Contemporary Studies Program, University of Queensland

• Differing conceptions of the purposes of civic education and national identity;
• The role and prominence of values education;
• The significant role of teachers in effective civic education, particularly in terms of teacher’s pedagogical strategies and interpretations of civic education policy into curriculum reality;

Most alarming were the ‘significant limitations’ the study found within "teacher’s understanding and skills in the area of civics and citizenship education, along with widespread unconscious ethnocentrism and inadequate pre-service civics education" (Print et al, 1999:48). Faced with these imperatives, any pre-service and inservice professional development activities will need to attend to "the possibility that since teachers learnt most about this area through life experience and the media, their knowledge might be partisan, partial or simplistic" (Print et al, 1999:48).

In sum, teachers play a fundamental role in the effective implementation of civic education and its part in the ongoing composition of contemporary society. How teachers translate government policy into curriculum reality, and the effectiveness and relevance of their pedagogical approach, is of critical importance in the successful implementation of civics education (O’Brien & Parry, 2001; Print et al 1999).

This paper reports on an action research project primarily concerned with identifying and documenting the curriculum decision-making and pedagogical practices of teachers and pre-service teachers in both the curriculum area of Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE), and (to a limited extent) the current Education Queensland trial New Basics. In doing so, we grounded initial observations and needs analyses in Print et al’s review of existing issues, which included:

• competing priorities within educational goals;
• inadequate curriculum structures;
• conflict within core societal values;
• difficulties with broad acceptance of diversity in society;
• socially and culturally diverse student cohorts;
• limitations in teacher’s experience and professional development in current conceptions of civics and citizenship; and
• widespread unconscious ethnocentrism within teachers and the community in general.

We then conducted a curriculum inquiry of the current SOSE Syllabus (QSCC, 2000), the New Basics (Education Queensland, 2000), and the National Common and Agreed Goals for Schooling (MCEETYA, 1999) as a framework from which to generate baseline indications of curriculum goals and intentions, and to facilitate an ongoing comparative analysis of teacher’s and pre-service teacher’s curriculum decisions and pedagogical strategies.

Additionally, we needed to take into account the ongoing dialogue and debate on conceptions of civics and citizenship education, and the role and place of values education within the curriculum (Print et al, 1999). While this study does not attend to these issues directly, it drew upon current literature and recent analyses of civics education, democratic education, and values in education. As this paper is concerned with the initial findings of an action research project, the literature will not be reviewed here. However, it is noted that for our current purposes, civics and citizenship education is broadly conceptualised within the ‘new civic education’, wherein an emphasis is given to ‘the active participation of citizens, the formation of values and protection of the environment’ (Print et al, 1999). This conception lies within an overarching framework of educational aims, in which SOSE plays a significant role.

Reviewed and discussed at length in O’Brien and Parry (forthcoming), this understanding of civics and citizenship education is inclusive of the ‘fostering of ethically and morally based thinking, and the social, cultural and philosophical understandings that support their effective implementation.’ As such, we see civics and citizenship education as experiences of ‘the social dimension of democracy in practice’. That is, civics and citizenship education plays a significant role in the development of a student’s understandings of democracy and its underlying concepts and values, as well as the disposition for deliberative participation in community life, and an orientation to lifelong learning.

Fundamental in the SOSE schooling experience is the ability to participate in everyday social discourse (Gilbert, 2001). By learning about central concepts and core disciplinary ideas, students are encouraged to relate their everyday experiences to broader issues and contemporary contexts. However, in order to be able to express and enact their own views of the world and their future, their understandings will need to progress in critically and more sophisticated ways. Previous research shows us that some classroom experiences are more effective in achieving these abilities than others (e.g. O’Brien, 2001; O’Brien, 2000). Moreover, the literature on social constructivist learning environments and dialogical learning (e.g. Wells, 1999, Werscht, 1993; Westgate & Hughes, 1997 ) illustrate the importance of scaffolding thinking and learning through teacher-student, student-student dialogical tasks. The validity and effectiveness of these approaches are currently reflected in emphasis given to ‘substantive conversation’, ‘deep thinking’, and ‘relevant topics’ in revised curricula documents (SOSE, 2000; New Basics, 2000).

