Promoting Citizenship Education through Social Studies Education: Perceptions of Teachers and Students in Selected Senior High Schools in the Central Region

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore Senior High School teachers‟ and students‟ perception of the role Social Studies plays in promoting Citizenship Education. Cross-sectional descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. In all, 60 teachers and 400 students were selected for the study using the proportionate stratified random sampling. A 4-point Likert scale was used to collect data from the respondents. Means and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and Mann Whitney U test was used to test the research hypothesis. The study revealed that Social Studies was perceived to play a major role in promoting Citizenship Education. There was no statistically significant difference in the perceptions of teachers and students on the role Social Studies plays in promoting Citizenship Education. The study also found out that teachers use learner centred approaches such as discussion method, inquiry method and role play method in teaching Social Studies. It was however revealed that teachers encounter challenges such as general unwillingness of students to take the subject serious, limited time allocated to the subject and syllabus overload. It was recommended that the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment should consider redesigning Senior High School Social Studies syllabus to reduce the content of the syllabus to allow more room for exploring the essential aspects of the subject. It was also recommended that the Ghana Education Service should give equal priority to the Social Studies subject just as they give to the other core subjects so students would attach equal importance to the subject.