Category Archives: advocating civic education

on teaching the US Constitution

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Today at a Social Science Education Consortium meeting, Walter Parker is presenting his fine paper with Sheila Valencia and Jane Lo entitled “Going for Depth in Civic Education: A Design Experiment,” and I am replying.

Parker and colleagues have completely redesigned the AP American Government class–often a rapid march through miscellaneous material–so that it employs nothing but elaborate simulations (a model Congress, a mock Supreme Court, etc.) and focuses on a few central concepts instead of a long list.

The results have been positive: students perform just as well on the AP test while developing much more civic skills and interests. I love the move to interactive projects and the willingness to distinguish central from peripheral concepts. I also agree with Parker and his colleagues that if the course is AP American Government, then the core concepts are “federalism and constitutional reasoning.” Working with those concepts in interactive settings will teach you what you need to know to score high on the test.

The question is whether these should be the core concepts if we have one chance to teach civics to high school seniors. I can think of three major reasons that they should be:

  1. Americans should understand federalism and separation of powers as major aspects of our constitutional system, because the constitution determines our politics.
  2. Americans will be more effective if they understand these concepts. For instance, if you understand federalism, you won’t contact your Member of Congress to report a broken streetlight on a state or city road.
  3. Americans should honor the basic values of constitutional government, which include obeying the rules that constrain us and recognizing the value of limitations on the power and discretion of each person and office.

Here are my reasons to doubt, or at least to complicate, these arguments.

First, the US Constitution is not very well designed for our era. I am not primarily talking about its undemocratic aspects, such as the highly unequal significance of a vote in different states. That is a planned feature, not a bug. Instead, I am talking about the bugs.

For example, if the president and Congress belong to different parties, no coherent policy is possible, and all the incentives favor each side sabotaging the other. Juan Linz found that the US was the only presidential republic that hadn’t already collapsed into a dictatorship. The reason may have been lucky circumstances (vast ideological diversity within each party) that allowed US presidents to form working majorities regardless of which party controlled Congress. Those days are gone.

Likewise, the Constitution fails to acknowledge such crucial components of our modern polity as parties, general purpose corporations, lobbies, media companies, administrative agencies, security agencies, and nonprofits. Our jury-rigged system copes by treating parties, companies, and nonprofits as First Amendment “associations,” media companies as “the press,” and federal agencies as arms of the president. This doesn’t work very well. Therefore, learning the official theory of the Constitution does not help a citizen to understand how things actually work; and learning how things work does not reinforce trust in the official theory. (See yesterday’s post on the small negative correlation between political knowledge and trust in government.)

Second, learning the official rules doesn’t help you navigate the system all that well. A very common assignment (or assessment question) asks students to choose which branch or level of government to contact about various topics of concern. But that’s not how things really work. Your Member of Congress might be the best person to ask about a significant road repair if you know her; she can call a city official and get it fixed. Your Representative is not worth contacting about a federal issue if she she has taken a hostile position on it or if the issue is off the table. Effectively navigating the system involves answering such questions as: What is being decided, by whom? Whose interests align with yours? Whom do you know? Whom do you know who knows someone else who knows an actual decision-maker? What does the press care about? Is there an organization that might take an interest in your issue? I fear that by teaching the official theory, we actually give the wrong impression of how a bill becomes a law. (A question for Walter is whether simulations of governmental processes primarily teach the official rules, or skills like persuasion, or both.)

Third, I am not sure that the values implied in a curriculum about separation of powers are the most important ones for students to learn. We do want people to honor the best principles that underlie a constitution like ours, such as rule of law and limits on powers. Our president never acknowledges that he should be limited in these ways, which is one of the reasons that I consider him anti-conservative. Citizens who understand the importance of limits may be less likely to assess politicians in unreasonable ways–expecting them to accomplish things that they are prevented from doing.

However, these principles may not be the paramount ones for everyday citizens (as opposed to presidents of the United States). Citizens should also honor such principles as personal responsibility for the world, openness to alternative views, concern for facts, and fairness. I am worried that by emphasizing constitutional values that mainly pertain to office-holders, we encourage students to think like states, when they should above all think like citizens.

See also: is our constitutional order doomed?; the Citizens United decision and the inadequate sociology of the US Constitution; liberals, conservatives, and love of the Constitution; constitutional piety.

college curricula for civic learning and engagement

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I’d welcome recommendations of particularly promising undergraduate courses or programs that are intended to boost students’ civic knowledge, skills, and engagement. I’m especially interested in two approaches: 1) requiring a specific course with a civic focus for all students at a given institution, or 2) offering a major, minor, or certificate program for especially interested students.

