Date of Award

Spring 5-9-2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Keith Carpenter

Second Advisor

Brad S. Smith

Third Advisor

Kristy Huston

Abstract

Researchers documented how American students often received minimal exposure to democratic knowledge and practices necessary for meaningful civic participation, particularly justice-oriented civic learning. Teachers played a central role in shaping civic instruction, as their civic beliefs and ideologies, personally responsible, participatory, or justice-oriented, influenced how civic content was interpreted and enacted in classrooms. Prior research on civic education ideologies focused largely on preservice teachers or veteran educators. Accordingly, this interpretive qualitative study explored how teacher education programs influenced the civic education ideologies of novice secondary social studies teachers in Tennessee, as framed by the typologies of personally responsible, participatory, and justice-oriented citizenship. I distributed a 27-item questionnaire to novice secondary social studies teachers across Tennessee, receiving responses from 14 participants. I conducted follow-up semi-structured interviews with six participants who indicated a willingness to participate. Analysis of questionnaire and interview data revealed that teacher education programs shaped novice teachers’ civic education ideologies primarily by emphasizing personally responsible and participatory forms of citizenship, while placing less emphasis on justice-oriented perspectives. These ideological orientations subsequently influenced the instructional approaches novice teachers described using in their classrooms. Through this study, I provided insight into the civic education ideologies of a distinct and underexamined population of educators and offered implications for how teacher education programs may more intentionally support justice-oriented civic learning.

Keywords

Civics, ideologies, preparation, secondary, social studies, Tennessee

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