However, central to the effective implementation of curricular innovation are teacher’s beliefs and understandings about knowledge, what is to be learned and how it will be learned (Chan & Elliott, 2000) Experience tells us that pedagogical decisions are grounded within interpretations of knowledge, theories of learning, assumptions about the learner, and the demands of the context – and that these interact in ways to inform our decisions about ‘what is to be learned, and how it is to be experienced’ (Howard, McGee, Schwartz and Purcell, 2000). Print et al’s study (1999) is a recent example of the influence teachers’ subject matter knowledge can have on the implementation of curriculum materials and their effectiveness for student learning.

Our task for this project was to further examine the nature of teacher’s subject matter understanding, at the level of curriculum planning, and to explore some strategies for professional development. This is an ongoing issue in civic education, as we continue to seek ways to establish an ‘adequate pedagogical foundation for civic education’ (O’Brien & Parry, forthcoming; Print et al, 1999).

This action research model drew upon case studies in which the planning practices and approaches of both professional teachers and pre-service teachers were observed and examined. Researchers acted as ‘participant researchers’, where the action research model enabled us to work collaboratively with teachers in the planning, implementation and evaluation of SOSE units whilst concurrently making participant observations of their pedagogical content knowledge, subject matter interpretations, and theories of learning as they arose within the practice itself (Kemis, 1995).

The action research model was supported by an interpretivist perspective (Guba and Lincon, 1994) from which to frame analysis. This enabled us to observe and document teachers’ understandings and the origins of their perspectives, as they would describe and negotiate them within the collaborative relationship between researcher and practitioner. To locate teacher’s understandings within broader conceptions of subject matter, we drew upon a range of dimensions generated from the QSCC (2000) SOSE Syllabus, MCEETYA (1999) National Goals of Schooling, and to a limited extent Education Queensland New Basics (2000) model.

At the level of curriculum interpretation and planning, we found teachers appeared to have a very limited understanding of the conceptual strands and key values within the SOSE curriculum, and had much difficulty in translating them into learning experiences. This was particularly the case in formulating learning objectives and assessment tasks from the broadly articulated conceptual strands and key values. Many resorted to simply selecting an ‘outcome’ from the syllabus document as a foundation for their lesson planning. Many others had difficulties in ‘finding where to start’. We identified the following common impediments to planning:

• preference for ‘content’ over ‘concepts’ – hence, blocks in subject matter understanding
• limited understanding of the ‘subject matter’ within the ‘concepts’ and ‘values’ in the syllabus
• limited use of contemporary learning theories and their relevance to conceptually-oriented curriculum.

However, an important aspect of effective teaching for deep learning is the teacher’s translation of the subject matter into experiences that enable students to engage in concepts and issues thoroughly (Biggs, 1999; Maor and Taylor, 1995; O’Brien, 2001). On further probing, we found that most teachers were unable to relate the underlying philosophical concepts and discourses that are inherent in the social education curriculum – such as democratic living, social justice, equality, rights and fairness. This limitation in their subject matter knowledge placed constraints on the quality of learning objectives and depth of learning experiences they were able to implement. Thus, we undertook to design a set of professional development tools aimed at redressing this limitation, and to develop some templates from which teachers could refer to when planning and designing lessons. The tools and templates arose from lengthy discussions and collaborations with teachers aimed at analyzing existing planning practices, the subject matter knowledge that underpinned them. This included researchers in an active process of guided professional development, in addition to collaboration on lesson plans.

