| Education for citizenship in a democratic society has been a dominant theme in social studies curriculum for the past century (Parker, 2003). However, in the decades before the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, African American educators were expected to model and to teach students to be "good citizens" in a democratic society that legally discriminated against them and other racial groups (Anderson, 1988). To date, neither the literature on civic education (Hertzberg, 1981; Saxe, 1991) nor the literature on African American segregated schools (Sowell, 1974, 1976; Walker, 1996, 2000) has addressed the problem in depth.; The purpose of this ethnographic historical study was to examine how African American educators addressed civic education from 1930 to 1954, with particular attention to events in the state of Georgia, using archival documents and oral history interviews. The study addressed these questions: (a) What beliefs about civic education are evident in the professional writings of Georgia's African American educators from 1930 to 1954? (b) What civic education classroom practices and school-based activities do Georgia's African American educators report from 1930 to 1954? and (c) What are the self-reported experiences of education for citizenship for African American educators in Georgia's African American schools from 1940 to 1954?; Findings indicate that some of Georgia's African American elementary and high school teachers taught civic education through formal, informal, and extra-curricular instruction. Particularly at the high school level, civic education in African American segregated public schools increased in content and scope during World War II, with emphasis on building racial and civic pride. This study provides historical point-of-reference and aids researchers' interpretations to explain how schooling shaped many African Americans' concepts of agency, democracy, and justice over time. |
