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AbstractCivic education is essential to the perpetuation of American self-government. Despite this important role, civic education in the United States has been neglected for several decades and is only recently seeing a resurgence in the classroom and as a focus of research. Conceptions of what constitutes effective civic education vary widely, creating a great multiplicity in what is measured and how, and obfuscating which pedagogical practices are most effective. This paper provides an overview of civic education and the outcomes—including civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions—that are the goals of such education. We then examine three pedagogies—instruction through primary-source analysis, simulation-based learning, and academic service learning—and review examples of the civic outcomes of these pedagogies. We seek to answer several questions: How are these instructional practices defined? What debates and challenges surround their implementation? What evidence is there that such techniques result in civic outcomes? Finally, what implications are there for the social studies classroom? We demonstrate that these three pedagogies have the potential to improve civic learning, and that a mixture of engaging and effective pedagogies is ideal. We encourage further research on the civic outcomes resulting from the implementation of various pedagogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This semester-long research project examined the use of social studies trade books to thematically teach about six individuals who served as change agents in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Three of the individuals were African American men, Robert Smalls, Frederick Douglass, and John Roy Lynch, who took civic action to address racial discrimination faced by the Black community in the half century following the U.S. Civil War. The other three indivduals were women women, Ida B. Wells, Clara Lemlich, and Jane Addams, who challenged social inequities and injustices within their communities. Over the course of the semester-long research project, sixth-grade U.S. history students read selected trade books, examined primary sources, completed graphic organizers, and crafted writing assessments about each of the six individuals. Students demonstrated complex historical thinking, integrated economic and civic thinking, and communicated thematic ideas of systemic oppression of minorities, women, and the poor. They struggled to make connections between examples of historic oppression and contemporary examples of societal oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic and political engagement are at an inflection point in the United States. While some forms of engagement are on a negative path (e.g. contested civic education, dwindling community group membership), other forms are increasing (e.g. unionization, volunteerism, protests) (Atwell, Stillerman, Bridgeland, 2021). Many scholars and activists claim that one way to increase civic and political engagement is through civic education, yet most studies of civic education deal with conventional public schools. Minimal attention has been paid to the civic/political engagement potential of alternative forms of education. This article seeks to add to the relatively small body of knowledge about democratic free schools and their outcomes, especially as related to civic and political engagement. The Albany Free School (AFS) is a democratic free school where students self-direct their education. Such schools are part of a counter-hegemonic movement in the United States that dates back to the early 20th century and which has both anarchist and libertarian roots (von Duyke, 2013). Such schools purport to create spaces where students can develop critical authorial agency (Matusov, 2020) and habits/skills of engagement in the political/civic sphere. This article, based on data from interviews conducted with 18 alumni of the AFS, focuses specifically on discussions of alumni political and/or civic engagement and begins with a literature review defining how political and civic engagement manifests, and then moves into exploring the existing literature on the political/civic engagement-related outcomes of democratic free schools. This literature is mixed as to whether such schools are successful at nurturing such engagement, and the findings of the data collected in this study confirm these mixed outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of the paradox presented in democratic education between having no defined curricular endpoints and a declared set of characteristics and dispositions that are sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools in the United States have often been tasked with cultivating a political identity that is connected to the nationstate. In the civics classroom, this often means teaching a nation-state centered civic education, which can create a sense of disjuncture for some students. This year-long ethnographic study explores disenfranchised students living in the Virgin Islands' political identities and interests and how their teachers responded to them. The findings suggest that students entered the classroom with developed and varied political interests and identities that would not necessarily be recognized in a traditional nation-state centered civics class. Teachers responded by providing a culturally sustaining and humanizing civic education that honored their students' diverse political and cultural identities and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that youth and their communities benefit from civics education, with its aim to prepare citizens for democracy. However, civics education for adolescents in the United States is not equitable, and determining how to best measure aspects of civic development in younger adolescents is a challenge. In this qualitative study, we explored how the constructs of action civics and civic purpose might inform teachers, other practitioners, and researchers who are interested in understanding the kinds of educational opportunities that promote civic development in young adolescents. Specifically, we examined how activities characteristic of an action civics approach to civic education