Democratic Education at the Elementary Level

• In Event: Democratic Citizenship in Education 2

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how twenty inservice elementary teachers, in a master’s program understood, designed, and implemented lessons related to critical democratic citizenship education and critical literacy at the elementary level. Many elementary school teachers are not adequately prepared to teach social studies and/or address civic/democratic education due to the pressures of focusing on literacy instruction. Due to the limited space for this proposal, we highlight two of the teachers, Lisa and Emily, and illustrate how they developed and reflected on their lessons as they taught fourth grade. Findings indicate that the teachers were not only able to implement democratic citizenship education in their classrooms but they developed a strong conceptual understanding of democratic citizenship education.

Authors

• Kathryn M. Obenchain, Purdue University

• Julie L. Pennington, University of Nevada - Reno