| Across the political spectrum there is a perception that the United States is experiencing a crisis in civic literacy and participation. Education reform has been seen as a primary means for ameliorating this crisis. Although education reformers desire changes in classroom instructional practice and curricular content, there has been a conspicuous lack of attention given to teachers' understandings of citizenship and civic education, and professional development programs and processes aimed at affecting teacher understanding and practice. This multiple embedded case study explores new ways of understanding how teachers think, teach, and learn about citizenship and civics education. The study pays especially close attention to teacher's pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a knowledge domain previously given little attention in the research on civics education and professional development. The study follows eight middle and high school teachers' in a year of their participation in Facing History and Ourselves, a popular professional development program aimed at influencing teachers' understanding and practice in civics education. It asks whether, how, and to what effect Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) influenced teacher understanding and practice. The study has three major findings. The study found that Facing History and Ourselves did have an impact on the eight teachers in the study. Although effects varied widely across cases, a particularly strong area of impact was in the domain of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). A second finding was that effects on teacher understandings were mediated by a set of powerful filters. Teacher biography, teachers' perceptions of their students' needs, instructional environment, and historical context all filtered the professional development experience. A final finding was that teachers' curricular purposes of student need, the instructional environment, and the historical moment. Rather, these filters combined constituted teachers' curricular purpose. |
