From Participation to Disruption: A Critical Curriculum Inquiry into Political Friendship and Civic Education Reform

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 3:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Teaching Truth in Turbulent Times: Navigating Controversy, Civic Courage, and Historical Reckoning in Education

Abstract

This study critically examines a sixth-grade civics curriculum, Political Friendship, through a what-how-underneath framework grounded in Apple’s official knowledge, Bernstein’s notions of classification and framing, and a synthesized hidden-curriculum lens. Using reflective practitioner inquiry and document analysis, the study reveals how the curriculum endorses sanctioned civic narratives, choreographs structured participation, and cultivates dispositions of middle-class compliance. The analysis exposes how procedural deliberation and polished expressive tasks constrain structural critique and reinforce class-based norms. The paper argues for embedding radical histories, adaptive deliberative formats, and disruptive civic practices to reimage civic education as a site of ideological critique, class consciousness, and collective agency, where students engage not as compliant citizens-in-training but as transformative political actors.

Authors

• Shuning Liu, Ball State University

• Eli Jones, Ball State University