in the context of a week-long summer civics camp would influence young adolescents' thinking across the dimensions of civic purpose. We conducted focus groups with 49 young adolescents (entering 5th-9th grades) as they participated in the civics camp, and we analyzed transcripts using qualitative content analysis. Our findings reveal four key considerations for promoting civic purpose development in young adolescents: the importance of adult guides, the significance of developmentally matched activities, opportunities for growth in educating diverse and marginalized youth in the civics camp setting, and action civics as a curricular mechanism for promoting civic purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth citizenship and injustices within civic education throughout the United States of America are timely topics during a time when there is a heightened interest in globalisation and Global Citizenship. Throughout the history of the U.S., there have been various paradigm shifts and campaigns anchored to the ideal of creating informed and active citizens who would be loyal to the republic. While the collective interest has not waivered, the methods of reaching the pinnacle of united states for the people, by the people, have been broad and varied. Youth activists, experts, and politicians have attempted to alter civics measures through a combination of academic, grassroots, and legal systems changes on local and federal levels. Thus far, results have been multifarious, and it is clear that unity among these groups of catalysts is necessary to alter the foundation and face of civics learning and youth citizenship throughout the United States K-12 public education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While traditional civic education in the United States is inextricably linked to notions of a public sphere, this paper argues that the digital era requires a reimagining of this premise. The opaque nature of digital spaces makes it difficult for young people to understand how large of an audience they are interacting with and to what extent a conversation that may feel private is rebounding across public contexts. In this conceptual paper, we (1) use semiotic squares to present publicly private and privately public as two ways to reinterpret traditional presumptions about the role of "the public" in civic education and (2) present the implications of these blended spaces for civic education and civic learning. The paper asks, what does it mean to prepare young people for interaction in the "public" sphere within our classrooms today? By drawing on a vignette of teacher practice, we articulate what civic education could be for students around the world in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long identified fostering democratic citizenship as a primary purpose of public schooling in the United States, as schools should intentionally prepare students with the knowledge and skills needed for active, informed democratic citizenship. In addition, global interconnectedness has reshaped needed civic competencies to participate in civic life. This conceptual article considers the intersections between civic and world history education, assessing the relationship between the two disciplines in order to create a framework of best practices in world history civic education. Global citizenship discourse is analyzed using this framework, considering how different forms may reinforce or undermine world history's purpose of preparing students with pluralist understandings for global democratic living. Drawing on components of history education, world history, and global citizenship education scholarship, this article seeks to establish epistemological clarity as to how world history can contribute to meaningful civic education and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been well established that controversial issue discussions are an integral component to a high-quality civic education. However, as the United States has become increasingly politically polarized, teachers have become more hesitant to engage students in discussions of controversial political issues. Two decades worth of literature on teaching controversial issues has shown that a primary factor in determining whether teachers will engage students in controversial issue discussions is whether they feel supported by their school administrators. Yet, school leaders have rarely been the focus of civic education efforts. This article seeks to bridge that divide by first providing a review of the research showing the importance of engaging with controversy in K-12 education and the influence of school leadership on that process and then ending with implications for school administrators who wish to support teachers who broach controversy in their classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public libraries depend on public support for their existence. This essay asks, What can and should public librarians do to contribute to civic education? It discusses librarianship, politics and neutrality, and funding. It looks to public statements of librarians in the immediate aftermath of the election, then turns back to what librarians were doing in the realm of civic participation and education immediately prior to the election. Evidence comes from popular articles, tweets focusing on libraries and the election, and an unscientific, post hoc survey of library event calendars. Recommendations include fostering communication and dialogue and participating in actions that foster truth and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how guns emerged as both urgent topics of dialogue and common features of everyday life for 228 students and their teachers in six communities across the United States who participated in the Digital Democratic Dialogue (3D) Project, a year long social design-based experiment aimed at foregrounding youth voice and fostering connection across lines of geographic and ideological difference. We trace the myriad ways that guns literally and discursively shaped the multiple ecological contexts of the 3D Project in order to detail youth sociopolitical learning and extend traditional models of civic education. We propose a paradigm of speculative civic literacies that privileges a collaborative