Social Studies Teachers' Curriculum Conceptions and their Practices

Social Studies, as a subject in the SHS curricula in Ghana, is taught mostly by graduate teachers from the country’s two teacher preparation universities (i.e. UCC and UEW) and graduates from other universities. Available information indicates that it is only these teacher universities that have courses (B. Ed. and B. A.) in Social Studies. An out-and-out analysis of the programmes of these universities however reveals differences in how the subject is conceived, structured and organised to prepare teachers to go and teach it at the Senior High School (SHS) level. Thus the aim of the study was to find out the differences and its influence. A sequential mixed method design was used for the study. Data from questionnaire was triangulated with interviews and classroom observation of pedagogues who are products of UCC and UEW. Non-probability sampling method was used to select the sample of districts, schools and respondents for the study. The Pearson Chi-Square was used in finding significant differences. The p-value is the probability for showing differences and a critical value of alpha=.05 was adopted for significant differences in the statistical analysis.

Isaac Eshun is a Social & Environmental Studies tutor at Enchi College ofEducation, Ghana. He has dozens of articles published in reputable journals on social studies curriculum.