The Role of Ninth Grade Civics in Citizenship Education

Author(s): Jack Allen

Source: The High School Journal, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Dec., 1960), pp. 106-111
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
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 The Role of Ninth Grade Civics in
CitizenshipEducation
Jack Allen
George Peabody College for Teachers

is a of in American
/CIVICS subject-area continuingpopularity
V> secondaryeducation with roots extendingback into the nine-
teenth century. But what does civics mean? With what content
else Court
does it deal? That's something again. Like Supreme
of the federal civics seems
interpretations constitution, frequently

to be what one chooses to say it is. If this bothersthe educator,the

same apparentlyis not the case with such an impeccable source as
aside all
Webster'sNew InternationalDictionary. Brushing equivo-
cation, Webster's states brieflythat civics is "that departmentof
science with of and duties of
political dealing rights citizenship
citizens." Such a succinct, seem
to the of a The same can-
closely-phraseddescriptionmay

entirelyadequate compilers dictionary.

not be said of those responsible for the curriculumof a modern
high school.
For civics has come to encompass much more than just the
field of political science. As words like "community" and "vo-
cational" have seeped into its meaning,the tentaclesof civicshave
tended to embrace othersof the social sciences. This is precisely
the point at which civics programsin some school systemshave
encountered Such have seemed to have almost
difficulty. programs

no so that and idea thatsome-

water-tightcompartments,
any every

one might dream up for the making of a "better citizen" has had
a chance of being included.
The term"civics"came into somewhat general use in the middle 1880's. In 1885
HenryRandall Waite became editorof a magazine called The Citizen. The same year
he founded the American Institute of Civics. Later Waite became editor of another
mag-
azine known simply as Civics.1
Wake's initial editorship,a definitionof civics appeared in edu-
cational literature. An articlein 1886 definedcivics as "the science
of citizenship-the relation of man, the individual, to man in organized
collections-the individual in his relation to the state."2
1
R. M. Tryon. The Social Sciences As School Subjects, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1935. d. 262.
2C. F. Creshore. "The Teaching of Civics in the Schools," Education, VII: 264;
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 1960] Citizenship Education* 107
There are a number of indicationsof the growing popularity of civics in
the school program during the waning years of the nineteenthand the early
part of the twentiethcentury. The growth can be documented by the reports
of the United States Commissionerof Education. Less objective but in some
respects more impressiveevidence can be seen in the publication of text-
books. In the two decades following1885, at least two dozen new
textbookswere published, each in some manner embodyingthe design for a
course in civics. The books and the courses were es-sentiallypolitical in
orientation. The courses were, in fact, fre-quently labeled "Civil
Government." Major attention,in some instancesalmost exclusive
attention,was devoted to the study of
the federalconstitution.An addressdelivered at the 1899 meeting
of the National Education Association expressed the beliefs of
"In a course in civil in the school/1the
many. government
high
speaker observed, "the constitutionof the United States should
have the most prominentplace. Too much
time should not be
spent in studyingabout the constitution,but the text of this docu-
mentitselfshould be studied and learned word forword."3
If had been a fashionableword in 1907, it
breakthrough
might
have been used to describe the publication of a junior high level
and the
textbook by A. W. Dunn, entitled The Community
different estab-
Citizen. For Dunn's volume took a decidedly turn,

a directionwhich civics have tended

lishing subsequent offerings

to follow. The Dunn textbook opened with a discussion of the

There
nature and meaning of community. followed in order
to life:
these topics, particularlyas theyrelate community family;
Americanization;relationsbetween land and people; health; pro-
tectionof life and business; businessand
govern- property;private

ment; conservation; and communication;education;

transportation

aesthetics;religion; and social welfare. The textbook concluded

with four on local one each on state and na-
chapters government,

tional and a final on the of

govern-
the of
government, chapter financing

ment. All in all, quite a change. Even so, publication

Dunn's textbookmight have been a matter of little consequence
but for one fact. It was a publishing success. People liked it.
What's more, schools bought it.
The new civics,if one mightcall it that,tended to shiftthe em-
fromcivil to the second
phasis government communityliving. By

of the twentieth the common label for the course

decade, century,
 was "CommunityCivics." While the course was most frequently
8 Laura Donnan,"The High Schooland the Citizen,"NationalEducationAssociation
Proceedings,1889. p. 516.