Our findings highlighted the limitations of teachers pedagogical content knowledge and subject matter knowledge in SOSE as grounded in their own naïve understandings of the central concepts and values in the syllabus. This has much to do with the nature of the new SOSE syllabus being conceptually and epistemologically different from most teacher’s education in disciplinary-oriented social studies (such as history and geography), and the sophisticated philosophical nature of the new SOSE syllabus.

In the table below is a summary of the Strands or sub-disciplines which structure philosophical inquiry. The first two strands ask what philosophers call fundamental questions. The two strands are (1) metaphysics, or the nature of things; and (2) epistemology, or knowing about things.

The other strands drawn upon, ethics, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics, are asking questions about … . This is because while they are sub-disciplines, these strands are underpinned by metaphysical and epistemological considerations. For example, to understand what ethics is, we may need to understand the nature of our beliefs and values and where they come from, which is a metaphysical question about ethics. We can also ask whether or not there are moral truths. What follows are descriptions of ethics, social and political philosophy and aesthetics. There is an overlap between some of these sub-disciplines, for example ethics and social and political philosophy. Arguably, all social and political questions are underpinned by questions of an ethical nature.

The questions that are fundamental to each strand have been highlighted in bold type. Others are questions that might be asked if one or more strands intersect. We have left some cells open for you to consider and construct your own questions.

SOSE attempts to bring together various disciplines including history, geography, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, law, psychology, and ethics, as well as studies such as civics and citizenship, cultural studies, and future studies, in order to develop an understanding of society and our lives within it. These elements are drawn together by the philosophical concepts and questions that underpin them, as central concepts to inquire into, in order to faciliate a deeper understanding of them. In doing so, there is currently an emphasis (particularly within Australia, the UK, and Canada) on core societal values as key elements of social education curriculum. In Queensland for example, this emphasis has been translated as Key Values articulated as essential underlying concepts that integrate throughout the curriculum’s conceptual strands. The four key values within the Queensland syllabus (QSCC, 2000) are democratic processes; social justice; ecological and economic sustainability; and peace. The four conceptual strands are time, continuity and change; place and space; culture and identity; and systems, resources and power.

The following table shows how we placed the Key Values and Strands of the Key Learning Area as found in the SOSE syllabus, and mapped them generally onto the relevant sub-disciplines of philosophy. For professional development sessions, we provided some examples of how theses questions may relate to the SOSE syllabus. This was an important and valuable strategy in facilitating teacher’s subject matter understanding – particularly in translating the strands and values into ‘learning objectives’. Again, we have left some cells open for you to consider and construct your own questions.

For social education to be effective, learning experiences should be aimed at asking fundamental questions about the underlying assumptions of these ‘values’ in a critical and socio-culturally informed manner. Questions designed to explore and examine the heart of the everyday issues we experience. Doing so requires asking questions about the nature of things, of the values and beliefs that we hold, and on what counts as evidence. Planning and teaching can begin by developing, and adapting or building on the general or broader questions found in philosophy (above) as those questions that underlie the key values and conceptual strands. This enables teacher’s to enrich their own understanding of the subject matter in social education, which in turn, enriches the learning experiences and social understanding of the students they work with. It is this form of learning that facilitates genuine participation in social discourses, and informed participation in a democratic society (O’Brien & Parry, forthcoming).

Curriculum, teaching and the experience of learning is most effective when it is directed towards helping children to understand better, more powerfully, and with greater relevance. When we attend to the task of developing children’s own reasoning, inquiry, and social understandings, we are implicitly attempting to bring children’s privately held perspectives of living in society into a ‘culturally shared and valued frame of reference’ (O’Brien, 2000).

An understanding of basic philosophy has much to offer teachers in curriculum design and interpretation, particularly in social education. Underlying the aims and objectives of contemporary social education curricula are concepts, themes, and ways of thinking that are fundamentally philosophical in nature. We found that developing an understanding of the philosophical terrain and inquiry-oriented approach that underpins these frameworks can bring clarity for teachers, of the curriculum itself, and the nature of thinking and learning it intends.

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