Educational Administrators’ Perspectives of Democracy and Citizenship Education: Interviews with Educational Leaders

Little is known about public school educational administrators’ perspectives of democracy and citizenship education and how those perspectives shape the learning that occurs in the schools they lead. This paper presents findings of a qualitative study that used semi-structured interviews of public school educational administrators’ perspectives of democracy and citizenship education in the province of Alberta, Canada. Four participants’ detailed responses were analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological methodology and coded into four themes. While all four participants felt that democratic and citizenship education were important, their conceptualizations varied widely and only one participant was found to lead in a way that encouraged democratically desirable education. Findings suggest that some educational administrators do not necessarily understand their role or responsibility in the education of democracy and citizenship within the schools they lead. Moreover, this study suggests that factors that hinder democratic and citizenship education are: school administrators’ preference to remain obedient to a top-down approach of school management; resource taxing administrative obligations and; a misunderstanding of ‘thick’ democracy. Factors that were found to facilitate democratic and citizenship education include: physical school and learning program design and; democratic school leadership.