21st Century Pedagogies and Citizenship Education: Enacting Elementary School Curriculum Using Critical Inquiry-Based Learning

Abstract

How elementary teachers address citizenship is important in 21st century teaching and learning. Situating citizenship education within the varied global contexts of schooling and connecting content to pedagogical approach is a complex task. Even so, citizenship education can be the philosophical underpinning, or vision, for a teaching pedagogy that engages students in active, creative, and critical ways. This chapter illustrates key features and priorities for citizenship education by exploring the concepts of perspective taking, inquiry pedagogy and critical pedagogy and how they work together using the example of elementary school Social Studies in a Canadian context. Using examples from previous studies and narratives from elementary school teachers, this chapter includes portraits of classroom teachers’ work using a critical inquiry-based approach. The chapter illustrates how resources can be used in teachers’ planning to design learning that is nestled in citizenship education. Government curriculum documents as well as scholarly literature and teaching resources can support critical-inquiry for citizenship education. This teaching can lead to active, engaged citizens. There are many approaches to citizenship education; drawing awareness to perspectives and pedagogical possibilities is essential in teacher development. Teacher education is the ideal place for introducing and connecting foundations of education to best practice.

Effects of High Frequency of Examinations on Choice of Pedagogical Approaches in Kakamega County, Kenya

“…The assessments provided do not effectively evaluate the aptitude for applying, analyzing, and synthesizing information. Furthermore, they rarely gauge the knowledge and abilities that students require for their post-schooling everyday lives (Cleovoulou, 2021).…”

Social-Educational Factors of Children’s Citizenship Education in Basic School: the Context of Lithuania

“…Citizenship education is affected positively in terms of multiculturalism, upper socio-economic level, the family's good education, a strong physical infrastructure, media, peer groups, thinking competence, learning motivation, effective teaching, positive role model teacher, and supporting thinking through the curriculum. Cleovoulou (2021), bringing to the fore the most common questions teachers have about what citizenship education is, why to teach it and how to teach it, explained the perspectives of citizenship education in primary school in order to strengthen civic awareness and a sense of responsible and active citizenship. The attention of researchers is drawn to the role of the school in developing citizenship values in individual countries, e.g., England (Moorse, 2019), China (Chia & Zhao, 2020), South Africa (Wolhuter, Janmaat, van der Walt, & Potgieter, 2020), the Netherlands (Duarte, 2021); a team of authors from different countries (Sant et al, 2022), using case studies from schools in Catalonia, Colombia, England, and Pakistan, inspires the discussion whether citizenship education manifests different conditions of emancipatory education.…”

Using Local and Global Phenomena in Teaching Global Citizenship Education in English at the Elementary Level

“…Teachers must respond to an increasingly diverse student population's needs and teach the learners to understand, appreciate, and respect differences and similarities across various ethnic, racial, and religious groups (O'Connor & Zeichner, 2011;Suarez-Orozco, 2001). Teaching GCED is challenging because GCED involves situating citizenship education within the varied global contexts of schooling and connecting content to a pedagogical approach (Cleovoulou, 2021), preparing educators to teach students of diverse backgrounds (Futrell et al, 2003), teachers lack awareness, knowledge or competence on GCED (Bercasio & Perez, 2020), and have ambiguous or assimilationist conceptions of citizenship education, and others based it on ethics and interculturalism for an inclusive concept of citizenship (Dusi, Steinbach & Messetti, 2012).…”

“…Elementary teachers play a crucial role in addressing citizenship education in 21stcentury teaching and learning (Cleovoulou & Cleovoulou, 2021). Citizenship education can be the philosophical underpinning or vision for a pedagogy that engages students actively, creatively, and critically (Cleovoulou & Cleovoulou, 2021).…”

“…Elementary teachers play a crucial role in addressing citizenship education in 21stcentury teaching and learning (Cleovoulou & Cleovoulou, 2021). Citizenship education can be the philosophical underpinning or vision for a pedagogy that engages students actively, creatively, and critically (Cleovoulou & Cleovoulou, 2021). However, not all teacher candidates have access to programs that develop their understanding of global citizenship and how to interpret GCED in the classrooms (Ranco et al, 2020); therefore, there is a need to orient elementary teachers about GCED as a flexible paradigm that can inform their instructional practices.…”