A Longitudinal Characterization of Young Students’ Knowledge of Their Country’s Government

This study investigated young students’ conceptions of their country’s government, with a particular interest in the concept of representation, and examined the influence of instruction and development on the formulation of these ideas. The same 26 students were interviewed before and after instruction in American history in fifth and eighth grade. Interview responses led us to characterize students’ conceptions of their country’s government as focused on its structure with limited understanding of its philosophical or historical roots. Additionally, students tended to view their own system as positive and focused on negative features of other systems in drawing comparisons. Longitudinally, students’ conceptions tended to show more consistency than growth. The discussion explores the content emphasis in traditional instruction and its effect on students’ understandings of the foundations of their country’s government and emphasizes the importance of the teacher’s role in fostering development of students’ nascent understandings of complex content in social studies.