The Story of School: A Historical Overview of Citizenship Education Communicated in Yearbooks

• In Event: Roundtable Session 101
  In Roundtable Session: Citizenship Education, Policy, and Political Change in Canada and the United States

Abstract

In a move to promote scholarly examination of the too often taken for granted spaces of schools, this study brings into focus a beloved school artifact, the yearbook. This paper shares empirical research, based upon a yearbook archive spanning a 54-year period, revealing the ways in which schools communicate ideas of citizenship/civic education in various contexts within one urban middle school. Examination of yearbook content potentially helps us, education researchers, to see the ways that the missions of schools are perpetuated long after students have left K-12 education. After all thousands for students purchase yearbooks every year fashioning them as nostalgic artifacts.

Author

• Jeannette Alarcon, The University of Texas - Austin