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Citizenship Education in the K-12 Classroom
Teachers try their best to prepare students for life outside of the classroom.
They hope that what is be discussed and taught will have some relevance in
students’ lives, and leave a lasting impression. The skills and information acquired
in the classroom should be useful and universal, allowing students to continue to
use them beyond just school and one particular subject. What school is trying to do
is prepare students to enter into society. Showing students how to be independent,
but also how to be responsible citizens who contribute to society with the way they
think and the way they act. Westheimer and Khane describe three different styles of
citizenship education that could be utilized in a classroom; personally responsible,
participatory, and justice oriented. For the purposes of use in a classroom and when
planning curriculum the participatory model emerges as the model of citizenship
that best works for the classroom. Teachers can allow students to have hands-on
experiences with social issues, getting students involved in community-based
community projects. This style of citizenship education lends itself to the classroom
best, and is the style in which I think sustainability efforts should be taught.
Students can learn about issues in their own community and become active
participates in doing something about it. In this way they become engaged in civic
life, and help their community.
Citizenship education is a component of social studies education that is
sometimes overlooked, though it is a part of the curriculum. While trying to fit in all
the material and content, teaching students strategies of inquiry and ways to
approach living in the world may be pushed to the side. Classrooms have the
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opportunity to challenge the way students think, push them beyond what they once
knew, and have them evaluate and question what they believe in a constructive way.
Instead of just reproducing a class society, teachers can make their classrooms into
an “agent of transformation…with the classroom at a center of equality and
democracy. (Bigelow, 1990) Teachers can employ different strategies to not only
make the content of the class meaningful, but also have real world applications and
be useful. Teachers can challenge students to think about the world they live in, the
systems that are in place, and how to approach problematic ones. Teachers help
students examine who they are, and who they could be. All of this comes with
citizenship education. How do teachers engage students in the society they live in,
while teaching them ways in which to impact it. This is a vital component of a
proper social studies education for students, and can be applied to sustainability
education. Students can examine different situations that exist, and think about how
they can change them. In this way students become their own agents of change, and
the teacher has accomplished their goal of creative actives citizens who contribute
to society. The pr
In What Kind of Citizen? Westheimer and Kahne put forth three different
models for citizenship education. They weight the pros and cons of each style, giving
examples of how they could be used in the classroom. This first type of citizen is the
personally responsible. This type of education hopes to “build character and
personal responsibility by emphasizing honesty, integrity, self-discipline and hard
work.” (Westheimer& Kahne, 2004)This type of citizenship education emphasizes
the individual contributions each student can make. This includes thinks such as
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recycling, giving blood, and picking up litter. Students regularly volunteer in their
community and work to be a sort of model citizen. In my own education as well as
students teaching experience, high schools can require a certain number of
volunteer hours for graduation; which would be an example of this type of model.
Students would have to spend a set number of hours doing something in their
community. This type of citizenship education is beneficial in that it gives students a
real sense of agency, giving clear actions they can take in order to help their local
community.
The personally responsibly citizen however, has its own sets of limitations.
Westheimer and Kahne describe how this type of education seems to get the most
attention. A reason for this may be its relative ease of implementation as opposed to
the other models. In this model of education students are told to do something that
contributes to their community, and choose. There is no real discussion about the
source of the issue they are addressing. As an example students may help out with
creating and maintaining a community garden, but wouldn’t necessarily talk about
the disappearance of public green spaces local gardens as a source food for the
community. Discussions about food costs for the community and where produce
comes from are excluded from the conversation. Essentially students are taught to
treat the symptoms of a problem without learning the systemic causes.
Sustainability education may suffer from this model. Students, as a hypothetical
example, may be taught how to reduce their own carbon footprint by things such as
talking public transportation and re-using water bottles, but would remain mostly
ignorant or the bigger them of climate change. There is also the risk that students
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may see problems they can’t fix individually as “society’s problem” and not
something they should concern themselves with. This style would produce a fair
amount of followers, but not leaders for the next generation. Without a fuller picture
and a more complete understanding of the sustainability issues that exist, students
would be going through the motions without really understanding the purpose of
their actions. In these ways I think this style is insufficient in teaching students
about sustainability.
