Kankam boadu
Goals of citizenship education
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- Table 11: Goals of citizenship education
- Table 11 cont’d
- Field study 2010
Goals of citizenship educationMany views have been expressed about the goals or rationale for introducing citizenship education. From the western perspective, citizenship education focuses on developing critical thinking in learners with the view to weighing their actions and their decisions that might affect the individual and society (Crick, 1998, quoted in Turner, 2009). Professor Tom Wilson, former Chairman of Learning and Teaching Scotland, highlighted two vital principles that must be realised by those who implement citizenship education in schools. Firstly, learning citizenship is best achieved by providing students with opportunities to exercise citizenship. Secondly, students must be encouraged to be active and responsible members, not only to schools but also in their communities, at local, national, and global levels. Citizenship education should help in building strong loyalty to government, even if this is not working for the common good (Alkmaar, 2006). In Ghana, Kumah (2005) mentions that the education system must inculcate citizenship, a sense of national pride and identity, individual rights and responsibilities to promote national integration and unity as well as democratic values. Table 11 highlights teacher trainees’ and tutors’ views about the goals of citizenship education. The mean ranges from 5.0 to1.0 where 5.0 and 1.0 represent the highest and lowest mean scores respectively and 3.0 represent the middle range. Table 11: Goals of citizenship education
Field study 2010 Table 11 shows that in general, both teacher trainees and tutors held similar views about the goals of citizenship education. In all of the fourteen items describing the goals of citizenship education, both groups of respondents show considerable agreement on the importance of the goals of citizenship education. In using the benchmark of 0.5 differences between the responses of the two groups, in no case was there much difference in the average ratings of the groups. Aggarwal (2001) mentions that in a community where social studies is taught, the school/college cannot remain an “ivory tower”. This pre-supposes that the wider community can also act as a source of information for social studies. Once the respondents have understood the goals of citizenship education, they are likely going to use them as their benchmark when teaching social studies. The tutors might have understood the goal of citizenship during their schooling days and they are translating it into their actual practice. It must be pointed out that the general knowledge on the goals of citizenship education exhibited by both teacher trainees and tutors is in line with the assertion of Levstika and Groth (2005) who reported that the paramount goal of citizenship education is to help young people become well informed, hardworking, self-reliant, honest and responsible citizens. What must be clear here is that it is not the mere identification of goals that matter, but the ability to translate the goals into specific classroom objectives that will make the difference. As Wheeler (1998) puts it, “the greatest difficulty for curriculum implementers is how to translate curriculum goals into actual classroom practice” (p. 36). Teachers who have been regarded as crucial players in developing citizenship (Kerr & Cleaver, 2004; Dean, 2005) need to be aware of themselves as citizens and the goals of citizenship education in order to develop citizenship virtues in students. By developing citizenship education based on clear goals, it will most likely help to develop citizens who know what is expected of them. Directory: jspui -> bitstream -> 123456789 123456789 -> College day annual report 123456789 -> A. gw student and alumni numbers summary 3 123456789 -> Clustering Microarray Data within Amorphous Computing Paradigm and Growing Neural Gas Algorithm 123456789 -> Навчальний посібник Для студентів економічних І правових спеціальностей немовних вузів Суми двнз "уабс нбу" 2014 123456789 -> Министерство сельского хозяйства и продовольствия республики беларусь 123456789 -> Personal informations: Nationality: Sudanese Date and place of birth 123456789 -> So far, administration of Koutthep village-fund group (Phonnady) is worked by boards, it has a common coordination and discussion Download 2.03 Mb. Share with your friends:
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