A Portrait of the Thinking and Behaviour of Teachers of Civics: A multicase study of teachers’ subjective theories of didactic transformation

The goal of the multi-case study was to show how three qualified teachers of education for citizenship (civics) for the senior classes of very highly rated Prague basic schools are coping with the urgent demands of civic education today, in a complex society in which traditional relationships, bonds, authorities and values have been undermined.
Methods: The study uses a data base created from the results of the progressive exploration of three teachers of civics in the years 2015–2017 employing the methodology go the research programme Subjective Theory (Groeben et al., 1988). The study focuses on the subjective theories of the teachers, as they emerged in recorded teaching, i.e. as handlungsleitende Kognitionen.
Results: The study discusses findings that may represent the limits of professional development and quality of teaching for the teachers concerned. The teachers were monitored in close-up detail and over a lengthy period, their subjective theories about didactic transformation in civics were analyses repeatedly, each time from a shifted perspective. The findings thus constitute an in-depth, situated and contextually anchored knowledge of these subjects. This means that the conclusions cannot be generalised to other situations and teachers.
Conclusions: Research on the realisation of the curriculum for education for citizenship in school classes – to judge by the specialist studies available to the author – in its infancy. This study may then serve as a source of inspiration for wider research on the basis of the subject didactics of the social sciences.