Social studies and beyond: attending to informal citizenship education in schools

Abstract

Purpose

Although social studies teachers are charged with explicitly teaching about citizenship, all teachers in a school implicitly teach about citizenship. That is, in their daily interactions with students, whether specific to subject area content or not, teachers impart lessons to their students about what citizenship is and what it means to be a citizen. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Examining the “powerful” stories of three teachers, only one of whom teaches social studies, this paper focuses on “informal citizenship education” across schools.

Findings

It concludes with implications for workers in and beyond the field of social studies education.

Originality/value

Ultimately, it suggests that as notions of citizenship education expand to include informal citizenship education, teachers will better teach students to be effective citizens.

Citation

Kissling, M.T. (2018), "Social studies and beyond: attending to informal citizenship education in schools", Social Studies Research and Practice, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 289-300. https://doi.org/10.1108/SSRP-06-2017-0033