ABSTRACT
Creating informed and active public citizens is one of the professed goals of social studies education (Barr, Barth, & Shermis, 1977; NCSS, 1979; Parker, 1989, Shaver, 1977). As Ferguson (1991) wrote, “it follows that the success or failure of social studies may be gauged by the extent to which the citizenry takes a re ective and active part in the political and social life of the community” (p. 385). Yet young adults in the United States do not vote or engage in political involvement in great numbers. Many social studies scholars are deeply concerned about this fact, realizing that a democracy lacking in participation by the majority of its constituents is a democracy at risk. Bellah and his colleagues (1985) concluded, “We have failed at every level; we have put our own good, as individuals, as groups, as a nation, ahead of the common good” (p. 285). For a thriving democracy, we need a majority of citizens willing to participate in community life and to contribute to decisions from the local to the international level that affect their own lives and the wellbeing of society as a whole (Barber, 2004).
