Partisanship, Participation, and Political Trust as Taught (or Not) in High School History and Government Classes

Abstract

Reliance on quantitative work has led to understudy of the "underlife" of the classroom. We observed six 11 th and 12 th grade history and government classrooms, twice a week, for a semester in order to explore whether and how teachers express their personal opinions, permit students to express their opinions, discuss political participation, and exhibit political cynicism. We found that teachers often expressed their opinions, except for their vote for president. Student opinions, however, were frequently suppressed in formal classroom interaction. Discussion of participation was limited, with teachers oblivious to unconventional activity. Frustration, cynicism, and even name-calling were frequently observed in both teachers' and students' political rhetoric. Our observations raise the question of whether increased civics teaching-without major changes in the kind of teaching employed-will inspire greater interest, involvement, and trust in rising generations or whether it will contribute to the very cynicism and indifference it is intended to overcome.

Teachers constituting the politicized subject: Canadian and US teachers’ perspectives on the ‘good’ citizen

“…The vagueness of the teachers' comments seemed to suggest that it would be an improper use of the teacher's role to define good citizenship in more specific terms, a finding that is consonant with previous work documenting teachers' reluctance to openly disclose their own political views (Hess 2009;Niemi and Niemi 2007). One common concern about students' political development was raised in all of the US teacher interviews: that participation must be informed by knowledge of issues.…”

“…DeJaeghere 2008; Evans 2006; Lee and Fouts 2005;Myers 2007), these studies have focused more on teachers of civics or government classes than on history teachers. Work by Hess (2009) and Niemi and Niemi (2007) suggests that despite -or perhaps because of -the highly politicized nature of their subject, history teachers often take an unreflective stance towards the political nature of their work. Thus, the title of this article refers to both the largely unexamined work that teachers do constituting the political subject of history as a discipline, as well as constituting the students as citizen subjects committed to a democratic society.…”

Classroom Deliberation in an Era of Political Polarization

“…Teachers regularly made derogatory remarks about political leaders and communicated impoverished views of how individuals can or should participate politically. Niemi and Niemi () express concern that this form of “teacher disclosure” is antithetical to the goals of democratic education:

But the extent to which teachers made derogatory comments about the knowledge and ability of ordinary citizens, about political leaders, about governmental institutions, and about political processes (campaigns, law‐making) was at times overwhelming. That a presidential debate made you “dumber,” that Kermit the Frog was the best candidate, that our “wonderful” Congress was “idiotic,” and so on, hardly suggest healthy, serious‐minded criticism.

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“…Teachers regularly made derogatory remarks about political leaders and communicated impoverished views of how individuals can or should participate politically. Niemi and Niemi (2007) express concern that this form of "teacher disclosure" is antithetical to the goals of democratic education:…”

Framing evolution discussion intellectually

“…Some advocate neutral teaching approaches (Hermann, 2008) whereas others argue that teacher neutrality is impossible (McCully, 2006). Furthermore, this body of research provides evidence that discussants can implicitly communicate or disclose their personal views (Cotton, 2006; Craig & Sanusi, 2000; Niemi & Niemi, 2007) and that explicit teacher disclosure can lead to reduced student participation (Hess, 2009). This study adds to this limited body of research by exploring how a secondary teacher manages the challenge of facilitating classroom discussions about evolution.…”