Greek Teachers’ Perceptions about Citizenship and Its Functionality as Educational Tool in the Classroom

We are moving into an era of intense economic, social and political crisis, where the need of active and critically thinking citizens is imperative. Teachers play a key role in the transmission of knowledge, values and skills which are essential for students to become effective citizens. The aim of the study is to investigate teachers’ perceptions about citizenship and its functionality as educational tool in the classroom. Specifically I investigated their views on citizenship, on citizenship education and on ways of teaching citizenship, as well as, on the objectives of citizenship education that they consider as important. Finally, I examined the frequency with which they perform certain actions in their classroom. The survey was conducted in the spring of 2016 using a questionnaire with closed questions. In our research took part 183 Greek primary school teachers.