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108 The High School Journal [December
a ninth it was not uncommon to findit in
grade offering, placed
Grade
Eight.
of the was not without
The interjection communityconcept
There was
disrupting consequences. a sameness and stability
about the of when the
study government,particularly approach
drawn from the
was structuralwith an organizational pattern
constitution. else
federal Communitywas something again. Ty-
ing this idea to civics opened a Pandora's box of interpretations.
By 1915, A. W. Dunn, who had played such a dominant role in
the movement,tried in a
propelling community-civics
professional
article to bring some order out of the confusion. "The aim of
civics/' he wrote, "is to the child to 'know his
community
help
not a lot of facts about his but
community'- merely community,

the meaning of his communitylife,what it does for him and how

it does it, what the has a to fromhim and
expect community right

how he may fulfillhis obligations,meanwhile cultivatingin him

the essentialqualities and habits of good citizenship." Dunn com-
mented furtherabout the more traditional contentof the course:
civics
"Community by no means minimizes the importance of
at
government. It describes and emphasizes government every
as the chief means which the citizensof a co-
step by community

operate." Furthermore,he rejected any note of provincialism.

"Community civics," he observed, "does not mean local civics
.. civics in
merely. Sometimes there is talk about community
one grade, and national civics in another. This is a misapprehen-
sion of the of the term. . . our nation and our state
significance

are communities,as well as our city or village, and the child is a

citizenof the largeras of the smaller community. The significance
of the term civics' does not lie in its im-
but in its of
'community geographical

plication implication communitycooperationthrough

. ."4
government.

Dunn's effortto clarifythe meaning of civics was matched in

1915 by a bulletin of the United States Departmentof Education,
Civics*
entitled The Teaching of Community The authors of
this bulletin viewed communitycivics much in the manner of
Dunn. If their containedmore of the
anything, description general
welfareidea.
Despite the trendsand emphases considered up to this point,
it was not until 1916 that civics received an impetusthat put it in
 * -
1915."CommunityCivics What It Means," History Teacher's Magazine, VI : 52,

BJ. L. Barnard and others. The Teachingof CommunityOwies. United States

D. 0. Government

Departmentof Education,Bulletin,1915, No. 23. Washington,

PrintingOffice1915..

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 I960] Citizenship Education 109
business to stay as a ninth grade subject. It was in this year that the
Committeeon Social Studies of the National Education Associa-
tion issued its influentialbulletin No. 28.6 Concerningthis report
it has been observed: "Perhaps the history of American edu-
cation affordsno other instancein which so unpretentiousa book-
let has wielded so great an influenceupon the curriculum."7The
1916 bulletin included recommendationsfora social studies

specific
programat both the junior and senior high school levels. For the ninthgrade the
committeerecommendeda course entitled"Civics:
Economic and Vocational Aspects/' Here we note additional em-
bellishmentsto the civic concept,particularlyas embodied in the word,
"vocational."
To the of the 1916 committee
appreciate fully impact report, it will be
necessaryto digressbriefly. In 1899 the Committeeof Seven of the
American Historical Association issued its notable
reporton the high school social studies curriculum. The recom-mendation
for Grade Nine was ancient history. "The time has come,"stated the
Committee,"when ancienthistorymay be studied independentlyas an
interesting,instinctive,and valuable part of the historyof the human race."8
There is abundant evidence of widespread acceptance for the report of the
not for the ninth ancient
Committeeof Seven, acceptance only grade
recom-
history mendation,but for the entire high school historyprogram.
The 1916 report representeda direct challenge to the earlier
recommendationsof the Committee of Seven. And no contrast
was quite so marked as that at the ninth grade, where one group was
concerned with the ancient past, another with the nature of
contemporarysociety.
During the more than fortyyears since the 1916 report of the
Committee on Social Studies, a number of curriculum studies
could be cited to the of civicsas themostdominant
-
attesting growth

social studies in the ninth Ancient lost its

offering grade. history

hold rapidly,in part because of the new recommendation,but also

because of changingviews about the nature of high school history.
in 1949 indicated civics as
A comprehensiveinquiry having ap-
of the course and for the
proximately45% offerings registrations

ninth grade in public high schools,with world history13%.9 (It

• The Social Studies In Secondary Education. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education. Bulletin. 1916. No. 28.
7
nj. R. Wesley ond S. P. Wronski. Teaching Social Studies In High Schools, "BVmrthEdition. Boston: D. 0. Heath and Oompany,
1958. p. 44f.
8
The Study of History In Schools. New York: Macmillan, 1909. p. 54.
9
H. R. Anderson. Teaching of United States History In Public High Schools. Bulletin. 1949.
No. 7., Washington, D. O.: Federal Security Agency, p. 8. This study found "state history" and
"geography," each with approximately S% of ninth grade offerings,"social science" approximately
5%, and the remaining 19% spread over a variety of subject areas.
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110 The High School Journal [December
is perhaps well to observe that the world historycourse embodied a
fromthe ancient
considerablydifferentcontent previous history
offering.)
The growth of civics during these years may have been the
factor which served to increase rather than diminish the areas of
as to its internalcontent. The orientation
disagreement community

