Elementary Students Represent Classroom Democratic Citizenship Experiences via Photos

Students in 80 kindergarten to grade six classrooms photographed and captioned experiences in class which they identified as examples of democratic citizenship education. With the assistance of a teacher candidate placed in their classroom for a semester, students chose and captioned five of the pho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of social studies research 2011, Vol.35 (2), p.191
Main Authors: Sunal, Cynthia Szymanski, Kelley, Lynn Allison, Minear, Andrea K, Sunal, Dennis W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citizenship
Citizenship Education
Classroom Environment
Correlation
Decision Making
Democracy
Educational Experience
Educational Opportunities
Elementary School Students
Empowerment
Photography
Student Attitudes
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Summary:Students in 80 kindergarten to grade six classrooms photographed and captioned experiences in class which they identified as examples of democratic citizenship education. With the assistance of a teacher candidate placed in their classroom for a semester, students chose and captioned five of the photographs they considered to best represent demonstrate citizenship education. Four main categories of citizenship events emerged describing key elements associated with democratic citizenship education; shared decision making, participating in a learner-oriented classroom context in which students have some individual choice of daily activities, equality of opportunity, and activities extending into the community and integrating community and classroom. Early grades students (K-3) identified activities they associated with democratic citizenship education while upper grades (4-6) students additionally presented rationales and gave evidence to support their representations. Empowerment, problem solving, and contributing to the common good were additional elements associated with democratic citizenship education in the classes sampled, although these were not strongly represented as were the four key elements. This study provides an initial portrait indicating a need for deeper investigation of K-6 students' own representations of the democratic citizenship education they experience. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)
ISSN:0885-985X