Population education in Florida secondary schools: a status study.

The attempt was made in this study to collect descriptive data pertaining to the status of population education within the curricula of Floridas secondary schools. In April 1974 a 4-page questionnaire was mailed to 300 randomly selected Florida middle junior high and senior high schools. The 23-item questionnaire was designed to obtain data from classroom teachers on a broad range of subjects and areas pertaining to the status of population education within their respective schools. 45.3% of the teachers returned completed questionnaires. Of the 136 teachers responding 75.1% taught their population units in public secondary schools; the remaining group taught in private schools. The following are the more important findings relative to the status of population education in Florida: 1) classroom teachers in a wide variety of subject areas included population content and units within their regular courses; 2) the units taught by these teachers emphasized different objectives content and concepts; 3) the units taught by public and private school teachers were very similar in objectives content and concepts stressed; 4) the units varied in length; 5) social studies teachers were expected to and in fact did teach a majority of the units on population education; 6) population education teachers desired more instructional aids and inservice workshops to help them improve their courses; and 7) a vast majority of the teachers had taken no formal college course which focused on population content. This survey reported the quantitative nature of population education in the Florida secondary schools; the quality of the education provided remains an unknown.