Another model of citizen discussed is the justice-oriented citizen. This type of
education emphasizes what is missing from personally responsible, having students
look for and discuss the systemic problems of the issues they are discussing. This
style is very good with pursuing an inquiry-based approach, forcing students to ask
questions and look for deeper meanings. These students “analyze and understand
the interplay of social, economic, and political forces.” (Westheimer &Kahne, 2004)
This style of education would focus less on the role of the individual and more on
how to implement systematic change. The look at underlying causes of injustices
and how society as a whole needs to change in order to make think more equal for
everyone. According to Westheimer and Kahne this is the style that is most often
overlooked in the classroom. It is a more political view of what changes should be
made to society, with a focus on being able to communicate with others and weigh
varying perspectives in order to come up with solutions.
This style of citizenship education is difficulty in its complexity. Discovering
the root causes of issues such as poverty and homelessness may be difficult for
students to grapple with. Varying ideas and points of view may make it impossible
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for student progress to be distinguished, and may lead to feelings of
discouragement. An example of this problem comes from my own students teaching
placement. In the spring I taught in a government class for a moth, before the
curriculum was switched over to economics. The style of the government class was
discussion-based, and every Friday students would sit in circles and discuss issues
they had been learning about earlier in the week. One of the last discussions was
focused on police violence and racism, and what was to be done about it. Students
all agreed that the two were linked, that racism played a role in current events at the
time, which included the Trayvon Matrin story. While students agreed on this, the
conversation stalled when they tried to think of solutions that could be
implemented. Asking students to figure out how to combat systemic racism in
America is a daunting task, and one that doesn’t have a clear-cut answer. Students
eventually gave up on the discussion, felling like there was really nothing in their
power to be done. This discouragement is not something that I would want to see
happen in the classroom on a regular basis, and shows the major weakness of this
educational strategy. The justice oriented style poses the threat of removing the
individual agency that students would feel with a different type, such as personally
responsible, and make them feel as if the social justice issue society is currently
facing are insurmountable. Students may benefit from questioning and looking at
the systemic problems, but may feel defeated if they don’t see a way to deal with
what they have been discussing. With larger social issues being big, complex issues,
a classroom may not be the best place for students to deal with them in more than
the hypothetical. I can see problem also appearing in a sustainability framework in
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the classroom. If, for example, students were looking at the issues of environmental
racism and the placement of toxic waste dumps in poor counties in Southern States,
they may feel as if there is nothing they could personally do to combat the issue, and
thus feel powerless to effect any sort of change. Because of this the justice oriented
model of citizenship education may not be best suited for a high school class.
The last style, which will prove to be the best suited for a sustainability
framework in the classroom is participatory. In a participatory model the focus is on
“teaching students about how government and community based organizations
work and about the importance in planning and participating in organized efforts to
care for those in need…” (Westheimer& Kahne, 2004) In this type of education
students still retain their individual agency, but also get a more nuanced view of the
issue they are addressing. The focus is creating citizens who take active roles in the
community, not just by volunteering, but understanding what needs to be done and
organizing the efforts themselves. This style of education can be seen as middle
ground between the previous two, as it actively engages students, but pushes them
to think beyond just what they themselves are doing, but what the community as a
whole can be doing to improve itself. Students work to improve their immediate
surroundings by creating community efforts, usually leading the efforts. This style
doesn’t get to the deep societal issues of the justice oriented citizens, but my
working in local efforts it serves as a stepping-stone in that direction. Once students
are able to coordinate local efforts then they can take the next step to larger issues.
This can combat the discouragement that may come from the justice oriented
approach, as they can see local results before moving on to larger issues.
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One of the constraints of this type of education is the small scare of it. As a
teacher, I want my students to have a global perspective, to see the
interconnectedness of different nations and people. The justice oriented style of
education is better suited for this scale of thinking, as it is trying to explore the roots
of large social systems and issues, something that they two other styles don’t
necessarily push students to do. In response to this criticism, the participatory
framework can be seen as a step to this eventual understanding. Students can start
with local issues, rooting out their causes and how to combat them, before moving
on to society as a whole. Despite this shortcoming, the participatory style is still a
very strong option.
