Search

Civic learning is an increasingly salient topic in research, policy, and practice. However, the recent empirical evidence on access to civic learning opportunities is limited. We build on prior research using survey items from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress civics assessment and provide descriptive evidence on disparities in access to three categories of civics content and three evidence-based instructional approaches. We highlight inequalities in opportunities by student characteristics, school characteristics, and state characteristics among a national sample of more than 10,000 8th-grade students enrolled in a course with at least some civics focus (controlling for variation in the extent of civics focus). Our findings conflict with most of the prior evidence regarding disparities in access by race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background, favoring Black students, Hispanic students, and students of relatively lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This suggests a shift in recent years, potentially due to an increased focus on equity. English learners and students with disabilities also reported greater access than their counterparts. Other findings include inequalities across school types, school location (city students reporting greater opportunity than both rural and suburban students), census region, and state testing policy. Additional findings are presented, and implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.

With the rise of polarization and extremism, the question of how best to transmit civic virtues across generations is more acute than ever. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that schools can be the place for this transmission by empowering students and gathering them around concrete and democratically chosen objectives. We draw on an RCT implemented in a large sample of middle schools in three European countries. The evaluated program leads students to carry out collective citizenship projects in their immediate communities under the supervision of teachers trained in student-centered teaching methods. The program significantly increases student altruism, their political self-efficacy as well as the quality of their relationship with their classmates and their respect for the rules of school life (less sanctions and absenteeism). In all three countries, the benefits are greater for students with the highest level of altruism and interest in politics at baseline. Investments made at an early age appear to be complement to those made during adolescence for the production of civic virtues.

This report, intended primarily for civics reformers considering how best to defend and improve traditional American civics education, surveys a selection of different civics offerings, both the traditional and the radical. Surveyed providers include organizations such as the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, We the People, and Hillsdale College's 1776 Curriculum. The report assesses both how they approach civics education and their ideological content. The report will also judge each organization's effectiveness--although no one knows exactly what is being taught in each classroom in America, much less precisely what students take from their education. Finally, it will provide recommendations about how civics reformers should build upon this existing array of civics curriculum resources to work most effectively to reclaim America's civics education.

This Policy Paper aims at analysing the most important aspects of Public Responsibility, Financing and Governance of Higher Educations while seeking to formulate a students perspective on the state of play within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). In doing so it touches upon the very foundation of how and in which socio-political environment educational systems and higher education institutions work nowadays. The European Students' Union (ESU) believes that open access to all levels of education is the cornerstone of a socially, culturally and democratically inclusive society, and a prerequisite for individual and societal development and well-being. ESU sees higher education as a human right, which is guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. How education is seen in society, how it is funded and how it is governed are tightly interlinked areas. This policy paper focuses on: (1) Public responsibility of higher education (fundamental values; institutional autonomy and academic freedom; academic integrity; intellectual property; education for sustainable development; human rights and democratic citizenship education; digitalization, artificial intelligence, learning analytics and privacy; commodification; partnerships between higher education institutions and industry; internships; and internationalisation and international trade); (2) Financing of higher education (financing of higher education; the funding gap; optimisation of funding of higher education institutions; performance based funding; and education free of tuition fees); and (3) Governance of higher education (students participation; working conditions of academic staff; committees and ombudsmans and leadership, intersectionality and training). [For the 2016 version, see ED587168.]

Serious history instruction in K-12 U.S. schools has been in decline for decades. History education in Massachusetts has, until now, fared somewhat better than in the nation at large. In 1993 the commonwealth enacted the Massachusetts Education Reform Act--a bipartisan plan to improve education--which mandated core standards and assessments in history and social science, among other disciplines. The Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework (the 2003 Framework) produced under this mandate contained strong, flexible grade-by-grade standards for core essential knowledge. In 2009, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (the State Board) suspended the 2003 Framework, and it never went into effect. In 2016, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) instead launched a rewrite of the 2003 Framework, in good measure to realign Massachusetts history education around service-learning and civic engagement. In 2017 the DESE presented the revisions to the State Board, which approved them to be posted for public comment in January 2018. This paper contends that the January 2018 Public Comment Draft of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework (2018 Revision) eviscerates the 2003 Framework. Among other things, the 2018 Revision eliminates the standards-based and curricular linkage to the already developed Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test for U.S. history, while substituting meaningless expectations for each grade. This paper recommends that the Massachusetts State Board reject the 2018 Revision in its entirety and immediately put into effect both the 2003 Framework and its accompanying MCAS test. [Preface By Paul Reid, co-author with William Manchester.]

