Having a Voice and Lending an Ear: Student Learning From an Action Civics Curriculum

• In Event: 16.055 - Salvaging Civic Education: Powerful Teaching and Learning to Address the Civic Opportunity Gap

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Frame
The first paper examines a curriculum that addresses the civic opportunity gap (Kahne and Middaugh, 2008; Levinson, 2012). Project Soapbox is a one-to-two week curricular or co-curricular program targeted at underserved high school students in which students choose a community issue of importance to them, learn about the elements of good rhetoric, and then write and deliver a speech to their peers, along with outside judges from the community. The curriculum aims to foster both civic outcomes and Common Core speaking and listening skills. In this paper, we focus on what high school students learned from participation in Project Soapbox, and specifically, what democratic skills, knowledge and attitudes students developed through their engagement in this action civics program.
This case study is informed by action civics—a theoretical perspective that suggests that powerful civic learning occurs and democracy is strengthened when youth voice and expertise are valued, and young people have authentic opportunities for expression, engagement, and reflection (cf., Gingold, 2013). Action civics is a unique approach to teaching key principles of democracy in that students actually “do civics and behave as citizens by engaging in a cycle of research, action, and reflection” (Levinson, 2012, p. 224).

Methods and Data Sources
In Fall 2015, we recruited nine teachers (six social studies; three language arts) who were implementing Project Soapbox at nine different public high schools serving predominantly Hispanic and/or African American, low income student populations (19 total classrooms). We administered surveys to students before and after taking part in the curriculum (N = 204). We observed three days of implementation of the curriculum in five selected classrooms; interviewed the teachers in those five classrooms following the curricular implementation; and collected student speeches and conducted student focus group interviews in four of the selected classrooms. Finally, we observed the citywide competition, recorded observation notes about the competition and process, and examined video-recordings of the ten student finalists’ speeches.

Findings and Significance
Our findings indicate that while students who participated in Project Soapbox made modest gains in civic and rhetorical skills, some of the strongest gains appeared in students’ listening and empathy skills. Through listening to their peers’ speeches—the majority of which focused on community violence, relationship violence, and forms of racism and discrimination—students developed a sense of human connection and shared community. We will discuss possible reasons for these outcomes and the conditions that seemed to shape the greatest gains for students, such as students’ previous experience in the program. In addition, we discuss the critical role that such skills play in the overarching goal of developing civic orientations and habits among students.
Although action civics has emerged recently as a promising form of civic education to empower marginalized youth based on compelling theoretical principles (Gingold, 2013; Levinson, 2012), there is little systematic research that documents the positive outcomes it seems to engender (cf., Bixby, 2008; Levinson, 2012). Our findings offer crucial empirical insight into how disadvantaged youth experience and learn from this curriculum.

Authors

• Molly W. Andolina, DePaul University

• Hilary Gehlbach Conklin, DePaul University