Civic education at the college level may address contested concepts (justice, citizenship, democracy), skills (from facilitating meetings to reading regression tables), bodies of knowledge (how a bill becomes a law; the texture of the local geographical community; social determinants of health …), self-understandings and identities (“Who am I and what is my role in the community?”), and relationships among students or between students and others. The list of possible outcomes is so long that one reasonable view is: A civic education is a liberal education–it’s the whole curriculum and co-curriculum. But it’s valuable to consider what to offer (or perhaps even require) in the finite span of one course or one major.

Many colleges and universities require first-year seminars. Students can typically choose a course from a menu, but all the seminars create a similar experience, which is supposed to build a community among the students. To the extent that first-year seminars address issues of civic importance, this is also a way of teaching ideas and skills relevant to citizenship. At Cal. State Chico, the guiding principle of the first year seminar program is “Public Sphere Pedagogy.” Chico aims to shift “from a typical classroom setting” to real public dialogues with “diverse campus and community members.”

Other institutions require a particular course or sequence of courses for all students. Columbia’s Core Curriculum is a distinguished example that dates to the early 1900s. Since Columbia’s Core course on “Literature Humanities” has included the Iliad, Oresteia, and Inferno for all of its 75 years, every Columbia College student since WWII has read those books. “The communal learning–with all students encountering the same texts and issues at the same time–and the critical dialogue experienced in small seminars are the distinctive features of the Core.” One could focus mainly on formal, historical, or theological issues while reading texts like the Inferno; but among the topics emphasized in the Core seminars are explicitly civic ones: “What does it mean, and what has it meant to be part of a community?” “By what rules should we be governed?”

At Florida Gulf Coast University, all 13,000 students must take the University Colloquium, an “interdisciplinary environmental education course designed to explore the concept of sustainability as it relates to a variety of considerations and forces in Southwest Florida. In particular, we will consider environmental, social, ethical, historical, scientific, economic, and political influences.” The Colloquium requires 10 hours of service, which can go toward FGCU’s universal requirement of 80 hours for graduation.

Note the interesting difference in content focus: classic texts at Columbia; the local physical and human environment at FGCU.

At least 31 institutions offer majors with titles like “Civic Engagement,” “Service Learning,” “Civic Leadership,” “Community Service,” or “Leadership, Ethics, and Social Action,” and variations on those themes.* I would add majors in “Peace & Justice Studies,” “Advocacy Studies,” “Citizenship & Civic Engagement,” and others to this list.

These programs almost always require community-service experiences or internships. Most also require a foundational course. Butin* finds that the content of these courses varies a great deal. The most frequently assigned material is research about civic engagement in America, e.g., Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone or excerpts from de Tocqueville; but those particular texts are assigned in a minority of all the foundational courses.

Majors are usually more ambitious than minors or certificates, but a program like the University of Maryland’s Civicus is not only a certificate with some required courses; participants also live together in a dedicated dorm and conduct service projects beyond their courses. In that situation, a certificate may be more intensive than a major.

I view public policy programs (whether undergraduate or graduate) as somewhat different from programs in civics. I like to say that the question for Civic Studies is “What should we do?” whereas the question for public policy is “What should be done?” (Or, “What should a policymaker do?”) However, public policy programs can emphasize the citizen’s side of policymaking. Some assign all their students to participate in simulations in which they role-play various official leaders in a fictional crisis. These simulations typically fill a limited number of days before the main coursework begins and serve to build a community while teaching civic skills. I am not aware of any institution that offers or requires a simulation for its whole undergraduate student body, but that’s an interesting prospect.

* Dan Butin, “’Can I major in Service-Learning?’ An Empirical Analysis of Certificates, Minors, and Majors,” Journal of College & Character, vol. 11, No. 2 (2010), pp. 1-18.

deeper learning, civic learning

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Newly published from Harvard Education Press is Rethinking Readiness: Deeper Learning for College, Work, and Life, edited by Rafael Heller, Rebecca E. Wolfe, and Adria Steinberg. It is an important overview of current efforts to make education “deeper,” meaning that students learn from guided but direct experience how to think critically and collaboratively about multidimensional problems. The Hewlett Foundation has been a leader in this work, and its Deeper Learning webpage is a useful introduction.

My colleague Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and I contribute the chapter on civic education. We argue that the deeper learning movement can revitalize civic education–and that civic education is an important opportunity for deeper learning. Subsections examine changes in the context of civics (such as political polarization and the rise of online citizenship), trends in civic education, and the relevance of the whole curriculum and school climate–not just civics courses–to youth civic development.