In 1997, the New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation Program (SCSF) randomly offered three-year scholarships to attend private schools to approximately 1,000 low-income families in New York City. In this paper we leverage exogenous variation generated by the SCSF to estimate the causal effect of the private school voucher offer--and the private school attendance it induced--on later-life voter registration and turnout outcomes. Our results demonstrate that the voucher intervention had no effect on registering to vote or voting in any of several elections for either the full sample or any of several demographic subgroups. Although unique aspects of the SCSF context impose limits on the scope of our results, they have clear implications for assessing the relative effectiveness of public and private schools in preparing democratic citizens. We close the paper by discussing the implications of the results for research and policy. Supplemental tables are appended.

Preparing the next generation of Americans to engage in their communities civically and politically is a shared responsibility. Although civic education takes place every day in homes and community centers, our nation's K-12 schools are in a unique position to nurture and reinforce the civic development of all young people. States influence their K-12 schools by enacting and implementing policies that include standards, tests, credit and course requirements, teacher certification rules, and funding streams. This paper describes case studies of three states that have recently examined their civic education policies. The goal of this document is to inform other states' policymakers and advocates as they consider K-12 civic education policies. These three state examples (Florida, Tennessee, and Hawaii) were chosen because they represent strikingly different approaches to state policy: a high-stakes standardized exam, a project-based assessment, and an interactive course without any state assessment at all. The focus of this paper is on the efforts to influence policy: who was involved, how they worked, and what made the difference in the policy being passed or rejected. The paper also describes apparent keys to successful advocacy across the three states. Florida, Tennessee, and Hawaii exemplify three distinct strategies for improving civic education. No firm evidence exists yet about which approach will benefit students the most, but all have promise. This paper has suggested strategies for passing ambitious state policies, whether they involve tests or course mandates. The details vary in important ways, but all three states attribute success to a coalition of educators. In conjunction with the paper, a fact sheet has also been released that summarizes the main elements of each policy. [For the fact sheet, "Recent Civic Education Policy Changes. CIRCLE Fact Sheet,",see ED574358.]

This paper, drawn from a book in progress, summarizes evidence of a "civic achievement gap" between non-white, poor, and/or immigrant youth, on the one hand, and white, wealthier, and/or native-born youth, on the other. Young people (and adults) in the former group demonstrate consistently lower levels of civic and political knowledge, skills, positive attitudes, and participation, as compared to their wealthier and white counterparts. As a result, they face serious political disadvantages. (Contains 1 table and 33 endnotes.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).]

As demographics shift and immigration is a hotly contested area of US civic life, the civic preparation and participation of Latin American immigrant youth is becoming increasingly important. The author examines the growing literature on this topic, inquiring into the political and demographic changes that have stimulated this area of inquiry, the challenges of studying this population, and what individuals currently know and what they still need to know about immigrant youth civic engagement and activism. At a time when the struggle for immigrant rights in the US is caught in the crossfire of severe recession and racism, young immigrant activists offer a ray of hope through their modest yet noteworthy successes. Scholarship on their civic engagement sheds light on ways that young people who live on the fault line between nation-states are creatively forging civic identities, claiming political voices, and making an impact. (Contains 144 footnotes.) [Funding for this paper was provided by the University of California All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (UC ACCORD), UC Berkeley's Center for Latino Policy Research, UC MEXUS, and the University of Illinois at Springfield.]

