Making Citizens: Transforming Civic Learning for Diverse Social Studies Classrooms

One of the primary aims of education is the preparation of young people to contribute to the civic and political life of our democracy. Public school social studies classrooms are assumed to be the main place where such citizenship education takes place, yet much of what occurs in these classrooms has no direct relation to this vital charge. This book describes an altogether different approach to integrating meaningful civic learning into middle and high school social studies classrooms. Using the experiences of teachers and students who are trying out this new approach in three public high schools, it illustrates how social studies can recapture its civic purpose and how social studies classrooms can become places where young people study, ponder, discuss and write about large civic questions while they are learning history.By following the experiences of three teachers working at three diverse high schools, Transforming civic learning in diverse social studies classrooms shows social studies teachers why and how their classrooms can be transformed into powerful sites for civic learning. Drawing upon the latest sociocultural theories on youth civic identity development, the book describes a field tested approach to civic education that takes into consideration the classroom and curricular constraints faced by new teachers. It explains why social studies teachers, particularly those working in diverse and urban areas, should integrate civic education into their teaching, and outlines how this can be done effectively. Directed both at pre-service and in-service social studies teachers and designed for easy integration into social studies methods courses, the volume examines the experiences of students and teachers in the social studies classrooms as they participate in a new approach to the traditional, chronologically organized U.S. History curriculum. Each chapter describes a different aspect of the approach, deftly weaving theory, narrative and research results into a readable text that will inspire social studies teachers to implement a similar transformation in their own classrooms.