Suggested citation: Peter Levine and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, “Preparing for Civic Life.” In Rafael Heller, Rebecca E.,Wolfe & Adria Steinberg (eds)., Rethinking Readiness: Deeper Learning for College, Work, and Life (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2017), pp. 59-79

microgenetic, ontogenetic, and sociogenetic civic learning

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At a Center for Ethics & Education conference last week in Kansas City, I learned from Larry Nucci about an important taxonomy. In my summary:

  • Microgenetic learning means obtaining particular knowledge, skills, concepts, values, etc. through particular experiences. A student doesn’t know about Abe Lincoln, reads a book about him, and knows and remembers the president’s story. That is an example of microgenetic learning. We often measure it with assessments before and after lessons or courses. However, it happens at more precise moments, so it’s possible to zero in on the learning events and understand the learning mechanisms.
  • Ontogenetic learning means becoming something different. A small child doesn’t know how to read but becomes literate, a reader. An undergrad doesn’t know much about medicine but ultimately turns into a skilled, practicing physician. Typically, the timescale of ontogenesis is longer than that of microgenesis, but that’s not the essential difference. In theory, ontogenetic change could happen suddenly, as perhaps for Paul on the road to Damascus. The definition is a change in who the person is, not just what he or she knows.
  • Sociogenetic learning is change at the level of a community or society. A community is oral and becomes literate, or pagan and becomes Christian, or analog and becomes digital. Such changes imply that different ontogenetic learning outcomes will become possible, valued, and typical. For instance, a Roman pagan ca. 100 BC couldn’t learn to be a Christian, but his descendants three centuries later could and even had to become Christians. That implied some new microgenetic experiences, like reading scripture and listening to sermons.

These levels of learning can relate in many complex ways. For instance, people can learn specific skills for civic engagement that help them to become activists, and as activists they can change what their society values. Then microgenesis -> ontogenesis -> sociogenesis. Probably more common is the reverse pattern: a society starts to value something, it establishes a new standard of success, and that leads schools to assign new lessons.

This diagram from Saxe 2012 illustrates the various possible pathways.

In fields like literacy and STEM education, which have received heavy investment, scholars have given attention to all three domains. However, I perceive a trend toward the microgenetic level in those fields. It’s increasingly common to apply Learning Sciences and Cognitive Sciences to understand how child A learns skill B at time C. If that trend comes to dominate, there will be need for a critique. We’ll be at risk of missing the forest for the trees and–especially–overlooking what people should learn ontogenically to produce a good society.

In civics, which is underfunded and understudied, most of the research is ontogenetic. It’s most common to use surveys to determine whether children or young adults have become good citizens of one kind or another, and then ask whether civics courses, democratic school climates, or other large influences are related to those outcomes. Practitioners and scholars are certainly interested in microgenetic questions, but that research is scattered and limited, mostly for lack of resources.

Meanwhile, there is a robust debate about sociogenetic changes in civic life. Scholars and pundits debate how the American polity and political culture have changed, what that means for citizens, and how our polity compares to others. Just as an example, Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone offers a sociogenetic thesis: it’s about how Americans have come to engage more individualistically and less collaboratively since the 1960s. The underlying reasons include changes in technology and the economy (not shifts in civic education).

The sociogenetic debate about citizenship still tends to be somewhat disconnected from microgenetic and ontogenetic research. I didn’t know this vocabulary when Jim Youniss and I edited the volume Engaging Young People in Civic Life, but our explicit goal was to connect debates about civic education to debates about changes in civic life. We thought that developmental psychologists tended to assume that civic life was historically constant, and political scientists and sociologists tended to view civic education as historically constant. However, regimes and modes of education change, and these changes affect each other. It’s even possible for kids to gain skills through microgenetic civic learning that enable them to change what the society values.

Ultimately, we need civic education research that combines the microgenetic, ontogenetic, and sociogenetic levels and yields practical advice for practitioners, policymakers, and advocates.

Figure from Saxe, G. (2012). Cultural development of mathematical ideas: Papua New Guinea studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. My main source is Larry Nucci (2016) Recovering the role of reasoning in moral education to address inequity and social justice, Journal of Moral Education, 45:3, 291-307, DOI: 10.1080/03057240.2016.1167027

should civic educators modify their neutral stance?

