Abstract 

With the shift in citizenship education from a juridical discourse to collective participation agenda, and as a powerful means in achieving social capital, vis-a vis the current emphasis on neoliberal discourses revolving around accountability and the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), the need to reaffirm the role of educational institutions in providing a clear-cut nexus between citizenship and social context cannot be underestimated. Drawing upon Westheimer and Kahne’s Continuum of Democracy and Biesta’s notion of learning democracy where democratic citizenship is not viewed as an individual attribute rather as having individuals-in-context and individuals-in-relationship, this study reports the results of a national survey involving a total of 33,648 public school teachers from the 16 regions in the Philippines. A multi-aspect survey questionnaire was deployed online to develop a model that describes the precursors of civic activism and curriculum integration intention among a select group of public school teachers. Results of structural equation modelling revealed that among the teacher respondents’ profile, higher educational attainment, the practice of Catholic religion, involvement as school-based organization adviser, and professional development engagement showed a weak positive effect on their civic engagement attitudes and efficacy. Apparently, results of the regression analysis showed that teachers’ involvement in consumer protection activities, high assessment of perceived seriousness of social problems, and high perceived institutional trust do not contribute much on their civic engagement attitudes and efficacy. Interestingly, the strong positive effect of teachers’ civic activism on their intent to integrate the social context with the curriculum holds a number of implications to making teachers not only as the gatekeepers of pedagogy but active agents in making the shift from teaching democracy to learning democracy a promising and revolutionary landscape in Philippine education.