Over the past decade, public attention on the importance of the civic development and education of youth has grown. To address these concerns, the East Bay Conservation Corps (EBCC) Charter School opened in 1996 with the explicit mission to prepare and engage students grades K through 12 as caring citizens who are capable and motivated to fully participate in our democracy. While content standards and assessments readily exist to articulate the academic and artistic development of students, youth civic development, especially at the elementary level, has been under-conceptualized. What is needed is a more robust, comprehensive developmental framework for citizenship education that begins with younger ages and addresses civic skills and dispositions to the same degree as civic knowledge. The product from this project is a set of tested, reliable measures of civic knowledge, civic thinking skills, civic participation skills and civic dispositions that are referenced to recent efforts to provide frameworks of competencies in civic education. Two sets of instruments were developed using a comprehensive conceptual framework for civic indicators at the elementary level. The measures include a student survey of student civic knowledge, skills and attitudes that relate to dispositions, which is the focus of this report; a set of corresponding grade level observation checklists of student skills and behaviors was also developed. Starting at a young age to foster developmental foundations for civic engagement includes a democratic orientation to others and identification with them as fellow members of a community and body politic. This focus is not only developmentally appropriate but also consistent with the goals of many elementary schools to foster prosocial skills and behaviors. In addition, there is a need for greater attention to age-appropriate, instrument identification and development for elementary aged students to document student civic development by focusing on what they can do, an important and often overlooked facet of K-12 civic education research and practice. Addressing this need will also assist other public elementary schools interested in recapturing their civic mission and in creating a K-12 developmental framework for civic development. Appended are: (1) Student Survey Used in National Pilot; (2) Student Observation Checklists for Grades K/1, 2/3 and 4/5; (3) Pearson Correlations between Scales; (4) Tests of Significance for Findings by Gender; (5) Tests of Significance for Findings by White and Non-White Subpopulations; and (6) Descriptive Statistics of Full National Sample. (Contains 3 figures.) [This Working Paper was produced by CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement). For CIRCLE Working Paper 46, see ED494037.]

This paper presents the School Citizenship Education Climate Assessment and examines its implications for the social studies. The assessment tool was developed from a variety of research fields and disciplines related to school and classroom climate and educational practices including civic education, educational psychology and service-learning. We begin with a brief examination of several key concepts underlying our assessment including school climate, citizenship education and the social studies. Next we present our theoretical framework consisting of seven characteristics of school climate that we believe are critical to an education for responsible citizenship. Within this section we explore the relationship between these characteristics and the social studies in fostering a positive school climate for citizenship education. A description of the assessment follows with a focus on its development, intended audience and use and application in the field. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for research and implications for practice. [This Working Paper was produced by CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement). For CIRCLE Working Paper 47, see ED494039.]

In this working paper, the authors review the literature on college students' political attitudes and behaviors. It is hoped that this review will help to refine research questions and ultimately lead to a larger follow-up research study on college student political engagement. The literature review was based on the following three questions: (1) How do college students understand, define, and view politics, their political engagement, and the work of democracy? (2) Are college students politically engaged? How do college students practice politics? (3) How can institutions of higher education help foster greater political participation among college students? Several emerging and often overlapping trends came out of the review. The narrative of the authors' review might be described in the following way: There have been several general studies on college students as a demographic group with data on some aspects of their political knowledge, attitudes, values, skills, and practices. Much of the research indicates that college students today are cynical about politics and apathetic when it comes to political participation. However, after years of decline, there has been a recent increase in voting, trust in government, and other forms of political participation among college students in the past few years. There has also been a "scissor effect": years of decline in political participation have coincided with a surge in volunteering and involvement in community. There are various interpretations for the rise in community service and its implications for democracy, with many contending that there is no connection between community service and political participation; community service, it seems, may simply be an "alternative to politics." At the same time, there is a strand of literature arguing that there is a need for an alternative politics led by young people, and there seems to be an emergence of this "politics that is not called politics" on college campuses. Finally, there is widespread agreement in the literature about the great political potential of this generation of college students; and that colleges and universities need to do more to educate the next generation for democracy and provide more opportunities for political participation. This review of the literature also makes clear that while much research has been done on college student political engagement in the past decade, there are many interesting and important areas for future inquiry. Ultimately, an updated understanding of the current generation of college students' views on politics requires more than a literature review; thus, the authors believe that updated research with college students could be timely, contributing an important element to the efforts for democratic revitalization: the voices of the youngest generation. [This Working Paper was produced by CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement). For CIRCLE Working Paper 45, see ED491132.]

