A framework for civic education teachers' knowledge

Educational attainment depends on a range of mechanisms that affect the teaching and learning process, among which we highlight teachers' knowledge. Our research aimed to build an approach to Citizenship Education teachers' knowledge based on the analyses of several Civic Education teachers' conceptions and practices regarding this issue. This paper focuses on a previous study whose main purpose was to understand the conceptions, practices and contexts related to the teaching and learning process of the non-disciplinary curriculum area of Civic Education. The interpretive analysis of the teachers' "voices" resulted in the proposal of a teachers' knowledge framework, based on Grossman's model (1990) as well as on the input from other recent studies. We believe that this framework can contribute towards the defmition of guidelines for the design, implementation and evaluation of teacher training programs in the scope of the non-disciplinary curriculum area of Civic Education.