High-Need Students’ Acquisition of Civic Dispositions and Skills

• In Event: Political Learning: Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes

Abstract

In addition to conveying political knowledge, a core goal of classroom civic education is to impart to students the civic dispositions and skills that are necessary for the stable functioning of a constitutional democracy. Civic dispositions encompass a range of interpersonal and intrapersonal values, virtues, and behaviors that provide a foundation for individuals’ active embrace of the norms of good citizenship. Civic skills are practices that enable citizens to take part in political life. The preponderance of the research evidence suggests that civics, social studies, and American government classes are more successful in transmitting knowledge than they are in helping students to develop civic dispositions and skills, even when service learning approaches are employed.

This study examines the effectiveness of the We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution (WTP) curriculum, a program of the Center for Civic Education (CCE), on students’ acquisition of civic dispositions and skills. The WTP program instructs students in the foundations and institutions of American government, emphasizing constitutional principles, the Bill of Rights, and Supreme Court cases. WTP students take part in simulated congressional hearings that encourage them to engage in a range of active learning exercises conducive to the acquisition of dispositions and skills. This research focuses on the WTP program’s value in conveying dispositions and skills to high-need middle and high school students who took part in CCE’s James Madison Legacy Project, a national program funded by a Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant from the U.S. Department of education that provided teacher professional development and classroom resources. High-need students consist of those attending Title I schools, students living in poverty, English language learners, and special needs students, among others.

In examining the effectiveness of the WTP program in instilling civic dispositions and skills in high need middle and high school students, this research will address the following questions: Do students’ civic dispositions and skills increase as a result of the WTP curriculum? Do particular instructional pedagogies convey civic dispositions and skills more effectively than others? Specifically, are active pedagogies, like preparing for and holding simulated hearings, more conducive to students’ acquiring civic dispositions and skills than more passive approaches, such as lecture? Extensive survey data that were collected on students and teachers for the first three years of the JMLP will be used to examine these questions empirically. The teachers surveys include measures of how often they incorporate specific pedagogies in their WTP classes. The student surveys contain a number of indicators of their acquisition of civic dispositions, such as civic duty, and civic skills, like taking part in the community and voting.

Author

• Diana M. Owen, Georgetown University