Teaching Who You Are: Connecting Teachers' Civic Education Ideology to Instructional Strategies

• Published in: Theory and research in social education Vol. 46; no. 1; pp. 68 - 109
• Main Author: Knowles, Ryan T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 02-01-2018
• Subjects: Citizenship Education; civic education; Civics; CivID Scale; Educational Attitudes; Educational Strategies; Goodness of Fit; High Schools; Ideology; instruction; Likert Scales; Middle School Teachers; Multivariate Analysis; Preferences; scale development; Secondary School Teachers; Social Studies; Statistical Analysis; Structural Equation Models; Teacher Attitudes; Teacher Surveys; Teaching Methods; Missouri
• ISSN: 0093-3104; 2163-1654
• DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2017.1356776

This quantitative study uses survey data to test connections between 735 teachers' civic education ideology (CivID) and their self-reported instructional practices. Analysis demonstrates teachers' beliefs in relation to conservative, liberal, and critical civic education ideology as well as preference for instructional strategies, such as teacher-text and collaborative-research. Results indicate that high support for particular civic education ideologies are associated with preferences for particular instructional strategies. Endorsement of conservative civic education ideology was positively linked to teacher-text instruction, whereas liberal ideology held a negative association. Critical civic education ideology had a positive relationship with collaborative-research based instruction. Additional findings indicated differences in instructional preferences and CivID based on teachers' gender, grade level, community type of school, racial makeup of school, and percent of students receiving free and reduced lunch.