The participatory style is a good way to think about sustainability education,
and would be most effective in the classroom. An effective sustainability curriculum
focuses on realistic solutions, usually with direct participation. (Nolet, 2009) This is
exactly what a participatory model offers to students. Students are tasked with
coming up with solutions for local issues, and coordinating the efforts to deal with
these issues. Through this students get a better understanding of their own
surroundings, as well as practice in organizing people, working in groups, and
balancing different thought and opinions, all skills that teachers are pushed to teach
in their classrooms.
In order for this to be successful students first need to be exposed to
sustainability themes in the curriculum. In a history class there are plenty of
examples of being able to make these connections. An example of this would be
discussing the use of coal when talking about the industrial revolution, or the
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environmental impact of the urbanization that was occurring at this time. Students
can first connect these themes to historical examples and case studies before being
asked to grapple with the ideas for themselves. Students can examine the causes of
the issues, and what was or wasn’t don't in response and the lasting effects today.
Sustainability education in the regular curriculum can easily complement traditional
content.
According to the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards:
“Active and responsible citizens identify and analyze
public problems; deliberate with other people about how
to define and address issues, take constructive and collaborative
action, reflect on their actions, create and sustain groups, and
influence institutions both large and small.”(C3 Framework, 2013)
In order to achieve this students needs to engage in community-based, inquiry
driven curriculum, the makes what they are studying not only engaging but also
meaningful to their lives. The community aspect of a participatory of citizenship
education is crucial for this. One of themes of suitability literacy, a framework in
which teachers and students alike understand themes of sustainability, is the
importance of local place. As a general trend, Americans don’t seem to think about
issues that they can’t see in their everyday lives, choosing to focus on instantaneous
results over a long-term view of the world. As an example, there is the issue of
global warming and climate change, which most Americans think doesn’t affect
them.(Craig, 2008) Students focus on their home and school communities in the
participatory model. New York City is the perfect place for this type of curriculum,
because it has such a rich cultural identity, and all of the neighborhoods do as well.
Students can engage in community-based projects, doing research to identify
sustainability issues, and create action plans that would get the entire community
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involved. By following through with this sort of project students would learn how
the school system works, and also gain experience in a leadership role. An inquirybased approach would have students research and identify the issues themselves,
and also come up with their own solutions. Being able to choose what to focus on,
and try their own ideas of intervention would foster greater learning, and really
make students agents in their own education. Choosing a meaningful place in their
lives, students would create solid connections with school and community
resources, coming to understand how these systems work. Once students are able to
see results for their efforts on the local level they can be encouraged to start
thinking on a larger scale, reaching that justice-oriented mode of thinking. The
importance of local place isn’t’ to be underestimated. The participatory model of
citizenship education would enable students to drive their own thinking and
learning, creating projects in which each student would have a vested interest and
there are visible results. Cultivating a basic understanding sustainability themes
first, and establishing “sustainable literacy” will make sure students are well
informed in their decision making, and focusing on local place adds authenticity to
the work.
The guiding learning standard for Civics, Citizenship, and Government in the
New York State Common Core 9-12 Social Studies Framework is as follows:
“Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate
their understanding of the necessity for establishing governments;
the governmental system of the United States and other nations; the
United States Constitution; the basic civic values of American
constitutional democracy; and the roles, rights, and responsibilities
of citizenship, including avenues of participation. “
(New York State Common Core Framework)
The participatory framework purposed would be able to integrate the common core
standards teachers are required to teach, while still allowing a certain degree of
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freedom to the student to make their own choices. The focus of a sustainability
curriculum in this sense would center on the latter part of this standard, the
responsibilities of citizenship including avenues of participation. Students would
practice their research techniques, how to conduct long-term studies, how to use
sources when forming their own opinions and arguments, and how to accurately
and succinctly convey their thoughts and opinions to others. Group-work is also a
major component of this type of curriculum, as students in the participatory role
would learn to organize community efforts, not just take part in them. Public schools
are presented with limitations in how they can deliver instruction because of all the
teachers have to accomplish. Standardized test preparation takes up a considerable
about of time, leaving little time for deviation. The participatory model is idea
because it practices skills students are required to learn, while being able to make
clear connections with other areas of content. In an ideal setting the participatory
model isn’t restrained just to the social studies classroom, but informs crossdisciplinary instruction. Students can learn about the science behind their
sustainability projects. In English students can reflect on their progress and how
their proposed interventions are working. To reinforce the ideas, and show that the
skills are transferable a collaborative approach between teachers would best serve
the students.
