Students will examine the roles citizens play in U.S. politics and government, and the basic economic principles that underlie the U.S. market economy.

Students will investigate the processes by which decisions are made in the American market economy and explain the government’s role in it.

Students study how patriotism, respect for the law, willingness to perform public service, and a sense of civic duty facilitate thoughtful and effective active participation in the civic life of an increasingly diverse democratic society.

This course is open to all students and required of students seeking elementary education licensure or students seeking the history/social science teaching licensure. Course content maps to the Virginia Standards of Learning. 

This course serves two general purposes.

First, the course is meant for future teachers and covers the fundamental principles of American government (federal, state, and local) and American economic systems. Hopefully, after this course, you will be better able to teach this information to your students.

Second, the course’s content and approach will encourage you to think and act in a civic manner. We will read primary documents related to the founding of the United States and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas in those documents. You will also understand how the founding ideas influenced the formation of the US government and how the government affects individuals and the community (and how individuals and the community affect the government.

The course goals also cover the Virginia Standards of Learning Course Curriculum for Civics and Economics. These include:

• The essential characteristics of limited and unlimited governments
• The importance of the Rule of Law for the protection of individual rights and the common good
• The rights and responsibilities of American citizenship
• The nature and purposes of constitutions and alternative ways of organizing constitutional governments
• American political culture
• Values, principles, and fundamental ideals of the American constitutional republic
• The process of making laws in the United States
• The structures, functions, and powers of local and state governments
• Importance of citizen participation in the political process in local and state governments
• The structure, functions, and powers of the national government
• The understanding that Americans are a people of diverse ethnic origins, customs, and traditions, who are united by basic principles of a republican form of government and a common identity of Americans
• The role of the United States in foreign policy and national security
• The structure of the federal judiciary
• The structure and function of the United States market economy as compared with other economies
• Knowledge of the impact of the government’s role in the economy and individual economic & political freedoms
• The role of the individual and how economic decisions are made in the marketplace
• Knowledge of economic systems in the areas of productivity and key economic indicator and the analysis of global economic trends

Syllabus (PDF)