Conceptions of Citizenship and Civic Education: Lessons from Three Israeli Civics Classrooms
type: CreativeWork
description: Based on the notion that philosophical assumptions and educational aims are important factors that gear educational processes, this study focuses on the ways in which teachers' assumptions and goals regarding citizenship influence their teaching of civics. The research of this topic is pursed based on a set of comparative analytic case studies that observe different ways in which conceptions of the notion of good citizenship manifest in three Israeli high school civics classrooms. This study draws from the research traditions of grounded theory, the use of ideal types, as well as the principles of the qualitative instrumental collective case study approach. This study's main finding is the identification of a stark disparity between the conceptions of citizenship that are promoted in each of the three cases, despite the a-priori similarities between them. This disparity results in the enactment of very different types of civics lessons as well as influences the goals, the relation to the curriculum standards, and the pedagogies implemented in these three settings. As a result of these findings, three ideal types of citizenship and civic education (CCE) are presented, reflecting these different approaches: (1) disciplined CCE; (2) participatory CCE; and (3) critical CCE. The importance of these findings is in the illumination of a civic education gap, relating to these differences. Following the scholarly discourse surrounding this topic, this study contributes to the understanding that not only is there a gap regarding the civic experiences and opportunities to which the students are exposed, but that the fundamental meaning of the term good citizenship is interpreted and promoted in a varying fashion. This focus, on the ways in which these different conceptions influence and reinforce the reality of the civic education gap, forges the connections between these two fields of study, a connection that yet has to been acknowledged in the literature. In fact, this civic…
abstract: Based on the notion that philosophical assumptions and educational aims are important factors that gear educational processes, this study focuses on the ways in which teachers' assumptions and goals regarding citizenship influence their teaching of civics. The research of this topic is pursed based on a set of comparative analytic case studies that observe different ways in which conceptions of the notion of good citizenship manifest in three Israeli high school civics classrooms. This study draws from the research traditions of grounded theory, the use of ideal types, as well as the principles of the qualitative instrumental collective case study approach. This study's main finding is the identification of a stark disparity between the conceptions of citizenship that are promoted in each of the three cases, despite the a-priori similarities between them. This disparity results in the enactment of very different types of civics lessons as well as influences the goals, the relation to the curriculum standards, and the pedagogies implemented in these three settings. As a result of these findings, three ideal types of citizenship and civic education (CCE) are presented, reflecting these different approaches: (1) disciplined CCE; (2) participatory CCE; and (3) critical CCE. The importance of these findings is in the illumination of a civic education gap, relating to these differences. Following the scholarly discourse surrounding this topic, this study contributes to the understanding that not only is there a gap regarding the civic experiences and opportunities to which the students are exposed, but that the fundamental meaning of the term good citizenship is interpreted and promoted in a varying fashion. This focus, on the ways in which these different conceptions influence and reinforce the reality of the civic education gap, forges the connections between these two fields of study, a connection that yet has to been acknowledged in the literature. In fact, this civic…
author: Cohen, Aviv
language: English
keywords: Social sciences--Study and teaching, Political science, Citizenship, Education, Secondary
date published: 2013
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:44:31Z
provider: Columbia University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Columbia University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.7916/D8Q52WTJ