Participant [mumbles]
Participant We should be taught about it…
Participant ..more…
Interviewer … in Social Studies
Participant It is the same as like a language someone wants to understand how to speak Japanese but you don’t necessarily want to learn it… like people don’t want to learn about politics but they have to
Participant I think also teach it a little bit in schools as well. Like don’t make it like a subject. But make it like…
Participant … Incorporate it…
Participant … like Social Studies and Geography. Just have like a topic where we can discuss it
Participant So learn it like in Years 9 and 10 Social Studies and then when you enjoy it have it like an option class
I was also interested in what participants learned about politics in Social Studies.
Participants in the focus group conversations seemed unsure about what exactly they learned in Social Studies. This was evident from mumbles, unfinished sentences and unclear statements, such as “a little bit”, “What was that thing we learned about last year?” or “We did some stuff on…”. As follows, some participant comments from the focus groups are shared.
Interviewer So what have you learnt in Social Studies about politics?
Participant Law
Participant What was that thing we learnt about last year? Start of the year? Was it the Treaty of Waitangi and how that changed a lot?
Interviewer So in Social Studies have you learnt anything about politics?
Participant Yeah Participant A little bit
Participant In Year 9 we learnt about all the different parts Participants [mumbles]
Participant And what kind of thing was that?
Participant Ahm, the voting system…
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Participant And whereabouts it happens in the world
Participant I found it interesting learning about all the different types of government
Participant Yeah, all the different types, I remember now, like democracy and
Participant I forgotten it all now, democracy is the only one I know Participant There is communism…
Participant Monarchy…
Participant Dictatorship…
Interviewer Was it lots about New Zealand politics as well?
Participants [incomprehensible mumbles]
Participant We learnt about like Politician Z, the Prime Minister, and at the time it was like Politician W and stuff like that Participant Yeah, yeah, like the leaders and parties
As evident from the focus group conversations above, participants learned about political belief systems “Democracy, Monarchy, Dictatorship”, the Treaty of Waitangi, political terms, political institutions, and about some politicians. It is interesting that participants did not mention learning about political participation (other than voting) or about critically investigating an issue or political institution. These would be aspects of the definition of political literacy learning stated previously (p. 144). An interesting participant statement follows:
Interviewer What kind of things did you learn in Social Studies?
Participant Different types of government and what they think is the best way to run a society…
I believe this statement is interesting due to the choice of language. The participant stated that they learned about what “they” thought was the best way to run a society.
This seems to suggest the participants’ opinions on how a society should be run was not of importance, but rather focused what “they” thought. It is unclear what or who the participant meant by “they”. This could be the teacher, a book author, or the New Zealand government. An area some participants wanted to learn more about was political parties and their agendas:
Participant We didn’t really talk about what the parties represent though Participant So that’s quite confusing
Participant Yeah I don’t really know what the parties really stand for…
Participant I know the Greens stand for like environment Participant But I don’t know sort of Labour and National…
Participants [incomprehensible talking]
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Participant I would say how […] is so cool, but then Mum would say yeah, but I don’t like what she stands for
Participant Like what I heard is that Labour is like the social party is that right?
Participant Yeah like the workers party
Participant And National, aren’t they very business minded or something?
Interviewer Yeah
Participant Like for upper class people…
This issue came up in two different focus group conversations. Participants stated that they did not know much about political parties. One participant raised the issue that not knowing party agendas, could cause him/her to like a politician even through the participant might not agree with the values of this politician’s party. An unclear understanding of what political parties stand for can cause stereotypical perceptions such as “National is for upper class people”. I wonder whether an unclear understanding of political party agendas would be an issue around New Zealand schools. I also wonder how teachers could react to tackle this issue.
Overall, participants seemed to view learning about politics favourably and thought this was helpful:
Interviewer So do you think this is really valuable to learn about this?
Participant Yes
Participant Ahm, yeah. To see how much the world has changed, our country has changed to turn it into this.
Interviewer Something else? Like the words and what they mean like democracy and parliament and what they all mean?
Participants Yes
Participant Yes that was helpful too. So you know what you talk about.
Participant I remember learning this…
Reasons for why it was helpful were for example, to be able to engage in conversation with other people “so you know what you talk about”, and to be able to understand how New Zealand was changed into its current state. I was also interested in how politics was taught. Opinions differed on this question as evident in this conversation:
Interviewer Do your teachers usually ask for your opinions a lot?
Participant No.
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Participant No. It is a case of they teach us we have to learn. They don’t say why we have to learn it. They don’t ask we just have to learn it.
Interviewer Does everyone agree with that or do you have a different opinion?
Participant Half way
As discussed previously (Chapter Two: (3) Schools and educators, p.62), pedagogies used to teach can also influence young people’s political perceptions. For example, if political institutions are presented as created by humans and with a possibility to change, young people might believe they could have an influence on changing a political situation (Detjen, 2007). As the conversation suggests, some teachers might not ask for students’ opinions or allow students to challenge their opinions. Challenging each other’s opinions however, is an important skills part of political literacy. Lastly, I wanted to know how Social Studies supported participants to get involved in political decision-making. I asked this question in the student questionnaire (Question 30). See Table 8: Student questionnaire (coded questions to align with research questions), p.105. Most participants (12 participants) said that Social Studies did not prepare them for political participation, while 15 participants mentioned different ways it helped them to get involved. Some participants (9 participants) mentioned that they learned about voting and the government, a few participants stated they learned about having discussions (3 participants) and watching the news to get involved (3 participants).
Comments such as the following were made in the student questionnaire:
Respondent Our Social Studies teacher taught us to watch the news every day to gain more knowledge about the country and the issues in the country. This helps us to make our decisions.
Respondent I have learned that my opinion is important and can be heard