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(Washington, DC) I’m here for the National Council for the Social Studies annual convention. Right after the election, the NCSS sent a “post-election message” that talked generally about the importance of teaching about government and civic engagement:

As social studies educators, we teach and learn about our system of government, about controversial and timely issues, and about making informed decisions as active participants and defenders of our democracy. Our civic duty did not end at the voting booth; in fact, it has just begun. We can share instructional practices about the electoral process, the upcoming transition plans for newly elected leaders at all levels, and the new teams that will play a central role in our conversations for the next several years. We teach the principles of our U.S. Constitution.

This message could have been sent after any presidential election in the past century. There was no mention of Donald Trump or anything unusual about the campaign or the condition of the republic. I am not necessarily critical of this stance, which reflects a deep-seated and well-grounded commitment to a certain form of political neutrality. Many other schools, districts, universities, and nonprofits have taken a similar stance. However, civic educators must at least consider whether a different set of principles should apply in 2016.

Here are some arguments for neutrality:

  1. It’s dangerous for an arm of the state, a public school, ever to take sides on political issues. Citizens are forced to pay for public education and face considerable pressure to turn their kids over to these institutions. Children form an impressionable, captive audience in the classroom. Teachers have great power over students’ life-prospects. It’s unethical for them to use that power to change children’s political views.
  2. If teachers take–or imply–critical positions about any particular party or leader, elected officials and electoral majorities can press them to take different positions. Neutrality is no longer a shield.
  3. We are all subject to bias. Teachers split their votes between Clinton and Trump, but a majority preferred Clinton, and in big city districts on the coasts, the ratio was no doubt very high. Like everyone, Trump opponents need to remember that they could be wrong. Lots of people believe that Barack Obama is a dangerous enemy of American values. I heartily disagree, but this disagreement shows that judgment is fallible. A critical estimate of Donald Trump is a judgment, not a simple matter of fact. The “text” that we must interpret is the vast quantity of his statements over many months. People hear different points and take different messages from all this verbiage. Those of us who think Donald Trump is a profound threat to the republic could be wrong; and teachers shouldn’t communicate uncertain ideas as if they were truths.
  4. One of our worst problems is political polarization, a failure to interact with and understand people who disagree with us. We don’t learn or practice deliberation enough in the US today. But there is always some ideological diversity in a social studies classrooms, and teachers can advance deliberative values by creating spaces for open conversations. Further, if a particular group (such as Trump voters–or Trump opponents) happens to be missing from a given classroom, teachers can help students to understand the absent perspective. However, if the teacher takes a position, that can chill deliberation.
  5. Schools teach civics and social studies in the first place because elected officials tolerate it. Civics is rarely a high priority and is often on the list to be cut. Yet students benefit from civics. Therefore, the responsible course is for educators–and especially associations like NCSS–to keep their heads down. The last thing they should do is appear to oppose the incumbent administration, because it will be easy for federal and state governments to eliminate civics entirely.
  6. Since individual teachers will bear the brunt of any criticism and retribution, administrators and nonprofit organizational leaders should adopt a tone of complete neutrality to protect them.

But here is the opposite argument:

  1. We teach civics to instill republican, liberal, democratic, and humane values. We ask our students to preserve the republic against threats, both domestic and foreign. The acid test of good civic education is whether every graduate would “stand up” instead of “standing by” when a would-be dictator appeared on the scene.
  2. Yes, it is a matter of judgment, not a demonstrable fact, that Trump poses a threat to republican values. But some major Republican intellectuals and GOP political opponents have called Trump an authoritarian and a racist. One can give reasons, evidence, and arguments for these conclusions. Uncertainty remains, but uncertainty does not excuse us from having to decide. As Hannah Arendt would have said, “Ven zee cheeps are down, ve must make yudgments.” Judgment under uncertainty is exactly what citizenship demands. If we’re wrong, we pay the consequences, because–as Arendt would say–“politics is not a nursery.” Incidentally, Trump needn’t be remotely like a Mussolini or a Franco to pose a real danger. A Putin or a Berlusconi would be bad enough.
  3. To teach “standing up” or (as postwar Germans call it, Civil Courage) needn’t be partisan. In fact, if you think that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, then most of us liberals should have been more vigilant during the Obama years. We should have stood up when the current president executed people extra-judicially by drone strike. In other words, Civil Courage would support criticism of Trump, but it would extend far beyond him.
  4. Schools aren’t and shouldn’t be neutral, anyway. Among the values that they must defend are pursuit of truth and basic decency for all. Any political leader who exhibits a lack of regard for truth or bullying behavior violates principles that schools must uphold. They can’t give kids bad grades for using false information, or make them stay after school for bullying, and yet ignore such behavior by the president.
  5. Many teachers have students who are directly threatened by Trump–or feel that they are–and it is wrong for adults to ignore their sentiment by treating the President Elect as a normal leader. By extension, in a class where everyone feels safe, the students should be made aware of how others feel.
  6. If we refrain from exercising Civil Courage because of possible budget cuts or other political consequences, we are abandoning free speech. That is exactly how republics fall.