This year, Americans celebrate and reflect on the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that secured the right to vote for millions of disenfranchised African Americans, as well as the 50th anniversary of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks stood up for justice by sitting down on a bus, thus catalyzing the Civil Rights Movement. This year Americans also honor and reflect on the 30th anniversary of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which provided farm workers with the right to organize in California, as well as the 40th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike, which catapulted Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement onto the national scene. As Americans celebrate, honor and reflect on these historic milestones, it is particularly important that the work and the lives of the champions of these movements- Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar E. Chavez-are seen as enduring and relevant inspirations today. As a sign of the two men's legacies, more than 200 public schools and 500 streets throughout the country are named after one or both men. But the lasting influence of these men, particularly regarding the civic mission of schools, extends well beyond the naming of schools and streets across the country. To demonstrate that influence, this paper explores the following three topics: (1) Lessons from the work of King and Chavez that can help educators and policymakers think more deeply about ways in which awareness and advocacy can be strengthened to support the civic mission of schools; (2) Specific examples of ways in which schools are using the King and Chavez legacies; and (3) Specific recommendations for policymakers that use the King and Chavez legacies to create opportunities for effective civic education in America?s schools. Four lessons stand out in the work of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez that offer useful ways to think about building awareness and advocacy for the civic mission of schools. They are (1 of dership; (2) The Importance of a Strategic Agenda; (3) The Importance of Policy; and (4) The Importance of Alliances with the Business Community. Through this paper, the authors hope every educator and policymaker in the country will reconnect to the power of the King and Chavez legacies and learn about strategies and options that can ensure today's young people build upon these great heritages.

Ten years ago in the Harare Declaration, heads of government from across the British Commonwealth committed to upholding critical commonwealth-held values. While initially focusing on Human Rights Education, the Commonwealth Secretariat set about enabling member governments to promote greater awareness, education, and training supporting democracy, human rights, and respect for individual freedoms. In 2002, the Commonwealth Secretariat's Education Department undertook a deeper level of study of the education institutions which, through their programs, are seeking to further this initiative and to assess lessons learned and to determine the future. The Ministries of Education of two Caribbean small states, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, both with issues of multiculturalism, diversity, and ethnicity high on the political agenda, have supported a Secretariat-driven initiative to enable information gathering on citizenship education in school-based and non-formal education forums. Following identification of and interviews with potential partners, a search conference activity in both states was conducted, culminating in a draft Caribbean Action Agenda for Citizenship Education to solidify and deepen the thrust. This paper discusses the impact of state size on the education system; citizenship education as cultural values transmission; issues of context vs. curriculum content; Jamaica: socioeconomic challenges to education; Montserrat; and impact of environmental hazards. The paper finds that the future of the Citizenship Education Initiative must consider the context, milieu, and environment in which the curriculum is taught. It is important to approach the dissemination of the initiative from the perspective of the learner rather than the teacher. (Contains 12 notes.) (BT)

In September 2003, Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts, launched two new civic development efforts--clustering and schoolwide governance--that provide an opportunity to study the influence of schoolwide democratic deliberation on students' civic knowledge and participation. The intervention involved, in part, organizing the school into clusters of 100 to 150 students that meet for one hour each week to discuss governance and other school-related issues, perform community service, and pursue other cluster-related activities. In 2003 we began collecting data to assess the progress of the clustering and schoolwide governance intervention. The findings to date suggest that the programs have been generally implemented as planned but that changes have been made to address specific issues that have arisen. Because the programs are still evolving, they cannot yet be considered mature. Nevertheless, successive classes of twelfth graders have shown improvements on measures of community service and political knowledge, and the improvements have been widespread in the student population. In addition, these positive changes were relatively larger for disenfranchised youth and other groups of students who initially scored lower than their counterpart groups on these civic measures, indicating that the programs are reaching the students they were designed to reach. Finally, examples from the current study support the idea that adult support, via scaffolding, plays an important role in building youth civic engagement. These findings demonstrate that all students--not just a select few--can and will engage in civic activity in their schools when given appropriate opportunity. A questionnaire used in this report's 21 measures of youth civic development is appended. (Contains 3 footnotes, 4 tables and 4 figures.)

