The 2020 Annenberg Civics Knowledge Survey found that 51% of Americans could name all three branches of government, a massive increase from the 26% of Americans who could do the same in 2016. Still, this number barely encompasses a majority of Americans, and coupled with widespread voting disinformation, partisan violence, and increased conflict, some have begun to lose faith in the power of American democracy. The solution, however, does not lie in passively losing hope but rather in improving civic education efforts that help shape citizens and, by proxy, the future of democracy.
Today, civic education is commonly associated with stuffy classrooms and standardized tests that drill information about the structure of the U.S. government into the minds of uninspired high school students. While this information provides a backbone for civic discussion, this traditional approach often leaves students with less motivation to participate in the civic realm; civics becomes a chore, rather than an exciting opportunity to grow and help grow. There exists a need to close the gap between simply knowing about the U.S. government and being a more informed and active student, which may in turn help enrich the former objective.
The solution? Broaden the scope of civic education and understand that improving civic education involves improving other subjects beyond the civics classroom, improving civic education apart from high school, and improving the way students interact with civics.
Moving Beyond Civics Classes
Civic education is obviously most related to civics classes, but beyond that, its scope is often limited to other social studies classes, such as economics and history. However, the “Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse” report published in 2021 by the National Academy of Education takes a different stance on the issue. While it advocates for the expansion of history, geography, and social studies to form a contextual framework for civic education, it also adds that subjects such as language arts, mathematics, and science play important roles in developing civic reasoning skills.
In an interview with HPR, Dr. Carol Lee, a Professor Emeritus of Education at Northwestern University and editor of the report, explained that “reasoning and discourse, in the context of a democratic society, like the United States, requires content knowledge across multiple domains.” While understanding government structures may help students navigate an often complicated political environment, content knowledge can help students understand policy issues like COVID-19. Reading graphs about COVID-19 cases, understanding the nature of mutations, and acknowledging economic impacts of government policies all require skills beyond the scope of a traditional civics course, yet they are crucial to productive civic discourse and engagement. Cross-curricular civic education helps to close such a gap.
Additionally, engaging in cross-curricular learning may help students develop stronger reasoning skills and more democratic dispositions, furthering the positive impact on civic improvements. Integrating civic content into critical literacy and media literacy instruction might prime students’ defenses against misleading or biased information, thus encouraging them to engage more critically with sources. Meanwhile, literature allows readers to gain a better understanding of others’ experiences while grappling with difficult perspectives and ideas, thus building such dispositions as a greater awareness of diversity and a willingness to interrogate conflicting notions.
But does this cross-curricular instruction take away from the quality of instruction in individual subjects?
No. Dr. Stephanie Serriere, a professor of social studies education at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus and former elementary social studies teacher, told the HPR in an interview that “if we frame the curriculum in a large question, in an inquiry question that’s compelling, it actually will increase their motivation to find answers and evidence.” Allowing students to look at a salient issue through the lenses of several disciplines does not weaken their learning; rather, it bolsters their interests in all of them.
Lee concurs with this idea, adding that “learning to apply mathematical reasoning and scientific reasoning, just as to examples, to conundrums in the real world does not take away from the depth of what kids are learning, it actually enhances the depth of what kids are learning.” Connecting content to issues that are important to students then helps students better connect to the content and better engage in their learning.
How can teachers incorporate this into their curricula? Serriere says that “it takes a lot of skill from teachers to teach in that way, but I wouldn’t sell teachers short.” Still, Lee’s perspective holds true: while many teachers are capable of skillfully crafting such curricula, there exists “a need to have policy and practice infrastructures that support teachers and schools in doing this work, as opposed to thinking it’s on the individual teacher’s shoulders and his or her individual creativity.”
Moving Beyond High School
Although efforts exist in elementary and middle schools to engage students in civics, the bulk of civics education is reserved for high schools in which civics is compressed into a single-semester state requirement. Introducing civic discussions to younger students, however, has significant benefits in improving civic knowledge and engagement over time.
Content knowledge related to civics, such as understanding the basics of the Constitution, is already a part of the curricula in many states. Yet, civic discussion that might occur in high school classrooms is rarer in elementary school settings.
Some might believe that younger students are incapable of having such discussions. “Developmental theorists position young children as egocentric and maybe less capable of considering other perspectives empathetically,” explained Serriere, “but I use this research in gender and ethnic studies by Ruble and Martin that shows that young children are capable of taking on the roles of others and understanding how their decision making affects others.”