Along with teaching students the ways in which to participate and become
involved in the school community, a participatory curriculum also tries to instill in
students the obligation to do so. Being active members of society as adults is the
ultimate goal, and it begins in the classroom with citizenship education. In this
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settings students learn not only the skills they need to enact change, but are
encouraged to foster the feeling that this is the sort of action they should continue
with later in life. Students can learn from their experiences in school, and continue
to go. The fundamental understanding of what it means to be a participatory citizen,
will be instilled through practice in school, and will hopefully stick with students for
the rest of their lives. The real draw of this style of citizenship education over the
others is the sense of accomplishment it can offer students. Instead of just doing
something as a personally responsible citizen, students can feel responsible for
coordinating a community-based effort, and will have a better understanding of how
such processes work. The work students would be doing would be engaging,
meaningful and relevant, making sure that students will remember their efforts and
be more likely to replicate them in the future.
Westheimer and Kahne propose three types of citizenship education that can
be introduced into a classroom, personally responsible, participatory, and justice
oriented. Personally responsible education focuses on efforts of the individual,
participatory has more of a community-based approach, and justice oriented has a
more global scope. Each of these styles of instruction has its merits, but for the
purposes of a classroom, the participatory framework is best suited. The personally
responsible give students an incomplete picture of the current sustainability and
environmental issues they would be taking on. The justice oriented style is large in
scale, and complex, making the actions that students could take seem almost
pointless, and runs the risk of discouraging any sort of active participation. Thus, the
participatory model of citizenship education is the best fit for a classroom
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environment, as it is local enough to be obtainable to students, but still have the
critical thinking and questioning elements to have students examine the issues
thoroughly. In terms of applying it to a sustainability curriculum, students would be
able to engage in a strenuous inquiry-based approach to learning that involved
group work, as well as a host of other skills. With a solid foundation in sustainability
themes, students can work with their local residential and school communities to
make them more environmentally conscious. Students become agents of their own
learning, and create lasting results they can see for years to come. The hope is that
by engaging in such practices in school, students will gain a deep understanding of
what it means to be a participatory citizen in society, and continue to act in this way
far beyond the classroom. The participatory citizen is someone who is active in their
local community, who works to better understand the way organizations work, and
how they can contribute. For the purposes of a classroom framework of
sustainability, this is the ideal type of citizen. Students gain a critical consciousness
of sustainability and environmental issues, working to improve things for everyone.
An inquiry-based classroom approach that focuses on local place is how I feel
sustainability efforts should be taught.
Sources Cited
Bigelow, W. (1990). Inside the Classroom: Social Vision and Critical Pedagogy.
Teachers College Record, 91(3), 437. Retrieved from
https://moodle2.tc.columbia.edu/pluginfile.php/243764/mod_resource/content/1
/bigelow.pdf
Craig, D. (2008). The Deep Sleep. 16. Retrieved from
http://gcafh.org/edlab/Craig.pdf
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Nolet, V. (2009). Preparing Sustainability-Literate Teachers. Teachers College
Record, 11(2), 432. Retrieved from http://gcafh.org/edlab/Nolet.pdf
Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? Political choices and
educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 3. Retrieved from
http://gcafh.org/edlab/Westheimer_Kahne.pdf
The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State
Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography,
and History. (2013). 19. Retrieved from
http://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/c3/C3-Framework-for-SocialStudies.pdf
New York State Common Core 9-12 Social Studies Framework. 6. Retrieved from
http://www.esboces.org/cms/lib07/NY01914091/Centricity/Domain/69/ES%20s
s-framework-9-12.pdf
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