The power of civic education to elicit positive student outcomes has been empirically documented. However, the field is only now beginning to understand the causal processes that bring about these positive changes in young people. "The Civic Mission of Schools" report commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE (2003) lays out six "promising approaches" to civic education. These practices emphasize the need for instruction that is relevant to young people (i.e., links young people's interests to political contexts), provides opportunities for practice, and that moves beyond rote learning praxis. A growing body of evidence suggests that these approaches to civic education yield positive, lasting outcomes in young people. For example, research has found that deliberative classroom discussions are positively associated with interest in politics, political knowledge, and feelings of political efficacy. The goal of this project is to examine the association between activities regularly used in civic education courses (e.g., staging a mock election) and their impact on key student outcomes. By linking classroom praxis to outcomes, the authors intend to provide evidence supporting best practices in civic education. (Contains 5 figures and 7 tables.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement.]

In September 2003, Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts launched two new civic development efforts--clustering and schoolwide governance--and moved into a new building designed to facilitate them. Clustering is designed to achieve a sense of community within a large school by creating small communities of 100 to 150 students. To create common bonds that tie each group together, clusters at the grade 10-12 level are organized around four areas of student interest: communications, media, and the arts; science, health, recreation, and the environment; business, engineering, and technology; and public policy, education, and service. Clusters also form the basic unit of Hudson High's schoolwide governance model, which was derived from the idea of "just communities" within high schools. The belief underpinning schoolwide governance is that students will become more civic minded and engaged if they experience democratic deliberation as part of their school experience. In 2003 the authors began a five-year data collection to assess the progress of the clustering and schoolwide governance intervention. This report describes the implementation of the intervention and presents preliminary findings on the civic development of twelfth graders since the programs were launched. The findings are based on information from four annual twelfth-grade surveys in 2003-2006 and twelfth-grade focus groups conducted in 2006. The questionnaire is appended. (Contains 9 tables and 6 figures.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).]

Efforts to improve civic education face a conundrum. On the one hand, students report that they are more likely to learn about democracy and citizenship through reading textbooks than through any other activity and according to the National Education Association, reading is the gateway to learning in all content areas. However, reviews of textbook materials repeatedly find them to be turgid, poorly organized, and uninteresting, features unlikely to enhance learning or motivation. Compounding the problem, 69 percent of eighth graders scored below Proficient on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading, failing to demonstrate a level of literacy necessary to comprehend and learn from reading challenging subject matter. Poorly designed textbook materials would be particularly ineffective for the students lacking strong literacy skills. This paper reports a study in which tenth graders who had parental permission were randomly assigned to read one of three types of passages about direct and representative democracy. After reading, all students responded to the same tasks to measure their understanding and their motivation to engage in civic-related activities. Students were selected from regular classes in high schools, from a West Coast state and from a state in the Mid-Atlantic region. Data was collected on two sides of the country because the authors believe that research conducted in one location is frequently too widely generalized. To communicate with one another and the larger public, political scientists design their texts to inform (presenting lots of facts), to argue (taking a stance on the optimal relationship), and to explain (presenting many examples and analyzing them according to democratic principles). The authors note that most textbook material is designed to inform. The study aimed to compare the effect on student understanding of texts designed to argue and explain as well and found that there were few differences in outcomes among the three texts. The authors concluded that students were able to take advantage of the features in all three designs and found them to be comprehensible, to enhance their understanding, and to spark their interest in engaging in civic activities. (Contains 9 endnotes and 3 figures.) [This document was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).]

The landmark Civic Mission of Schools report of 2003 laid out an argument for the role of schools in promoting youth civic engagement and presented a range of promising ideas and practices to accomplish that. In this study we describe the civic engagement outcomes that Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, KY, has chosen to promote in its students. The outcomes constitute a vision of civic engagement that sees youth as well-rounded citizens capable of engaging in civil, political, and problem-solving activities, both individually and socially. In 2007, JCPS revised its annual survey of students to include the above-mentioned civic outcomes and other new measures as part of a whole-child approach to monitoring educational development. Data collected from high school students by this survey in 2008 and 2009 were used to identify and characterize a number of factors which, theory and empirical research suggest, may be important predictors of youth civic engagement. The results show that most of the factors in our models of civic engagement were positively related to youth civic engagement. Using these findings and theoretical considerations, we sorted factors into three levels of importance. Overall, the most important predictors of youth civic engagement in our models were "community service", "political discussion", and "environmental conservation". At an intermediate level of importance were "nonsport extracurricular activities", "conflict resolution skill", and "positive character", as well as "personal efficacy", "willingness to contact public officials about issues of concern", and "intention to vote". Seven other factors were also found to have positive, but somewhat weaker or less-widespread associations with youth civic engagement. Using a large sample in an urban school district, this study reinforces claims that community service, discussion of politics, and nonsport extracurricular activities boost civic engagement. These are three of the "promising practices" recommended for schools in the Civic Mission of Schools report, and this study reinforces the importance of providing them. The findings also provide intriguing evidence of the potential value of environmental conservation, conflict resolution skill, and character education as pathways to civic engagement. (Contains 11 tables.)