push toward democratic interrogation and innovation over integration into existing civic and political structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many civic education initiatives have developed across the United States in order to help prepare students for civic engagement in school-based settings. At the same time, research shows that quality of school-based civic learning opportunities remains insufficient, inconsistent, and inequitable. In this article, we propose a framework of civic learning dispositions based upon current social studies curricular resources from C3 Teachers. Based on a thematic review of civic dispositions embedded within this C3 Framework-aligned curriculum, we offer a framework to demonstrate how civic dispositions and the application of social studies learning (i.e., civic action) can be used in curriculum design to support a reinvigorated application of social studies learning. The framework, then, provides a theoretically informed, practical heuristic for teachers, researchers and curricular designers to both better understand and subsequently support their students' high-quality civic learning in the context of social studies teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing trend within civics education within the United States to adopt the USCIS naturalization civics exam (commonly referred to as the 'citizenship test'), which consists of 100 multiple choice questions, to determine the civic readiness of students. This study explores civics education within eight US states that have adopted the 'citizenship test' model through the lens of citizenship conceptualizations evidenced within their high school civics state standards. Utilizing a directed content analysis, the researcher located more than 230 standards within three citizenship discourse categories: civic republican, liberal, and reconstructionist. Citizenship within the examined state standards, was largely conceptualized as civic republican in orientation (96%) and nested within untroubled assumptions of US society and desires for a common American identity that often crowded out attention to diversity and conflict and in doing so, mirrored exclusionary practices common to standardized, high-stakes assessments including the USCIS naturalization civics exam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has witnessed a steady increase in concern about political polarization and its impact on youth. We systematically review and compare the empirical research literature on civic education pedagogy in the United States between 2009 and 2019 to frame efforts to construct an inclusive and healthy democracy—one that decreases polarization and increases broad youth civic participation. Despite evidence that civic education must be revitalized to address societal inequities underlying participation and polarization, few articles addressed how to achieve such education. We recommend future researchers evaluate promising practices for increasing youth participation and decreasing political polarization. There is a related need for more civic education research in K–12 schools, particularly critical research focused on program implementation and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With nationwide concerns about the declines in youth voting turnout across the United States, increased attention has focused on schools to promote civic education, a broad curricular approach aimed at facilitating students' development of key civic knowledge, skills, and behaviors. However, less is known about how civic education operates in K-12 Christian schools despite offering certain institutional advantages related to promoting strong relational trust and community values that can potentially enhance students' civic education experience. This literature review draws on theoretical and empirical work to provide an enhanced understanding about civic education in the Christian school context so that policymakers and practitioners can embrace the effectiveness of this blended approach to better preparing youth to become active and informed citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia explore how young people from six demographically distinct communities across the United States understand the social and political issues affecting their lives, engage in storytelling and dialogue across differences, and collaboratively imagine humanizing and hopeful civic futures. Drawing from critical race perspectives on democracy and civic education, and with an expansive vision of the nature and purpose of literacy, Mirra and Garcia develop a speculative approach to civic literacy research and practice that centers the voices and concerns of young people, honors differences of identity and expression, and manifests ideological commitments to equity, empathy, and collective struggle to ward off civic disintegration. Findings from their social design-based experiment foreground counterstories in which youth challenge their positioning as not-yet-citizens, create opportunities to engage in civic life on their own terms, and leverage their repertoire of literacy practices to invent new possibilities for inclusive democratic community life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional conceptions of civic education for young children in the United States tend to focus on student acquisition of patriotic knowledge, that is, identifying flags and leaders, and practicing basic civic skills like voting as decision-making. The Civic Action and Young Children study sought to look beyond this narrow vision of civic education by observing, documenting, and contextualizing how young children acted on behalf of and with other people in their everyday early childhood settings. In the following paper, we offer examples from three Head Start classrooms to demonstrate multiple ways that young children act civically in everyday ways. When classrooms and teachers afford young children more agency, children's civic capabilities expand, and they are able to act on behalf of and with their community. Rather than teaching children about democracy and citizenship, we argue for an embodied, lived experience for young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools serve as a crucial locus for fostering active