I actually think the the choice between these two approaches is fairly hard. Individuals and groups can reasonably reach various conclusions. I write only on my own behalf and do not know what I would say if I represented something like the NCSS or a school district. But, at a minimum, everyone involved in educating the next generation should consider this choice.

state policies for civics: it’s all about implementation

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Just published: Peter Levine & Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, “State Policies for Civic Education,” in Esther Thorson, Mitchell S. McKinney, and Dhavan Shah, eds., Political Socialization in a Media-Saturated World (New York: Peter Lang, 2016), pp. 113-24.

Abstract: Several large cross-sectional surveys confirm the same patterns: high-quality forms of school-based civic education (such as moderated discussion of controversial current topics) are related to students’ civic knowledge and engagement, but state policies that mandate various forms of civics are not related to civic knowledge or engagement for their young adult populations. We explore the possibilities that: 1) the existing state policies are not satisfactory, 2) state policies cannot reliably influence educational practices, or 3) support for implementation is essential.

I think the last point is most important, and that’s why we have been working closely with Florida Partnership for Civic Learning and the Illinois Civic Mission Coalition to support local stakeholders (district leaders, academics and teacher educators, nonprofits, and state officials) to implement their respective states’ policies for k12 civics. A good law may be necessary, but it is insufficient without continuous attention to implementation: producing a good test every year, supporting current and future civics teachers, selecting and recommending materials, analyzing data from tests, surveys, and interviews to learn what’s working, and using the resulting insights to improve standards, tests, materials, and professional development–in a continuous cycle.

America: The Owner’s Manual

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atom-cover-highresI’m delighted to see that the new edition of America: The Owner’s Manual is out. Senator Bob Graham, a truly dedicated leader for civic engagement, has written it with Chris Hand. They take the research, structure, and impact of the book with the utmost seriousness and have worked hard to revise it for a new edition. As I say in my blurb, “America, the Owner’s Manual is the only book that comprehensively explains how to be effective in American politics and civic life, and it does so brilliantly. It’s consistently practical, realistic, accessible, and inspiring. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to improve the world.” It works very well as a textbook, but you can also use it on your own or with a voluntary group.

Buy it here. Follow it on Twitter, @USAownersmanual; on Facebook, USAownersmanual; or use hashtag #ATOMbook.

how schools teach about political parties

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According to a new paper released today by CIRCLE:

  • Forty-three states require students to learn about political parties; however, the language in the standards nearly always promotes a simplistic understanding of the role that political parties play in a democracy.
  • Only eight states ask students to study the ideological underpinnings of the two major political parties.
  • Only 10 states ask students to study controversial political issues and their relationship to political parties.
  • There is very limited support for learning about political ideology. When states do include language about ideology, it is most commonly mentioned in history/social studies standards and very rarely linked to contemporary political parties.

“This generation has grown up in a vitriolic and polarized political climate. In order to sort through the noise, young people need to have a deep understanding of the ideological values that divide us and how those values do, and do not, map onto political parties,” reports Paula McAvoy, lead author of the study and program director for the Center for Ethics and Education at UW-Madison, who completed this study with Rebecca Fine and Ann Herrera Ward.  “Our team’s findings show that state standards stop short of asking students to make meaningful connections between partisanship, ideology, and the issues of the day.  If schools are to fulfill their mission of preparing young people for political participation, teachers need to be encouraged to bring these ideas into the classroom.”

“Understanding what major political parties are and what they stand for is essential in navigating politics and elections in the U.S., but very little support exists.  These findings emphasize the need to strengthen standards and support teachers in U.S. civic education,” said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Director of CIRCLE. “Encouraging this type of learning about politics, elections and voting is a major reason why we are collaborating with other organizations to support teachers during this election year via the Teaching for Democracy Alliance.” For more on this Alliance see here.

For CIRCLE’s full briefing, please see here or the interactive map here. More research and background on youth civic education can be found on CIRCLE’s Quick Facts on Civic Education page.

CIRCLE’s 2016 Election Center will continue to offer data products and analyses providing a comprehensive picture of the youth vote, including the Youth Electoral Significance Index, which offers insight into key states where young people have the potential to shape the 2016 general election.