In a study of high school civic opportunities, the authors found that student race and academic track, and a school's average socioeconomic status (SES) determines the availability of the school-based civic learning opportunities that promote voting and broader forms of civic engagement. High school students attending higher SES schools, those who are college-bound, and white students get more of these opportunities than low-income students, those not heading to college, and students of color. The study is based on surveys of more than 2,500 California juniors and seniors over a two-year period (2005-2007) as well as on analysis of a nationally representative data set of more 2,811 9th graders. Students were surveyed about how their high school civic learning experiences aligned with civic education best practices. This report details those findings and offers three recommendations for policymakers and educators: (1) Professional Development and Curricular Support; (2) New Initiatives Focused on Universal and/or Low SES Populations; and (3) Undertaking Assessment that Inform and Direct Both Policy and Practice. Two sample descriptions are appended. A bibliography is included. (Contains 12 endnotes, 3 figures and 3 tables.)

For many young people, adult education offers a "second chance" to obtain a high school credential, to develop literacy skills, or to succeed in a new country and a new language. With more support, it can also represent a second chance for youth to develop civic knowledge and skills and lifelong patterns of civic engagement. The aim of this study is to lead to further collaborations between policymakers and adult literacy educators. Prior to the research performed in this study, no national study of the civics education and civic engagement practices of this group of young learners had been undertaken. To begin to map this terrain, CIRCLE asked staff in the Literacy and Lifelong Learning Program at SRI International to conduct a literature review and initial survey of adult literacy programs that serve youth and offer some form of civics-related education or civic engagement activities. After presenting the findings of the review and survey, the report draws on the findings, as well as on the recommendations of The Civic Mission of Schools, to suggest key areas where further work by practitioners, researchers, and policymakers is most needed. The appendices include a bibliography of recommended curriculum materials, instructional resources, and Web sites compiled from the literature and from survey results. [This Working Paper was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), University of Maryland.]

This study compared more than 1,000 high school students who participated in service-learning programs with those who did not participate in schools matched for similar demographics and student achievement profiles. The intention was to estimate the effects of service-learning compared to more traditional ways of teaching similar subject areas. The outcomes measured ranged from civic knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions to school engagement factors, such as attachment to school and enjoyment of coursework, that generally predict academic success. Students came from sites in the southeast, north central, and western parts of the United States. More than half of the students in the sample were Latino/Hispanic. Although service-learning students scored higher than comparison students on several outcomes, most of the differences were not statistically significant. Service-learning students were significantly more likely to say that they intended to vote and that they enjoyed school. There were substantial differences in outcomes among the various service-learning programs in the study. The study suggests that service-learning is effective when it is implemented well, but it is no more effective than conventional social studies classes when the conditions are not optimal. In particular: (1) Student outcomes improved when service-learning programs lasted longer, although year-long programs often had slightly less benefit than semester-long programs; (2) Teacher characteristics were related to outcomes--Number of years of teaching experience was significantly related to some student outcomes (valuing school, enjoying math and science, civic skills, and civic dispositions). Longer experience using service-learning was associated with higher civic knowledge, civic dispositions, and efficacy scores; (3) The type of service project was related to the outcomes. Students who engaged in direct service (e.g., tutoring or visiting seniors) were most attached to their communities--Students who engaged in indirect service (e.g., fundraising or research) showed the highest levels of academic engagement. Students who engaged in political or civic action (e.g., circulating a petition or organizing a community forum) scored highest on civic knowledge and civic dispositions; and (4) The literature has identified a set of best practices or "Essential Elements" of service-learning. The study found that some of these elements were related to positive student outcomes, but some were not. who did not use service-learning were almost as likely as those who did to use "active" instructional techniques. Thus, based on this study, it does not appear that service-learning competes against passive, lecture-style classes. Instead, it competes against mixed forms of instruction that include student projects, presentations, debates, and field trips. The study found that the use of active teaching techniques was most beneficial for student outcomes, and service-learning conferred a small additional benefit over other active pedagogies. (Contains 41 exhibits.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).]

