| Preparing students to be responsible citizens is considered by many in the U.S. to be the most important goal of public schools. With this in mind, the researcher chose to focus this study on ways to support that goal.; The purposes of the research were to determine through the literature the value of programs or types of programs to support the aforementioned goal; to describe an Arizona excelling school which has some of these programs embedded in its curricula; and to provide administrators and teachers with information and guidance in their practice that would assist students with choices to be productive and participatory members of a democratic society.; The research paradigm used in this study was Mythical/Practical, which finds the researcher as participant/observer. The researcher not only affects the process but is affected by the interaction. That means the researcher has and will continue to incorporate what was learned from the excelling school into the current and future schools encountered on her journey as an administrator.; Including programs such as (a) service learning, (b) We The People, (c) character education, (d) anti-bullying (conflict resolution), (e) economics (Stock Market Simulation), and (f) Junior Achievement (Exchange City) in a school contributes to students' civic well-being. On one level this study was an evaluation of the citizenship programs at an excelling school and hence, contributed to the literature on civic education. |
