Abstract:

This paper focuses on high school students’ perceptions of democratic values and civic principles associated with the social studies classroom and national and global events. Based on the National Council for Social Studies position statement in 2001 that “the primary goal of public education is to prepare students to be engaged and effective citizens.” The present study was developed along two lines of research addressing high school social studies students. The first line of research addresses the major reason that students should openly investigate the nation’s increasingly pluralistic society based on the evolving definition of citizenship and decision-making. The second line of research addresses the national and interest challenges faced by students in the social studies classroom. One hundred and eighty-six high school seniors were given a twenty-four question survey with the domains of democratic values, economic principles, and constitutional rights and responsibilities. The survey consisted of 17 statements that were designed to measure students’ opinions of Democratic values. Survey construction consisted of statements designed on a 4-point scale or continuum. The questions/statements were categorized into taxonomies constructed to measure constitutional knowledge, economic principles, and democratic beliefs. Special consideration was given to trends in vocabulary and current events. Results suggested students indicated relatively liberal constructs and understanding throughout the three taxonomies and survey as a whole. Despite differences in gender and race, they were surprisingly homogeneous in response, paralleling associated contexts and views of their millennial generation peers. Though inferential sampling was not conducted, similarities do seem to exist between this sample and the perceived views of their generation.

Keywords:

Citizenship, Civic Responsibility, Constitutional Knowledge, Democratic Values.