First Amendment principles are fragile, unless they have widespread public support. People form lasting views about civil liberties and other political issues in adolescence. They are influenced by many factors, including what they learn and experience in schools. Therefore, schools' treatment of the Constitution and the press is important for the future of the First Amendment. In turn, schools can be influenced by state educational policy. A multivariate analysis of data from the Knight Foundation 2005 Future of the First Amendment survey, combined with data on state education policies, reveals that discussing the news media in class enhances students' attitudes and habits related to the free press. Also, when their teachers have required the use of news media in classes, students are more likely to use the news media regularly. Students who are directly involved in scholastic media have generally more favorable attitudes toward the First Amendment. For the most part, existing state policies that might be expected to enhance students' knowledge, attitudes, or habits related to the First Amendment do not seem to have significant impact. (Contains 14 endnotes.) [The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) promotes research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25. Although CIRCLE conducts and funds research, not practice, the projects supported have practical implications for those who work to increase young people's engagement in politics and civic life. CIRCLE is also a clearinghouse for relevant information and scholarship. CIRCLE is based in the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy.]

This progress report provides evidence for persistent influence of Kids Voting USA (KVUSA), an interactive civic curriculum taught during election campaigns. The entire research project consists of multiple waves of student and parent interviews, covering a three-year period. Respondents were recruited from families in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida. The students were juniors and seniors when first interviewed in the aftermath of the 2002 election. The survey results from that year, described in an earlier report, are used as a baseline indication of the immediate influence of KVUSA. Those results provided substantial evidence for the initial effects of Kids Voting on students, on parents, and on family norms for political competence. The question now is whether this optimistic impression is warranted once one looks at the long-term effects. In other words, did the curriculum exert a lasting influence or was its impact fleeting and ultimately inconsequential in the lives of students and parents? Based on a second wave of interviews, this report describes the extent of Kids Voting effects one year after student participation. The results show a consistent and robust influence of Kids Voting after the passage of 12 months despite controlling for demographics such as family socioeconomic status and parent history of voting. In 25 tests of curriculum influence, Kids Voting USA netted 21 effects in the areas of news media use, discussion, cognition, opinion formation, and civic participation. An appendix presents: Item Wording & Coding for Measures. (Contains 10 tables, 2 figures, and 2 endnotes.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).]

Several nonprofit organizations provide instructional materials and guidance to support experiential civic education in schools. General evidence from national surveys suggests that the use of these products and methods improves students? political and civic knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. This paper reports the result of a particular experiment conducted to study the effects of an ongoing national youth civic engagement program sponsored by the UVA Center for Politics called the National Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI). The experiment described here is unusual in two main respects. First, the YLI curriculum emphasizes experiential learning about politics and elections, on the theory that politics ought to be explicitly taught if the goal is to get young people to vote, follow the political news, and try to influence the government. Second, the YLI program was tested in an unusually rigorous way; students who participated in YLI were compared to students who received more traditional civics instruction. According to other studies, students who take civics courses are more likely than other young people to be knowledgeable and engaged in politics. However, it is possible that this is not an effect of the courses; rather, students who are already interested in politics elect to take classes on civics. Also, studies have shown that different teaching techniques and curriculum content have different types of benefits for students. The YLI research used quasi-experimental design to demonstrate that these particular civic classes?using experiential methods and emphasizing electoral politics?had statistically significant, positive effects.

