The Digital Dimensions of Civic Education: Assessing the Effects of Learning Opportunities

• In Event: "Democracy Needs Democrats": What Can Schools and Teachers Do to Provide Good Civic Education?

Abstract

For the past two decades, when it came to furthering the democratic aims of education, civic educators have had a relatively unified response. By and large, they have advocated implementation of “the six proven practices” (Gibson & Levine, 2003; Gould, Jamison, Levine, McConnel, & Smith, 2011). In some important respects, this focus needs updating. Very few rigorous large-scale quantitative studies have included attention to digital forms of civic and political engagement or to digitally oriented forms of civic learning. This gap must be addressed. Digital practices have been central to numerous highly significant youth movements, including those related to policing, immigration reform, gun control, and climate. More generally, social media practices and platforms are now central to politics – to raising funds, mobilizing others, applying pressure to government and businesses, and to sharing perspectives (Allen & Light, 2015). It is vitally important to examine how both digital and traditional forms of civic learning impact both online and offline forms of civic participation.
Drawing on panel data (N=10,254) of high schoolers tracked across two years (2016-17 and 2017-18), we measure the frequency with which students are exposed to civic education, both in its offline and digital forms, as well as students’ levels of offline civic engagement and participation in online political activity. We assess whether on and offline civic learning experiences promote a change, over time, in online and offline forms of students’ political engagement. We know of no other large scale dataset that enables assessment of cross-lagged effects of varied kinds of digitally oriented learning opportunities on digital forms of civic engagement nor do we know of studies that have examined the relationships between offline civic learning opportunities and digital outcomes or vice versa.
We find that youth who receive digital engagement learning opportunities (opportunities to learn how to create and share digital media tied to societal issues) become more likely to engage in online participatory politics while youth who receive civically oriented digital consumption learning opportunities (opportunities to learn ways to judge the credibility of online content) become less likely to do so. Digital consumption learning opportunities are positively related to offline civic engagement. Offline civic learning opportunities (those associated with the “six proven practices) have positive relationships with both offline civic engagement and online participatory politics.
These findings provide evidence of the importance of these varied learning opportunities and of the degree to which these opportunities differ in their relationship with offline and online forms of participation. Overall, these findings are consistent with an empirically-backed theoretical belief that the development of civic skills and a related sense of agency is likely to promote higher levels of engagement in the kinds of civic activities that use those skills (for example, Yates and Youniss, 1998; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, 1995). The fact that those exposed to digital consumption learning opportunities are less likely to engage in online politics signals the need to better understand why such experiences may diminish youth interest in online political engagement.

Authors

• Joseph E. Kahne, University of California - Riverside

• Benjamin T. Bowyer, Mills College