citizens who understand the essential principles of democratic life and active involvement based upon those principles. As educators strive to achieve this civic education mission, I argue that they must include improving the economic literacy of K-12 students as an integral component of fostering active and engaged democratic citizens. Unfortunately, economic issues remain almost entirely absent from the broader K-12 social studies curriculum, resulting in a failure to engage young people in some of the most pressing moral and civic issues of our times. Furthermore, K-12 educators must endeavor to overcome the lack of equitable civic education opportunities for underrepresented and disadvantaged students and the widening disparities between residents of the United States. I argue for increasing the economic literacy of high school social studies teachers and their students as a means to promote civic engagement by providing classroom-based examples and by using the critical attributes of the personally responsible citizen, participatory citizen, and justice-oriented citizen as articulated by civic education scholars Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne. Building on these examples, I suggest that K-12 educators should prepare students to engage with a host of macro- and microeconomic dilemmas and questions that promote active and engaged democratic citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to understand the multidisciplinary field of public affairs. Based on data and text mining on the profiles and publications of all faculty members from a list of research‐oriented U.S. public affairs programs, we describe the landscape of public affairs schools and scholars, identify 15 topics in public affairs research and discuss their trends of change between 1986 and 2015, and show the clustering and hiring networks of public affairs schools. Our results suggest a broader approach to understanding the field of public affairs than the public administration focus in the literature. Although public administration is highly visible in the field, which is evidenced by the journals most favored by public affair scholars, various specific policy areas (such as health, social, urban, environmental, global, and education policies) show strong representations based on our topical analysis of public affairs research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The April 13, 2018 Thomas E. Fairchild Lecture by Judge Robert A. Katzmann at the University of Wisconsin School of Law is presented. Topics include problems with civic education and political knowledge in the U.S., the beliefs of U.S. founding fathers such as former U.S. President George Washington, and a civic education initiative by the U.S. Federal Courts of the Second Circuit in New York City.

The issues associated with students' civic knowledge, engagement, and participation have been heightened in intellectual debates and public discussions. However, these discussions have not focused heavily on urban youths' civic identities or the locations of these identities within the youths' personal narratives of ethnicity, race, class, and gender. This article presents the narratives of four urban high school youths of color, selected from a larger study about youths' experiences in school and society and the ways in which classroom learning encouraged their inquiry, assessment of their social worlds and personal goals, and emerging personal and civic identities. Our purpose was to gain insights regarding the youths' sociopolitical perspectives on local educational and social issues affecting them and to understand their multiple literacies in the context of their civic engagement, increasing youth advocacy, and larger political tensions. The theoretical framing of this investigation is grounded in democratic education and sociopolitical consciousness and draws upon research that focuses on civic participation and democratic society. Four dominant themes emerged from the analysis: educational inequality, social media, schooling, and race and mass incarceration. This article contributes to an expansive framing for civic education by examining the civic knowledge of urban youths of color and offers implications for research, practice, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although civic education has experienced a significant revitalization during the past two decades, America's high schools are not adequately preparing young people for self-governance and civic participation. While an estimated 90 percent of American high school students take a Civics or American Government course, a majority of graduates are deemed less than "proficient" in their knowledge of civics in a standardized exam.1 Nor does taking a course translate into civic action, as turnout among America's newest voters (18- to 20-year-olds) was only 15 percent in the 2014 midterm elections and 39 percent in the 2016 presidential election.2 Furthermore, young people's access to civic-learning opportunities varies greatly by race, ethnicity, geography, and income level, producing unequal capabilities to participate fully in civic life.3 Empirical data on overall levels of youth participation and on staggering inequality warrant a need to explore new approaches, along with ways to improve current practices. In this article, we explore the latter by asking how discussion of controversial issues--one of the Six Promising Practices presented in The Civic Mission of Schools--can be more widely deployed so that all students, regardless of their background, have access to meaningful and productive discussions about contentious topics that affect our society.4 We focus on the role of two sets of prospective allies--families and principals--in fostering these discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents global insights for U.S. civic education. Topics include South Africa and Northern Ireland are stated to offer particular insights for the U.S. teachers interested in extending their practice of civic education, building school culture and focusing on relationships such as the residential programs at the Corrymeela Community, which bring students and teachers of different backgrounds together for a shared learning experience, help to foster these relationships.