By and large, scholars of electoral behavior and civil society consider education to be the key predictor of civic participation. Indeed, civic education is held to be a fundamental institution of all deliberative democracies. Yet after decades of empirical research, we still know little about the causal mechanisms through which education fosters political participation, and more generally, "good American citizens." Recently, scholars and educators have suggested that practical lessons about local politics and participation in extracurricular activities--collectively referred to as service learning--are the most promising educational tools for enhancing civic development (Niemi and Junn 1998, ch. 7; Galston 2001, 228-229; Carnegie and CIRCLE 2003, 6). I use two field experiments with inner city high school students to test whether these activities actually affect civic knowledge, attitudes and behavior. The primary advantage of an experimental approach is that it creates the conditions necessary for unbiased causal inference. Accordingly, my results speak to certain issues of cause and effect in civic education with greater certainty than previous research. This study is additionally novel in the measures it uses to gauge civic engagement. Many scholars have characterized minority students as possessing less political knowledge and participating less in civic organizations than their white counterparts (Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1997, Niemi and Junn 1998, Lake et al. 2002). These findings may partially reflect the inability of researchers to measure a broad spectrum of extra-electoral behavior in urban areas. To test this hypothesis, I incorporate more comprehensive and culturally sensitive indicators of civic involvement than those used by prior research. Contrary to the hopes of recent theorists, my findings show the effects of local service learning to be small and elusive. On the other hand, my refined measures of participation reveal some previously neglected, but potentially inspiring sources of civic engagement in the inner city. Only time and future experimentation will tell whether these popular activities represent a more successful means of mobilizing urban youth for political activism. [This working paper consists of the abstract and executive summary of the author's doctoral dissertation, presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University. It was produced by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).]

Fostering an ethic of active citizenship is typically a key goal for national service. However, national service advocates often assume that national service will act as civic education, paying insufficient attention to what this means and how different policy designs further or undermine different conceptions or aspects of citizenship. This paper explores the relationship between national service and civic education through a study of the Civilian Conservation Corps and VISTA, to see what lessons might be learned and applied to the nation?s current program, AmeriCorps. Given that citizenship has multiple, contested meanings, this is looked at from five perspectives: (1) constitutional citizenship; (2) critical citizenship; (3) citizenship as patriotism; (4) as service; and (5) as work. While this list is neither exhaustive nor the perspectives mutually exclusive, different goals are suggested for the national service civic education agenda.

The influence of Kids Voting USA, an interactive civics curriculum taught during election campaigns, is assessed in the context of three field experiments that took place during the fall of 2002. The research sites are Maricopa County, Arizona; El Paso County, Colorado; and Broward/Palm Beach counties, Florida. The authors present findings from the first wave of a panel study on the long-term effects of the curriculum on high school juniors and seniors and their parents. Data were collected from N=559 student-parent dyads. Results from standardized questionnaires are supplemented with focus-group interviews of students. The authors identify the initial curriculum effects on students, on parents, and on the family system as a setting for developmental growth. After looking at impacts of the entire curriculum, they examine whether specific components help to account for particular results. Finally, they point to implications for innovations in civics education. The following is appended: Item Wording & Coding for Measures. (Contains 5 figures and 16 tables.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).]

Service-learning gives school administrators a powerful tool to achieve some of their most important goals: educating students to high levels, connecting with the community, and preparing students to be active participants in the world around them. This issue paper examines why administrators support service-learning as a key element in school improvement, what questions they may need to address, and how administrators can support and strengthen service-learning in their schools. Includes definitions, research results, anecdotes, and strategies. Contains 12 references and 15 resources. (BT)

This paper examines in detail how higher education serves the larger public good, focusing on how higher education assesses and accounts for its service to society. It begins with a brief description of how the civic education of students and institutional service to society are defined for the purposes of this paper. It then discusses assessment and accountability strategies, including the kinds of measures that tend to be the focus of most public reporting strategies. The civic education and service roles of higher education are not usually the focus of public reporting. When civic contributions are assessed, something else, whether service learning, campus, climate, student diversity, or "service" to the community, is measured. To build assessments of the civic contributions of higher education into reports of accountability, there are some obstacles that must be overcome. This paper identifies those obstacles and presents some strategies to build assessment and accountability capacities for the civic roles of higher education. The strategies are drawn from assessment models currently being used to measure specific dimensions of campuses' civic roles and activities. An appendix lists 14 resources for further information. (Contains 21 references.) (SLD)