Pedagogical implications of children's thoughts on the concept of citizenship

A year ago, my advisor and I collected data from various preservice teachers, myself included, on the concept of citizenship. We examined elementary students' knowledge about the concept of citizenship through interviews that were collected by pre service teachers. The students were asked questions that measured their knowledge of citizenship prior to the lesson that would be taught by the pre service teachers and after the lesson. We found that there were many students who defined citizenship as being a Good Samaritan and many students defined good citizenship as being patriotic. We studied interviews of forty-eight kindergarten through fifth graders. We used this data as groundwork for the exploration of the pedagogical implications of children's thoughts on the concept of citizenship. Good citizenship has several entities that make up the definition of what good citizenship is. A good citizen is the Good Samaritan who is patriotic and taking responsibility of not just voting-but being proactive in changing the issues that our country is facing.B.S.Ed. (Bachelor of Science in Education