Background: Having students engage with controversial issues is considered a hallmark of a quality civic education, in part because it requires students to interact with perspectives that contradict their existing worldviews, evaluate the legitimacy of positions based on evidence, and develop the skills and dispositions necessary for participation in an increasingly pluralistic democratic society. Most of the research on the teaching of controversial issues, however, has focused on how teachers and students respond to controversy as opposed to how controversy is framed. Teachers must determine whether an issue should be considered "open," or controversial, or "settled," or noncontroversial, in their classrooms, a decision that is both pedagogically important and often controversial. For issues that have been settled for some time, such as slavery or woman suffrage, the decision whether to frame them as open or settled is typically easy for teachers; however, issues that are in the process of tipping from open to settled, or vice versa, are more challenging and require that teachers make instructional decisions based on evidence and logical reasoning. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to critically analyze whether the issue of marriage equality should be framed as controversial in the aftermath of the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States. In doing so, this article also offers several implications for the teaching of controversial issues broadly, particularly those that intersect with the identities of students and teachers. Research Design: This article makes an analytical/theoretical argument using three commonly cited criteria for determining the openness of controversial issues: the epistemic criterion, the political criterion, and the politically authentic criterion. Conclusions/Recommendations: After evaluating marriage equality using each criterion, I conclude that no rational reason exists for treating marriage quality as an open issue post-Obergefell. I also argue that the issue of marriage equality illustrates the need for teachers to be cognizant of how discussions of controversial issues that implicate students' identities may impact students who may be marginalized by those issues. I recommend that when such issues have reached the point where subjective decisions must be made in determining whether they are framed as open or settled, deference should be made to framing those issues in a way that promotes public values as opposed to legitimizing private views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay John Fantuzzo critiques civic education's current focus on power and turns to James Baldwin's conception of love as offering an alternative approach. Fantuzzo's argument is that Baldwin's understanding of love can contribute to civic education by disclosing the significance of interpersonal solidarity between citizens, a significance that is obscured when power is of primary focus. He develops this argument by first examining the work of love in Baldwin's fiction and nonfiction. He then analyzes what he calls the familiar story in civic education, which is conceptually based in identity politics, progress, and power. Finding a sophisticated rehearsal of the familiar story in Meira Levinson's No Citizen Left Behind, Fantuzzo illuminates for readers how, despite the many strengths of her book, Levinson's focus on power obscures the need for interpersonal solidarity in civic education. He concludes by providing a close reading of Baldwin's "A Letter to My Nephew" in order to explain Baldwin's guiding principles for a civic education that prioritizes the work of love. Without ignoring social inequities or the need for civic empowerment, Fantuzzo shows that Baldwin contributes to civic education by prioritizing the work of love and instructing his nephew, and the reading public, to face the civic love gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship dynamics between the executive office and the free press; and how these dynamics have been altered under the Trump administration. Donald Trump has questioned the validity and accuracy of claims, even going as far to call some organizations (CNN and The New York Times) "fake news." The authors discuss the historically contentious relationship between the executive office and the free press as well as the ways in which Donald Trump has altered the dynamics of this relationship. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, the authors explore the role of the free press in American politics. The authors designed two classroom-ready activities by drawing on the best teaching practices advocated for in the C3 Framework. To elaborate, both activities allow students to research and analyze arguments made by Donald Trump and challenge false claims. This enables students to engage in the four dimensions of the Inquiry Arc in the C3 Framework. Findings - The authors provide two activities that can be utilized in the high school social studies classroom to enable students to dissect American politicians' messages. These two activities can be adapted and utilized to enable students to examine political candidate's messages. By completing the steps of these two activities, students are better prepared to be critical consumers of political media messages and take civic action to challenge false claims. Originality/value - Donald Trump has attempted to undermine the free press in the USA. He objects to stories that do not paint his administration in a positive light. This manuscript uses the media literacy position statement from NCSS and Ochoa-Becker's framework for truth claims to explore Trump's statements and claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses finding alternatives to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Naturalization Test for civic learning and readiness. Topics discussed include becoming active in civic life, assessment in civic education showing importance of civic teaching and learning, National Council for the Social Studies' plan for civic education and assessment, and raising questions about civic literacy in American public schools.

The article offers information on urging colleges to offer a unit on Tracking Congress to offer an opportunity to connect civics and government to students' real lives. Topics discussed include implementation of all four dimensions of the C3 Inquiry Arc; assessment of students' knowledge of the government, economic growth and freedom; and tracking the activities of federal legislators by students and helping each other learn the vocabulary.

