In recent years a number of political and educational leaders and groups have urged the nation's public schools to place a greater emphasis on teaching civic values and on educating students to become citizens. This book puts forth the civic values and ideas that schools should be teaching. The volume is not a handbook or curriculum guide, but is…

"CIVITAS" is a curriculum framework that specifies core ideas for civic education in the U.S. constitutional democracy. It reviews what adults should know and be able to do to as effective citizens. CIVITAS was developed by the Center for Civic Education in cooperation with the Council for the Advancement of Citizenship and with support…

Inviting high school students to be a part of Close Up Washington, this brochure describes a program in which students from across the United States and around the world travel to Washington, D.C., to learn about the workings of the U.S. federal government. The brochure explains benefits of participating in the program and discusses activities in…

Background reading materials are provided in this booklet developed to be used in conjunction with the award winning color documentary film "With Babies and Banners." The film records the role that the women of Flint, Michigan, played in the great General Motors sit-down strike of 1937. The readings are suitable for college audiences and…

The social sciences may be viewed as policy sciences and, as such, can make significant contributions to both public policy and the social studies curriculum. Political science has made contributions in legislative reform, centralized budgeting, regulation of lobbying, and improvement of election administration. Sociology has helped make…

The content of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act is described, its current interpretations are examined, and the implications for developing a responsible language and citizenship curriculum to conform to the legislation are discussed. Specific attention is focused on the law's requirement that illegal aliens applying for amnesty and…

This report summarizes findings from two national surveys of U.S. civics achievement conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Part 1 reports on a trend assessment of approximately 56,000 students at ages 13 and 17, carried out during the 1975-76, 1981-82, and 1987-88 school years. Chapter 1 summarizes national trends, trends…

One of a series of modules designed to help people in Oklahoma become more self-sufficient in their personal and professional lives, this document is designed to introduce students to the function of various levels of U.S. government, symbols considered to have particular relevance to U.S. citizens, and how adults can make a difference as…

Studying ideas from the Federalist papers provides high school students with an opportunity to examine the first principles of U.S. civic culture. By increasing their knowledge and appreciation of the basic ideas in the Federalist papers, students develop civic literacy that is likely to enhance their participation in a free society. This volume…

This unit, through a series of learning activities, is designed to give students a sense of what it means to seek U.S. citizenship. The first activity is created to help students understand the Naturalization Examination process by role-playing the examination and through creating their own examination for citizenship. The Oath of United States…

This research project analyzes the civics content in six secondary economics textbooks and the economics content in 25 state and local civics curriculum guides in order to determine integration patterns. The report also contains information about potential content integration topics, appropriate teaching strategies, and implications for materials…

Between 1976 and 1982, teenagers improved their performance on citizenship/social studies items measuring political knowledge and attitudes--13-year-olds by nearly three percentage points and 17-year-olds by about two percentage points. Results for the various population groups indicated that improvements tended to be greater for lower achieving…

If students are to fulfill their obligations and rights as U.S. citizens they must develop the ability to make careful judgements, based on a reasoned historical perspective and a meaningful conception of the basic democratic values underlying citizenship in our constitutional order. To this end, an agenda of 12 core civic values that are…

The "Test Development Notebook" is a resource designed for the preparation of tests of literal comprehension for students in grades 1 through 12. This volume contains 260 multiple-choice cloze exercises taken from textbooks in social studies, and the accompanying answer key. Each exercise carries the code letter of the section to which it belongs.…

The globalization of youth culture complicates young people's relationship to democracy as traditionally conceived. More and more young people define themselves as cosmopolitan citizens, connected through popular culture, digital technologies, and migration histories to social geographies outside their own local and national contexts. Despite…