Although the United States Pledge of Allegiance is a ritual in many schools, research on middle school students' views about this tradition is limited. Therefore, this grounded theory study included a survey of 100 middle school students on the Pledge with 33 follow-up interviews. Socialization and counter-socialization served as the theoretical…

The social studies profession has always been at its weakest in dealing with the analysis of racism and class (Ladson-Billings, 2003; Marshall, 2001), and the new technocratic atmosphere and discourse generated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) will serve to make such analysis completely absent, despite the rhetoric of the National Council of the…

Based on an address delivered at a meeting of school supervisors at the School of Education of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, February 10, 1969.

A growing number of educational programs seek to promote young people's participation in political and civic affairs. A common strategy for doing so is to provide students with opportunities to make a difference in their communities. Much research demonstrates a strong connection between a person's sense about making a difference efficacy and the…

Student attitudes and the educational consequences of the introduction of controversial course materials into the social studies curriculum are explored. (Author/DE)

Traditionally, civic education has been introduced at the eighth grade level. Research indicates that youngsters begin learning political information and attitudes much earlier. With that in mind, this publication is designed around concepts that can be developed throughout the primary and intermediate grades. Elementary students can begin to…

This study empirically tests the extent to which four experimental units in government influence the acquisition of political knowledge and the development of feelings of political efficacy and cynicism among Anglo, Black, and Mexican-American twelfth graders. Two classes regularly taught at two high schools were compared with two experimental…

The promotion of selected student behaviors and awareness of the social construction of reality'' appear to be as severely neglected outside of the social studies as within. The directions and tools to end this aspect of educational lag are available and need only be implemented. (Author/CB)

Describes a lesson for junior high social studies which uses a comparison of research findings to teach students about international political socialization. Students answer questionnaires about their own attitudes and knowledge of international political socialization and then compare and contrast their responses to responses of American,…

This paper presents six generalizations based on political education research and discusses their implications for teaching citizenship in the public schools. In drawing the implications, it was assumed that citizenship education is designed to promote higher political knowledge, interest, trust, tolerance of dissent, and intellectual and…

This discussion of human-rights education suggests that educational goals should include the acceptance of the idea of equal opportunity and inalienable human rights. Course content should instill concern with experiences drawn more from students' immediate social experience than from textbooks. More advanced students need courses in global…

Over 300 high school students responded to questionnaires in their sophomore and senior years which showed that the extent to which students perceived open social studies classroom climates over this period was related to increases in political trust, integration, and interest but to a decrease in sense of political confidence. (Author/GDC)

Effects of participation by 904 elementary and secondary school social studies students in a political education project are discussed. Objectives of the project, entitled Improving Citizenship Education (ICE), are to assess student political knowledge (factual information, generalizations, principles, thinking and participatory skills), before…

The objectives of this Conference included an examination of new approaches to citizenship education and an evaluation of the teaching materials produced by the Charles P. Schwartz Citizenship Project (CPSCP), and an examination of the attitudinal studies on citizenship values conducted under the auspices of CPSCP. Major sections of the Report…