A Comparative Analysis of Teacher Education Students' Views About Citizenship Education

Source: Action in Teacher Education, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer, 2010), p. 56-69.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

This study focused on the views of middle and secondary teacher education students from various content areas.

Method
Participants were chosen from a public Southeastern university.
The author interviewed 77 teacher education candidates from mathematics, English, science, and social studies education. The study included 28 men and 49 women.

This study revealed that teacher education candidates in each content area viewed citizenship preparation through different lenses based on their national organizations' goals.
Science education majors emphasized helping students develop scientific literacy to solve problems and affect society.
Mathematics and English education majors sought to teach citizenship preparation by teaching values.
Last, social studies education majors saw citizenship preparation as a central focus of their teaching. 

This study highlighted the opportunity for different content area teachers to expand their possible role in teaching citizenship preparation in the schools.
Through individual and collective efforts, teachers in all content areas can extend and improve citizenship preparation in the schools as they prepare students for participation in our democratic society.

The author concludes that citizenship preparation can show how subject area issues and citizenship preparation can be used as ways to examine content and take action on domestic or international issues.