoting adhesion to attitudes toward gender equity is critical to achieving more equal societies, yet endorsement of gender equality among Latin American adolescents remains lower than global averages. This study investigates the role of school environments, civic knowledge, and authoritarianism in shaping gender equity attitudes among 8th-grade…

There is increasing urgency to broaden access to inclusive and culturally sustaining K-12 civic education. Civic education can foster young people's development of their civic identity, which can support a functioning American democracy. Civic education often includes opportunities for learners to develop civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions,…

In this collection, scholars from the United States, Canada, and Australia examine the concepts of villainification and anti-villainification in social studies curriculum and popular culture, as well as within broader sociocultural contexts. Villainification is the process of identifying an individual or a small group of individuals as the sole…