The article discusses the reasons to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year olds in local elections in the U.S. in 2017 and beyond. It states that lowering the voting rights is a strategic way to strengthen the nation's overall democracy and improve voter participation and overall civic engagement. Iy also mentions that the move could drive demand for effective civics education in schools, can lead to a long-term increase in voter turnout, and force local politicians to listen to their voices and address their concerns.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the author discusses civic education in the U.S., educational reformers, and forensics educators.

In the last 25 years, the American criminal justice system has increasingly marginalized and criminalized low-income communities of color. This phenomenon has been compounded by a national decline in civics education and a deep skepticism of criminal defense lawyers advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable indigent criminal defendants and their communities. This Article is an interdisciplinary proposal to put into action Lopez's assertion that the rebellious lawyer for the subordinated "must translate in two directions, creating both a meaning for the legal culture out of the situations that people are living and a meaning for people's practices out of the legal culture." Employing Participatory Action Research, this Article explores a model for potential partnerships between legal clinics and public high schools to provide students who are most affected by the criminal justice system with a criminal law education. Such an education can impart practical tools to students to articulate and analyze legal theory and practice, thus extending Lopez's commitment to sharing both power and responsibility for the American criminal justice system--between and among criminal defense attorneys, criminal defendants, and their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As American politics becomes more polarized, it is increasingly necessary for teachers to understand the relationship between education and partisan behavior. Using data from a 2012 CIRCLE survey of 18–24-year-olds, I examine the relationship between students’ educational experiences (focusing on exposure to high-quality civics instruction and high school democratic climate) and their propensity to exhibit alignment between party identification, ideology, issue opinions, and candidate choices as young adults. I find that participants who report both a high number of quality civic education experiences and a highly democratic school climate show a reduced likelihood of extreme political alignment. I discuss the implications of this finding and highlight directions for further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National offices and organizations, such as the U.S. Department of Education and the Association of American Colleges & Universities, have called for higher education curriculum that better prepares students for lifelong civic engagement. Many institutions respond to this appeal by creating more service-learning opportunities for students. However, service-learning alone does not promote the political learning needed for students to have effective engagement. This essay explores the potential of policy debate to complement service-learning as a means of civic education. Policy debate improves civic education by furthering information literacy and critical reasoning skills beyond the classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the need for a high school government course focusing on civic education in the U.S. Topics discussed include providing deep knowledge of the U.S. government and politics includes the Constitution, implementing Complex Scenario Test, a classroom-based performance assessment, and conducting curriculum research.

Do state-level exams in civics have a positive impact on young people's civic knowledge? We hypothesize that civics exams have the biggest effect in states where they are a requirement for high school graduation—the incentive hypothesis. We further hypothesize that civics requirements have the biggest effect on young people with less exposure to information about the U.S. political system at home, specifically Latinos and, especially, immigrants—the compensation hypothesis. We test these hypotheses with the 2006 and 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics test administered to high school students, and with a large national survey of 18–24 year-olds. Across the two datasets, we find modest support for the incentive hypothesis and strong support for the compensation hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article frames the issues that the writers of the U.S. Constitution left as one of their writing legacies. The writers settled on the idea of founding a republic rather than a monarchy or democracy because they believed it the most stable form of government available to them. Their debate over “republic or democracy” found its way quickly into political discourse, with theoreticians like Will Butts and Eugene Volokh offering different views about which terms worked best to describe some of the political disagreements of modern times. This essay is best read in association with the short article on civic education by Reneé Critcher Lyons, which follows this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explore the author experience of working with Justice Teaching, founded by Florida Supreme Court Justice R. Fred Lewis in 2006 to aware people about civics education.

The article discusses how decline of quality civic education in schools is affecting knowledge of Constitutional rights and government in the U.S. Topics discussed include Florida Bar's Constitutional Judiciary Committee in preparing teachers for this civic education; importance of civics education in democracy; and ways to educate people about the role of fair and impartial courts in the U.S. system of government.

The article discusses how decline of quality civic education in schools is affecting knowledge of Constitutional rights and government in the U.S. Topics discussed include role played by civic education program of the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ); importance of civics education in democracy; and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case 'Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n.'

The article discusses how decline of quality civic education in schools is affecting knowledge of Constitutional rights and government in the U.S. Topics discussed include role played by civic education in democracy; results of a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania on little knowledge of government works; and efforts of the Florida Law Related Education Association Inc. for civic education.