The rise of state-mandated standards in public education have allowed legislators to answer the question of what constitutes a proper civic education, a debate that has existed in the United States since the turn of the twentieth century. Through the content they employ in their standards, states may indirectly influence the type of citizenship…

The nation's recent preoccupation with reshaping academics and raising academic performance has all but overpowered a task of vital importance--educating our young people to become engaged citizens of their communities. Traditionally, students are taught citizenship skills in either a civics education class or through citizenship courses in the…

This book offers a groundbreaking examination of citizenship education programs that serve contemporary youth in schools and communities across the United States. These programs include social studies classes and curricula, school governance, and community-based education efforts. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1998 Civics Assessment measured students' knowledge, their intellectual and participatory skills, and their civic dispositions at the 12th-grade level. This publication describes 12th graders performance on 38 questions from the 12th-grade assessment. Thirty-one of the thirty-eight questions…

Designed for high school seniors, this unit, consisting of a teaching guide and instructional materials for students, focuses on the nature and meaning of the obligation of an American to his country and himself in regard to military service. Cognitive objectives are to provide students with an understanding of conscription, of the Selective…

Students at all grade levels in Wisconsin are required to learn about the principles and ideals upon which the United States is founded, and understand the world in which they live. Students at all levels should develop skills and understandings in all five strands found in the Wisconsin standards for social studies. These skills and…

As a means of investigating the current status of citizenship education in the schools, this exploratory study was designed to study graduating high school seniors' perceptions of their citizenship experiences. A questionnaire was distributed to four schools in Texas, Minnesota, California, and Arkansas and data were analyzed using Boos's…

Recommended procedures and essential facts for a planned student registration campaign in New York City Schools, as well as suggested teaching strategies and instructional aids supporting a broad-based senior year preparation for the 18-year-old franchise comprise this document. The suggested teaching strategies involve large and small group…

The identification and specification of affective objectives in the citizenship/social studies curriculum and the development of models of assessment techniques are discussed. Identification of citizenship objectives is comprised of: selecting target grades; organizing and classifying affective objectives; selecting and assigning priorities to…

Viewed as a first step in the development of a consensus framework for the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in civic education, this paper focuses on the major questions that should be considered in designing a civics assessment. The paper aims to bring major questions of designing a civic education assessment tool to the…

The document outlines a semester-long 12th grade study of criminal law which is accomplished through an examination of Wisconsin and constitutional law. Six sections comprise the teaching outline. Section I, The Legislative Process, considers the legislature, various statutes and terminologies, revision of legislation, and penalties. Section II,…

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…

This book takes a look at what U.S. high school seniors know about government and politics and how they learn about it. Secondary school civics courses enhance students' civic knowledge. The book is based on the 1988 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the most extensive assessment to date of civic knowledge among youth. The depth…

Twelfth grade students have the opportunity to explore the governing process in a one semester elective course presented in this preliminary draft. The objective of the course is to prepare students for full citizenship responsibilities by giving them a realistic understanding of the processes of governing in the United States. Focus is upon…