Global citizenship encourages children to reflect on the world around them and understand their identity within a global community. Oxfam (1997) defines the global citizen as someone who: (1) is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen; (2) respects and values diversity; (3) has an understanding of how the…

The proliferation of deepfakes and visual misinformation coupled with the fast-paced nature of social media has prompted an increased need for media literacy skills among emerging citizens. The unit activity detailed in this article overviews a media literacy framework for engaged citizenship and presents media literacy strategies that emerging…

What do people think of when they hear the word "census"? For some, the word prompts them to think of representation in Congress; others think of genealogy and family history. For still others, the census is viewed as something strange or foreboding. Yet for teachers and students, census records can help create a meaningful and relevant…

Political history lends itself to traditional patterns of teaching and learning in social studies such as students memorizing facts presented in lectures or textbooks. This article presents a recurring activity structure for teaching U.S. political history--Consensus Circle Presidential Rating (CCPR)--which requires students to read across…

Business schools have a responsibility for educating global citizens capable of understanding and addressing the major societal challenges of the 21st century. However, working on complex societal problems within business school curricula remains a challenge. This teaching brief presents a learning project that helps instructors introduce…

Young children's self-identification and self-identity are essentially a set of conscious and unconscious beliefs built from experiences. Students' self-image, and their understanding of society, can change when they research how women contributed to our nation and to our daily lives. Such lessons can render these historical figures accessible and…

When the author became a public-school teacher and decided to teach second-grade students about Jane Goodall, he could not find literature appropriate for seven-year-olds. Children's books about her lifework simply did not exist. So, the author used an encyclopedic entry and the knowledge he had from the documentary to form his own text, which was…

The social change model (SCM) of leadership development defines all students as potential leaders. Service acts as a powerful means for developing leadership skills within our students. After the 20th anniversary celebration by the International Leadership Association of the SCM, the authors wanted to illustrate how practice can inform research as…

This article presents an experiential activity organised around a contemporary socio-scientific controversy about the use of antibiotics in livestock. Such controversies can help students develop skills to engage in evidence-based discussions about modern societal challenges. Even though the activity was initially set up and tested with in-service…

Democratic societies require a citizenry skilled in argumentation. At present, the written argument maintains primacy among communicative modes. Because of its cognitive demands, written argumentation is often difficult to teach. A multimodal approach to writing instruction carries the potential to assist struggling learners. This article outlines…

Kids learn by doing, which, experts agree, is the only real way to teach citizenship. This article presents election-year activities that stress action. These activities will show students what it means to be a good citizen. (Contains 6 online resources.)

To seriously consider one's rights under the US Constitution, one must grapple with the realization that many rights are not absolute. Instead, they are contested. But how to introduce younger students to such a complex concept, given short attention spans? In this article, we discuss the opportunities, pitfalls, and planning logistics of the 2013…

The current political climate has created urgency around civic education. The authors argue that educators can best seize the moment by infusing authentic activities and experiences in content studies. They provide an example of one such hybrid instructional model from Democracy Prep Public Schools.

This article aims to broaden the ways we conceptualize citizenship and implement citizenship education in social studies. To do so, the authors explore media texts as a curricular and pedagogical site for teaching lessons about citizenship. Specifically, the authors investigate how media drafts the boundaries of citizenship for Latin@ youth, and…

Election simulations are considered a viable tool to instigate democratic learning in schools. This paper reports an explorative qualitative inquiry into one type of simulation project: mock-elections (ME). Main objective was to gain an insight into the organization of ME-practices in eight schools in the Netherlands in 2012. Thematic analysis of…