PhD revisited: Students’ Perceptions of Democracy, Politics, and Citizenship Preparation and Implications for Social Studies Education

While several studies have investigated young people’s attitudes towards and participation in democracy and politics, as well as the influence of citizenship education on young people’s political participation, few studies have explored students’ perceptions of the concepts of democracy and politics and their own perceptions of citizenship education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the theme of democracy and politics in social studies in upper secondary school. Methodologically, this study relied on multiple methods of data collection and analysis to investigate students’ perceptions: Qualitative focus groups and interviews and a quantitative survey. To analyse students’ perceptions, I drew on citizenship education literature, focusing on the role and teaching of school subjects such as social studies, as well as political theory, focusing on theoretical perspectives on the concepts of democracy and politics. The findings show that the students perceived ‘democracy’ and ‘politics’ both in terms of top-down notions of government and other political institutions and bottom-up perspectives focused on discussions and other non-institutional aspects of democratic politics. Moreover, the findings indicate that students perceived social studies as valuable in terms of preparing them for current and future citizenship and that their enjoyment and aspects of instruction were most strongly associated with these perceptions.

Citizenship Concepts in LINC Classrooms

In this study we surveyed teachers and program coordinators of Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) from Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta to determine to what degree they believe they are incorporating citizenship concepts into the ESL classroom. Respondents provided us with information on the nature of their programs, the role of LINC, the types of materials they used, general course content, challenges faced, and their evaluation of the success of LINC in view of the government mandate to provide instruction that will lead to social integration. Most LINC providers felt that their programs were well tailored to the needs of their students, but in general they did not see LINC as a substitute for citizenship preparation courses. We recommend that optional citizenship courses be made widely available to immigrants after LINC, where the focus is on complex issues facing Canadians rather than a superficial coverage of facts for the citizenship test.