When young children are given the opportunity to assume the roles of and empathize with others, they become more capable of engaging in public spaces. These skills, capable of being established in early elementary school, are then able to carry over to middle and high school and later to adult life, essentially preparing students to engage with their communities and their society.
Still, some parents and leaders have worries. In an age filled with politicized and controversial discussions, some fear that elementary-aged children are not ready or capable of handling topics that are typically reserved for older students or adults, such as racial injustice or violent protest.
But this falsely assumes that children are not exposed to issues that go unaddressed in a classroom setting. Serriere says that “sometimes we don’t give young people enough credit about what they are hearing already.” Instead of simply ignoring certain subjects, an approach that listens to the concerns and voices of students might not only introduce them to civics but also help young people make sense of their environments and fears.
That being said, topics should still be handled with care. Serriere added that “linking current events to our historical struggles, like equity and justice, might look quite different for elementary students as it would college students,” a thought in tandem with Lee’s perspective that, instead of ignoring issues, “the question is, how do we discuss it with theme in ways that are developmentally appropriate?”
Furthermore, these ideas of expanding civic education efforts are not mutually exclusive. In the past few years, Dr. Hyman Bass, a professor at the University of Michigan, has taught “Mathematics and Social Justice,” a course for undergraduates with no prerequisites that explores systems of injustice using mathematics.
When asked if this angle was transferable to younger students, Bass told the HPR in an interview, “I would say absolutely.” Bass explained that the concept of fairness is easily accessible to younger students, and that ideas such as gerrymandering can be connected with mathematics and introduced to elementary school students.
Although the difficulty levels vary, mathematics and other subjects are not unique to high school and college students, and thus, neither are their connections with social justice and civic education.
Moving Beyond the Textbook
In subjects such as biology or chemistry, K-12 instruction is almost always accompanied by some form of hands-on instruction. Soaking an egg in vinegar or making ice cream with dry ice not only help students gain a deeper understanding of concepts covered in class, but also get students excited to explore and learn more about these topics.
A similar argument might apply to civic education. While classroom instruction helps lay the foundation for civic engagement and discourse, true civic participation is what might excite students and lead to lifelong learning and engagement. Thus, a mixed approach is necessary to help students build the skills necessary to understand government but still get excited about interacting with and changing their government and society.
Action civics fills this gap of incorporating students’ perspectives and ideas into their civic engagement and classroom learning. Based on the idea that students learn best when they are doing, action civics incorporates direct student action in democratic structures and organizations into the civics curriculum. Despite research that demonstrates that action civics curricula better engage marginalized students and lead to better civic engagement and civic knowledge for the general student population, critics — including the Heritage Foundation and Gov. Ron DeSantis — have criticized the method, citing it as a curriculum that takes focus away from key civics knowledge and pressures students into “leftist” beliefs.
Research, however, tends not to support this viewpoint. In fact, action civics curricula have been linked with greater civic knowledge and improved academic outcomes. Beyond this, studies have found that service-based learning helps close the gap between low- and high- socioeconomic status students and engages marginalized students who might otherwise feel othered by traditional civic education.
As for the accusation that action civics forces students into one mindset, Serriere disagrees. “If taking action, and being an active citizen is a leftist idea, then I suppose action civics is leftist,” she explains, “but it really is grounded from students’ lives in the topics and the concerns that they see in their community.” In action civics, students follow their own varied interests toward a solution.
Apart from that, Serriere explained that a balanced curriculum also involves asking students to consider others’ perspectives. Thinking about one topic from a number of perspectives might deepen students’ interests in a number of issues, but it also allows students to dive into the nuances of civic action and consider their own role in our republic.
Moving Towards a Combined Approach
As mentioned earlier, these three approaches to broadening our conception of civic education — understanding that other subjects play a critical role in civics, introducing younger students to civics, and involving students in democratic processes — do not exist separately from one another. Although developmental theory is certainly important in positioning the three in a classroom, teachers can skillfully craft the three into one, more productive curriculum. That being said, policymakers play an instrumental role in shaping the infrastructure that will help teachers accomplish these goals.
At the same time, the idea of implementing change is certainly different from the act of improving and reforming curricula. It is expected that changing our vision of civic education will take skill and effort from teachers and policymakers, communication and guidance from administrators and researchers, and patience and understanding from parents and students. Despite the strong effort required, such a vision of civic education will help to establish a republic not like the ones that the Founding Fathers had imagined, but rather one that allows for a broader, more engaged citizenry that prides itself on refusing to be satisfied with the status quo.
Image by Taylor Wilcox is licensed under the Unsplash License.
