1

Citizenship and Social Justice: The place of critical social thinking in the social studies
classroom

Robert Breward

Education 460

As a student myself, I always questioned why social studies education was important
specifically, why it was called social studies, as opposed to history or geography. Throughout
many of my years in school, it felt as if we were learning the same things over and over again.
Something Canadian one year, something related to another country in the next, repeating like a
cycle until I reached high school. It was then that we started looking at both history and recent
events in a different light, one that reached into issues facing us both as individuals and as
members of society. On a personal level, I felt that examining globalization, nationalism, and
ideology had given Social Studies just a little bit more meaning enough for me to wonder if,
perhaps, it could do more. In order to answer the question of why we should be teaching social
studies, I assert that we as teachers should teach social studies in order to not only show what it
means to be a citizen, but also to encourage them to think critically about the world around them
and a instill within them a sense of social justice.

According to the front matter of the Alberta Education program of studies, Social studies
can be defined as the study of people in relation to each other and their world, and that it
develops the key attitudes, knowledge and understanding, and skills and processes necessary for
students to become active and responsible citizens, engaged in the democratic process and aware
of their capacity to affect change in their communities, society, and the world (Alberta
Education, 2007, p. 1). In this sense, the social studies program of studies has already laid the
groundwork for a socially conscious and critically-oriented social studies. The issue of social
studies not taking full advantage of these concepts in the class room may be more of a problem
rooted in how teachers implement the content, and how students interpret it, rather than how the
subject itself is structured. Gibson (2012), citing Aoki, explains that teachers are caught in the
zone between two curriculum; one world of the curriculum as planned and the other as lived

in the classroom (p. 43). There is a clear gap in how teachers present this planned content and
how students live the content teachers plan and present curriculum content from their own
perspectives, while students are more likely to live and take in content that they find interesting
or personally meaningful. One way to address this is for the teacher to concern themselves with
the bigger picture and not with just transmitting the officially sanctioned knowledge in the
curriculum (Gibson, 2012, p. 44) that is, for the teacher to focus on more than just a narrow
interpretation of curriculum content. By examining the bigger picture and bringing outside issues
relevant to course content and the idea of citizenship into the classroom, teachers can not only
bring meaningful real-world applications of the curriculum to their students, but also make light
of issues that may hold personal meaning to some or all of their students, helping them to begin
to think critically about themselves and the world around them and incite change in their lives
and communities.

Like any other social institution, schools still face many social issues that may negatively
impact the lives of students, such as bullying and discrimination based on race, sexual
orientation, gender, religion, or other social factors related to identity. While many schools take
measures to lessen the effects of these, such as changes in school policy, cultural events and
clubs, and the formation of Gay-Straight alliances (GSAs), I always felt that these and other
concepts were very disconnected from the classroom, leading myself and many of my peers who
did not identify with any of these groups to wonder why they were needed; as events, clubs, and
other resources related to tolerance of marginalized groups were optional, it seemed to relegate
the need for meaningful interaction and tolerance between different identity groups to a matter of
opinion. Even when such issues did appear in class, such as with the case of issues surrounding
Canadas First Nations, Mtis, and Inuit (FNMI) populations, there was a clear focus on the

history of these issues, particularly in the elementary and junior high years of my education,
without much mention of the contemporary issues surrounding these groups. Given that the role
of social studies is described in the curriculum as developing the capacity to become active,
responsible citizens and to provide awareness of how students can affect change in society
(Alberta Education, 2007), it seems strange to me that many social issues are danced around or
outright ignored in classrooms, even when students are at an age where they can comprehend and
would benefit from knowledge about issues in society. I feel that it falls to us as social studies
educators to bring the issues raised by marginalized groups forward and advocate for our
students who belong to them, as our subject has the tools and framework necessary for this. In a
study on LGBT advocacy in schools by Graybill, Myers, Varjas, and Wilson (2009), several
strategies for school-based advocacy for LGBT students are outlined, including the
aforementioned changes in school policy and creation of GSAs, inclusion of LGBT issues into
the curriculum, increasing visibility of the LGBT population by displaying posters and resource
fliers in the school, and including media related to LGBT issues in libraries (p. 571). These
strategies can easily be adapted to the specific needs of other marginalized groups as well, and
although changing curriculum outright to directly address issues faced by marginalized groups
may be a more complicated issue, the other strategies can be easily implemented in schools and
brought into social studies classrooms in order to encourage students to educate themselves and
ask questions. This, in itself, can help to encourage active citizenship and the creation of a more
inclusive social studies and school environment.

As social studies teachers, we should not teach simply to explain history, nor should we
teach just to give our students a list of content that will be helpful on a test that will matter little
years down the road. Social studies as a subject expects us as teachers to instill a sense of

citizenship in our students, assist them in embracing their own identities, and helping them to
find where they stand in the world. Despite recent developments in Albertas political
atmosphere that may make it difficult to implement certain issues related to identity into the
curriculum, particularly religion and sexual orientation, we still have the potential to bring real
world issues into the classroom and discuss them with our students to show them how social
issues can affect every aspect of our lives and the lives of those around us, and encourage them
to challenge the problematic aspects of society. We teach social studies in order to make our
places as citizens in society meaningful to our students, and to empower them to make the world
around them a better place for everyone.

References

Alberta Education. (2007). Program of studies: Social studies, kindergarten to grade 12.
Edmonton, AB: Alberta Education. Retrieved from
https://education.alberta.ca/media/1126804/ss9.pdf

Gibson, S. (2012). "Why do we learn this stuff"? Students' views on the purpose of social
studies. Canadian Social Studies, 45(1), 43-58. Retrieved from
http://www.educ.ualberta.ca/css/CSS_Vol45_1_final.pdf

Graybill, E., Meyers, J., Varjas, K., & Wilson, L. (2009). Content-Specific Strategies to
Advocate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth: An Exploratory Study. School
Psychology Review, 38(4), 570-584. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/ps/i.do?id=GALE|A215844833&v=2.1&u=ucal
gary&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1