Two-Column Notes

Date:9/21/
16

Page #

Name: William Yeo

Class/Subject: EDTL 2760

Title: Education, Citizenship and Social Justice

MR Source(s): Patterson, N., Misco, T., & Doppen, F. (2012).
Beyond personally responsible: A study of teacher
conceptuallzations of citizenship education. Education,
Citizenship, and Social Justice, 7(2), 191-206
The Text Says
I Say
Notes (key concepts, direct
My notes, commentary
quotes, etc.)

192

The National Council for the

Social Studies (NCSS)
(2010: 3) advocates student
development of civic
competence by teaching
them how to make
informed and reasoned
decision for the public good
as citizens of a
democratic society.

I love this, I definitely think

that a part of social studies is
the ability to inform kids on
what is going on in the world
today, giving them this
knowledge promotes
education and fights ignorance
in the process.

194

Westheimer and Kahne

(2004) take issue with the
focus among personally
responsible citizens on
values and character by
arguing that honesty and
integrity are not inherently
democratic, since
totalitarian leaders

I would definitely agree that

honesty and integrity are not
democratic. It has to be
enforced a lot, especially at a
young age.

generally encourage such

behaviors as well.
197-198

About one-fourth of the

teachers (39/155 or 25.2
percent) were categorized
as participatory, with such
typical responses as: A love
and pride for their country
that encourages them to be
participating citizens who
share in the decisionmaking, operation, stays
informed, contributes
positively to community,
votes, accepting of people,
works to make world a
better place and
understand their
responsibilities as a citizen.

I think all of those ideals make

a good citizen and person. Its
too hard to ask everyone for
that in my opinions, especially
in non-wealthy neighborhoods.

203

Although social studies

teachers in this study
ranked preparing good
citizens as the most
important reason for
teaching social studies, the
way in which they made
meaning of the highinference construct of
citizenship constitutes a
slippery path. In short,
prima facie responses can
often be misleading as

Its one thing to say it, but

actually doing it is another, a
lot of these teachers had
similar beliefs to what we
talked about in our class as
why social studies makes great
citizens/ educated citizens. But
you have to find a way to
teach that way to make them
educated, intelligent, citizens.

beliefs and actions are not

always congruent.
Connections to previous MR: Great article, although a little difficult to
understand I think it was a good read and great connection for the class.
In all of our past BPs we have talked about how social studies lacks
excitement but is needed to become a great, well educated, citizen.
This article proves that many teachers today all believe that social studies
does a great job of making great citizens, when taught correctly. The
problem is we have teachers that think this is important but dont make
classes about how it could help you in the real world.
I was not shocked while reading this article, I feel the education system is
able to see its problems quite easily. I do feel that we never act on our
findings.