In this article, the authors take a systematic look at high school seniors' views on patriotism and its relationship to democracy. Drawing on the work of the Harwood Institute and on studies by Robert Schatz, Ervin Staub, and Howard Lavine, they discuss a set of criteria that can help them determine the degree to which students' patriotic…

This report examines the current state of citizenship instruction in U.S. schools, how we teach American citizenship, and what citizenship education looks like in California. The National Assessment of Educational Progress civics assessment determined that one-third of test-takers were below proficient and only one-fifth were at proficient level.…

In kindergarten, students learn the symbols of the alphabet and numeric symbols. This unit is designed to help students understand what patriotic symbols are and that the nation and the state have symbols and icons to represent thoughts, feelings, emotions, and physical objects. Exposure to different national and state symbols helps students…

This brief glimpse into how schools responded to a national tragedy only hints at the magnitude of responses. No school board policy or university program had prepared American educators to respond to events like those of September 11 attack. Teachers and principals simply found themselves confronting a tragic event. Still, they quickly determined…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]