continued. Government,too, remained one of the staples. Gradu-

ally, however,an additional element began to loom large in the
picture. This was a concern for the adolescent himself.
as
An emphasis on the adolescent was foreshadowedas early
1916 with the vocationalismin the committeereportof that year.
The of the human movement the
impact development brought
to the forein a manner that became
emphasis increasingly
particu-
the 1950's. The
larly apparent during 1954 yearbook of the
American Associationof School Administrators,for instance,took
the that for American with
position "educating citizenshipbegins a
sensitiveconcern for the basic human emotional needs of each
individual pupil/'10 A more recent curriculum bulletin of the National
Council for the Social Studies observed that of the five
school social studies
representativejunior high programspresented
"include some units
in some detail, all concerningpersonal-social
one
relations. They are either concentrated chieflyin grade,
particularlyGrade 9, or insertedinto a sequence which may have
another basis for
organization."11
Thus we see the civicscourse as the of threehis-
today synthesis

toricinfluences- and the individual. The

government,community,

basic aim of this most recent synthesisis to enable the young

adolescent to understandand appreciate the nature of democratic
citizenshipand to develop social skills with which he can improve
his civic competenceas he moves gradually into the adult world.
Such a general statementof aims amounts to little more than
pedagogical verbiage,however,unless spelled out in some detail.
a
Consequently, note on the characteristicsof a modern civics
course is in order.
school
Civics is now generallydefinedas a junior high offering
(as distinguishedfromsuch courses as American Governmentor
Problems of Democracy on the senior high school level). This
the case, thereare and social reasons
being compellingpsychological

why the study can properly begin with the adolescent himself.
The young adolescent is puttingaway childish things. Mattersof
10
Educatingfor AmericanCitizenship.Thirty-secondYearbook,Washington,D. C.
The Association1954. . v. 2.
11
J. 0. Aiurich,Editor. Social Studies for the JuniorHigh School: Programsfor

Grades 7, 8, and 9. •CurriculumSeries, No. Six. Washington,D. 0.: The Council,

1957, p. 92.
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1960] Citizenship Education 111
and social loom as con-
personal growth relationship major
siderations. As a consequence,the adolescentcitizenneeds to learn
moreof himself,more of what he is reallylike as a person. Further-
more, he must see more clearlyhis own personalityin relation to
the culture of which he is a part. He must test his personal
motivationsagainst the rules which societyhas fashioned.
Having seen himselfas a person and as a social agent, the stu-
dent is then in a position to examine society'smore formalpolitical
structure,to see himselfcast in a political role. He learns the
but also the of
nature of political rights, requirements political
responsibility. And he must begin to see these as they function
at various levels of government.
But democraticcitizenshipis more than political. It also has
its social and economicconnotations. So the studentof civicsmust
become familiarwitha wide varietyof social and economicrelation-
ships which so influencethe character of our communities,our
states,and our nation. Social groups and social functions,eco-
nomic organizationsand processes-these are the stuffof this facet
of civics. the
The final stage of the civics course relates to young
adolescent's for the futureand more to the world
plans particularly

of work. It is a time for personal exploration rather than voca-

tional choice. Each individual has his own special collection of
abilities, aptitudes, and interests. Each collection, in turn, has
a for some than for others.
greateraffinity occupational groupings
in
An awarenessof such relationshipsis an importantingredient
of education.
a comprehensivepicture citizenship
Citizenshipeducation,properlydefined,as a productof the en-
not of the social studies
tireprogramof the school,certainly simply

and not of a course in civics. But civics

program, assuredly merely
has an function to
important
perform. It confrontsthe young
adolescent for the firsttime in his school experiencewith a com-
as and as
plete view of the citizenshipfunction,
responsibili- rights

ties,in a democraticcontext.
If zealots among us have given civics too expansive an interpre-
to the civicscourse
tation,if theyhave attemptedto assign responsi-
bilities that belong more properly to the family,to other social
or to other areas of the curriculum,let them be shown
agencies,

the error of their ways. But in our academic eagerness,let us

exercise care lest we throwout the baby with the bath. For the
civics course in itself is a sound academic achievement. It has
stood well the test of time.
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