| Since its formation in 1903, the American Political Science Association (APSA) demonstrated a sporadic interest in the pre-collegiate civic education. The level of the APSA's activities pertaining to civic education in schools directly corresponds with the teleological goals of the extant paradigms in political science discipline. Three dominant paradigms are noteworthy: Traditionalism, Behavioralism and Post-behavioralism. The three paradigms find expression in the APSA's eight reports, recommendations and statements on civic education issued between 1908 and 1999. The eight documents suggest political scientists' evolving conceptions of citizenship and civic education. Of the three conceptions, i.e. Traditionalist, Behavioralist and Post-behavioralist, Traditionalist conception has been most salient in the high school social studies curriculum in the form of a formalist and legalist approach to the teaching of government. The APSA fostered its Traditionalist conception during its formative phase when political scientists' primary concern was the study of government. The fostering of the teaching of government in schools was political scientists' strategy to expand the scope of their profession and to legitimize their proprietary control over political knowledge. In this effort, the APSA authorized several committees to re-define the subject matter of government-related courses in schools. The committees' explicit mission was to secure a mandatory status for a government course in the social studies curriculum. After the Second World War, when Behavioralism replaced Traditionalism, the APSA's activities in the pre-collegiate civic education also plummeted, only to be revived under Post-behavioralism. |
