The late 1970s can be characterized as an era of practical concerns in civic education. There is a trend toward useful applied learning which can be evaluated by the actions or skills it produces. Current civic education programs are similar to curriculum reform efforts of the 1930s in that they are committed to educating citizens to function…

The paper reviews literature dealing with children's social and political development and examines how changing orientations in child development research relate to citizenship education. The paper is intended for use by elementary school educators as they develop and implement citizenship education and law-related education programs. The paper is…

The problems, practices, objectives, and desirability of political education in the secondary school social studies curriculum is evaluated. The author suggests that political education should be a compulsory subject in junior and senior high schools. The document is presented in eight chapters. Chapter I explores the relationship between…

Ordered in a developmental sequence, the first chapter presents the problem and reviews social science literature suggesting a connection between basic human needs and attitudes, values, motivation, and behavior, irrespective of social position. The second chapter discusses the biosocial origins of needs and analyzes the conceptual differences in…

The purpose of this curriculum unit on citizenship education is to enrich the way students think about American Indians by presenting the history of American Indians and their relationship with white Americans. The first chapter discusses the kinds of ideas people have about Indians, especially stereotypes of Indians being wild, red-colored, and…

A survey designed to ascertain how various school-related groups perceive the school responding to nontraditional situations of nationalistic education is described. Administrators, board of education members, parents, teachers, and students indicated what they thought would and should occur in the school in response to 18 nontraditional…

Civic education is the student's participation in the governance of the school and the community; it must create and serve democratic society. Today's youth must be given the tools: 1) to transform vertical governance of the school and community into horizontal governance which shares decision-making with students, parents, and teachers; and, 2)…

The contraditions within the systems of school support and school policy-making make it difficult to find a manner of governance of the social studies program which is protected from extraneous influence and yet avoids creating a buffer between the schools and the democratic forces to which they are responsive. State and federal governments…

The goal of civic education in a democracy must be mindful political activism. If civic education is to have a positive effect on the development of this activism: 1) it must provide curricular content which reflects the reality of political/social life; and, 2) teachers and administrators must exemplify, in and out of school, a model of active…

The paper examines the extent to which national identification changed among 91 Americans who immigrated to Australia from 1974 to 1978. The objective was to gain a deeper understanding of the bonds between individuals and nations by examining the decisions and decision processes of people who had actually been confronted with and taken advantage…

The purpose of the conference was to explore how schools can prepare students to function in a democratic society beset by unprededented demands, complexities, and inconsistencies between theory and practice. Educational reform was the long-range goal, the short-term goal being the extension of dialogue in large and small school districts leading…

This report of findings is designed as an initial sketch of some of the political attitudes and values of American High School Seniors at a particular point in historical time and at a single stage in their political development. In the spring of 1965 a national probability sample of 1669 high school seniors at 97 high schools were interviewed…

This course of instruction, intended as an elective course for grades 10 through 12, is one of a series of curriculum guides revised to fit the quinmester administrative organization of schools. The principal goals of the course are to: 1) motivate students, soon able to vote, toward participation in the American political process; and, 2) teach…

National Assessment, a systematic survey of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, provides educators and the public with information on student achievement. The data-gathering model for the Assessment has yielded differences of various groups' performances in the area of political knowledge. These results seem to imply that the academic approach to…

This Federal textbook on citizenship is designed to familiarize immigrants with the United States and the English language. Comprised of 17 chapters, the first few introduce the foreign-born to the American community, help him find a home, a job, and the security available to him despite his alien status. Several other chapters, namely, "Work…