Civic Collaborative Learning Spaces: Reimagining the Civic Across Disciplines and Contexts

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In an increasingly polarized political landscape, calls for civic education grow louder. Yet, critical scholars of civic education and democratic citizenship education have pointed out the shortcomings of civic education in the United States. This session explores what kinds of civic learning and imagination become possible when we move beyond fixed, narrow notions of the civic and towards what is embodied, what is shared, and what is built through collaboration. By bringing together four papers representing an interdisciplinary approach to civic education across varied contexts both inside and outside of school, this session highlights collaborative learning spaces as spaces of inquiry, storytelling, interaction, imagination, and advocacy.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Democratic Citizenship in Education

Chair

• Rita Kamani-Renedo, Stanford University

Papers

• The Civic Ecology of an Early Childhood Classroom - Katherina A. Payne, University of Texas at Austin; Shubhi Sachdeva, San Francisco State University

• “With These Hands”: Latina Adolescent Girls Composing and Constructing New, Upgraded Worlds - Tracey Terece Flores, University of Texas at Austin

• Possibilities and Challenges of Collaborative Design for Transdisciplinary Civic Activity in Schools - Emma Carene Gargroetzi, University of Texas at Austin

• Teaching Toward “the World As It Can Be”: Civic World Making in a Preservice Teacher Education Program - Rita Kamani-Renedo, Stanford University; Antero Garcia, Stanford University

Discussant

• Nicole Mirra, University of California - Los Angeles