Reconceptualizing Civic Education for a Pluralist American Democracy

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Seven
  In Roundtable Session: Comparative Perspectives of the Attitudes and Discourse Affecting Marginalized Students in Schools (Table 8)

Abstract

Civic education is the primary formal opportunity for students to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for democratic life. However, civics curricula and tests are inadequate and unjust because they teach and assess knowledge of a narrow set of political facts irrelevant to the lives of many young people, particularly students from race-class subjugated communities who experience politics in distinct ways from their white, more resourced peers. Focus groups with 42 Philadelphia students highlight they want to learn more about their local political and policy environment, and to do so in problem-based learning classrooms that emphasize student voice. This is an essential reconceptualization of what civics ought to teach to provide students with resources for navigating democracy.

Author

• Abigail Dym, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author