citizenship in schools: a descriptive study based on the theory of reasoned action

background: citizenship education is increasingly considered as an important strategy to empower youths in taking responsibilities and playing their individual and social roles, and to protect them against psychosocial pathologies. the purpose of the present descriptive study was to investigate students’ levels of knowledge,  their intention, subjective norms, and attitudes toward the characteristics and skills of citizenship by utilizing the theory of reasoned action. methods: three all-girls’ high schools in the 3rd educational district of shiraz, iran, in which the three majors of math, science, and human sciences were established, were randomly selected. in the schools, one class of each major was randomly chosen to take part in the study. overall, 228 students participated in the study. a 62-item self-administered questionnaire, composed of 15 mcq questions for testing knowledge and 34 questions with likert-type scale for measuring theory's constructs, was used for collecting the study data. the content validity of the instrument was confirmed by 7 specialists in health education, sociology, and social sciences. a test-retest pilot study showed that the reliability of the questionnaire in terms of the constructs of the study, including knowledge (r = 82%), attitude (r = 97%), subjective norms (r = 94%), and behavioral intention (r = 97%) were desirable. findings: the results of the study showed that the students’ level of knowledge (mean + sd = 7.84 + 1.98) and attitude (75.38 + 7.44) were relatively low. moreover, subjective norms (23.24 + 4.33) and behavioral intention (18.07 + 3.03) were relatively desirable, but they were below the ideal levels. the analysis of the relationship between the variables of the study revealed that there were significant correlations between attitude and knowledge (p = 0.037, r = 0.139), attitude and behavioral intention (p = 0.003, r = 0.199), subjective norms and behavioral intention (p = 0.31, r = 0.143), and subjective norms and attitude (p = 0.008, r = 0.174). there were no significant statistical relationships between the demographic variables and the core constructs of the study. conclusion: regarding undesirable levels of students' knowledge and attitudes, well-designed citizenship educational programs are recommended. on the other hand, findings of behavioral intention and subjective norms set forth a desirable prognosis that these programs will be effective. finally, results of this study are in favor of utilizing the theory of reasoned action in both predicting citizenship behavior and planning citizenship education programs in schools.