Social Studies Orientations and what it means to be an active citizen

Questions 8 and 9 of the social studies questionnaire (see blog post Wednesday 20th October) forced you to think back to your primary years to consider the affects that social studies education had on you as an individual then and now.

Question 8 presents a broad range of possible feelings you could have had about learning in social studies. It implied that these feelings were closely related to the objectives of social studies and reflected the broad scope of concepts that can fit under the social studies learning area umbrella. Evidently, this large scope of social studies education is also the cause for uncertainty and disagreements over what should be most important in this learning area. Effectively, differing views of what it means to be a 'good' citizen, the goal of social studies, has been the causal of this large scope.

Question 9 presented the 'active citizen' and asked if you felt social studies education had given you efficacy in this area. However, even if the answer you gave was a 'strongly agree' this does not necessarily prove you are a 'good' citizen when considering the several social studies orientations presented in Gibson & McKay (2005) which all focus on different aspects for effective citizenship.

The aim of this post is to describe a number of these orientations and their correlating views of citizenship in a bid to unravel the goals of education, and how teachers must balance a number of factors that inform these goals in the classroom. When analysing the data from the questionnaire we will be able to discover whether your past teachers were considering this need for balancing a number of social studies orientations for effective citizenship rather than just one.

This table displays the different social studies orientations, the instructional method involved and the type of citizen it advocates according to Gibson & McKay (2005) (all quotes are as cited in this paper also):

Social Studies Orientation	Instructional Method	Nature of Citizen
Cultural Conservative	Students are presented with an agreed upon common body of knowledge which is to go unquestioned.	Guarantee cultural survival – the danger being that it does little to end the reproduction of a society ‘in which a rich, well educated elite dominates a passive working class’ (Chamberlin, 1991)
Inquiry	On the belief that people must interact with ideas in order to make knowledge for themselves, students play an active role in conducting the investigations (begun on students interests) while teachers act as facilitators.	Citizens need to identify problems, collecting, evaluating and analysing information and making reasoned decisions (Vinson, 1998). They recognise there are always a number of solutions to a problem.
Cultural Transformation	Deals with issues such as social justice, freedom, equality, human rights and power – believing that education and society is in need of transformation.	Citizens are activists for change in a bid to free society for injustices and inequalities. *Reluctance to this approach because it poses a threat to civil peace and stability (Cherryholmes, 1996).
Personal Development	By stressing human relationships, a focus on classroom community can educate students about the importance of cooperation to the survival of democracy.	Citizens are conscious of their personal standards, values and beliefs that will guide their decisions and actions for life.
Respect for Diversity	Students are given an accurate picture of human experience – based on both men’s and women’s ways of experiencing, seeing, and knowing the world (Osborne, 1991). Discussions about racism are used to break down stereotypes and assumptions.	Citizens respect the rights of diverse peoples. They are anti-racist and anti-discriminatory – believing that every minority group should have both the freedom and the opportunity to find a place in society.

On their own, I personally prefer the ideals of both the inquiry and personal development orientations over the others. My teaching philosophy advocates a 'safe classroom community environment built on trust, respect, integrity and empathy' - which mirrors the citizenship goals of the personal development orientation - while encouraging students' who will 'share decision making, take up responsibilities and leadership and will be actively involved in classroom experiences' - all practical aspects of the inquiry approach in the classroom.

The point that Gibson & McKay (2005) are trying to make however, is that each orientation has it's merits and it's downfalls and if teachers can capture a balance of all of them then they will be doing their students a great service.

The National Council for the Social Studies (1993, as cited in Alazzi & Chiodo, 2004) outline the primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world. More specifically the NCSS divides the social studies objectives into four categories: knowledge, skills, values, and participation. I feel that these are all encapsulated within the above orientations.

Adversely, the MoE's (2007) New Zealand Curriculum Framework focuses solely on the social inquiry approach in the Social Sciences learning areas, under a far broader explanation of it's citizenship objects - 'the social sciences learning area is about how societies work and how people can participate as critical, active, informed and responsible citizens.' My assumptions, in comprehending these statements, are that through teacher facilitation of students asking, gathering, and examining key issues, exploring and analysing people's values, considering the ways in which people participate in social action and reflecting on understandings that they have ultimately developed - there should be that opening for cultural transformation action when it's seen necessary, times when discussing racism and respect for diversity are top priority, historic events and geographic places that simply need facts shared in an attempt to build initial content knowledge, all the while developing a safe classroom environment that encourages thought into good values and personal standards.

The teachers task is therefore to find a balance in the ways they present learning experiences in social studies education. As with all teaching, they must cater to the learning needs of their students and 'change it up' to add interest and motivate students. As with John Dewey's (1933, as cited in Rodgers, 2002) advocation of

...openmindedness + whole-heartedness + intellectual responsibility...

to sustain reflective thought in educators, teachers need to hand these skills on to their students. This is to ensure that students gain full understanding of social studies issues and continue to practice life-long learning and action as an adult.