Equitable Education for Democracy in the Digital Age: A District-Wide Approach

• In Event: Digital Equity: Micro- and Macro-Level Perspectives

Abstract

The digital revolution has transformed the practice of politics. These changes may help create a more equitable and participatory democracy. Realizing this potential requires that educators provide youth with equitable and high quality digital literacy and civic learning opportunities. In the first part of this paper we justify these claims by drawing on recent scholarship and on an analysis of data from the nationally representative Youth and Participatory Politics national survey (YPP Survey).

With this foundation laid, we then assess the on-the-ground work of the Educating for Democracy in the Digital Age (EDDA) initiative in Oakland, CA through examination of survey, observational, and interview data. Our assessment of EDDA reflects our synthesis of themes from more than 30 interviews and focus groups with teachers, just over 70 individual interviews and focus groups with students, triannual teacher feedback surveys, and over 150 observations of classrooms and professional development sessions. We also share findings from the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Senior Exit Survey which was administered annually in classrooms between 2012 and 2014 to a largely representative group of high school seniors (sample sizes varied from 860 to 1020). Finally, we draw on system-wide teacher surveys conducted by the District that asked about teacher engagement with digital media and about their overall satisfaction with professional development experiences, including EDDA.

The EDDA reform was predicated on the assumption that a district-wide commitment to promoting civic priorities would enable coherent, effective, and more equitable provision of learning opportunities. The reform also worked to ensure that teachers played a central role in shaping both the goals and the strategies. Finally, significant effort was made to integrate attention to digital literacy into the work, with the hope that this would make civic and political learning opportunities more relevant, compelling, and valuable for students.

The paper highlights several key findings that may inform other efforts to promote equitable access to civic learning and digital literacy at scale. For example, we examine both the costs and benefits of EDDA’s teacher-led approach. While it spurred buy-in, it was insufficient to ensure that digital literacy received attention from many educators or that students had equitable exposure to valued digital and civic learning opportunities. We also found that digital civic literacy learning opportunities provided through EDDA promoted digital literacies and increased school engagement. At the same time, we found that the impact of these opportunities were often constrained by obstacles related to structural inequality.
We conclude by considering the degree to which these findings may be helpful guides for other districts committed to digital and civic equity as well as directions for future research.

Authors

• Joseph E. Kahne, University of California - Riverside

• Christina Evans

• Erica Hodgin, University of California - Riverside

• Young Whan Choi, OUSD