Our Future Environment

Past civic education courses in the United States included some type of civic course. A Carnegie/Circle report on the Civic Mission of the Schools noted that in 1949 a course called “problems of democracy” appeared on 41.5 percent of high school transcripts. Students in those courses learned about government by discussing contemporary issues, often supplemented by newspaper reading assignments. That course appeared on fewer than 9 percent of transcripts by the early 1970s and almost zero percent today. The top three high school civic texts in 2005 contained few references to political issues and protest politics are usually presented as an occurrence before Americans won civil rights. This is not to say that mid-century textbooks were more balanced but it does appear that education included a larger portion of civics education. A possible avoidance of promoting active civic engagement in textbooks is funding source and liability issues. Funders may avoid including controversial topics and promoting active student engagement (Bennett, 2008).
A majority of civic education in present New York City public schools is either non-existent, emphasizes academic coverage of basic government functions and perspectives, and/or has no current political issues or active learning experiences in the curriculum. New York State has set standards which teachers in each grade level and across all curriculums must bring their students toward. The state standard for civic education in high school grades states that students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental system of the U.S. and other nations; the United States Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy; and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues of participation. Under this state standard are four key points. The fourth point encourages analytical thinking and participatory skills. To reach this fourth point, seven “performance indicators” are listed and each include suggested tasks or lesson plans.

Table 1 lists these seven performance indicators and, based on state suggested tasks and lesson plans, whether or not

each indicator incorporates text book learning, new media, and civic participation outside of the classroom.
Table 1 shows that none of the suggested activities or lesson plans include participation in the public realm despite that two performance indicators explicitly list voting or community participation. Most of the performance indicators encourage formulating action plans but do not promote acting out those plans. Of course, only a small percentage of high school students are old enough to vote but no age limits are set on participating in voting registration campaigns or community involvement. Table 1 also shows that half of the suggested activities incorporate new media. Most of these activities suggest that students research different periods in history, specific geographies, or particular historic figures using online search engines. However, only one activity suggests that students collaboratively make and publish information available to the general public.
The faults inherent in these suggested tasks, mainly that suggested tasks do not answer the civic education standards, may just be one small part of the difficulties in teaching and encouraging civic participation. The following evidence is based on my employment with a technology and literacy non-profit group embedded in New York City public schools. First, using online or digital tools greatly enhance collaborative learning and the likelihood that students will interact with government or public institution websites. However, New York City public schools have unequal access and often poor quality to new media technology. When an internet connection and an adequate computer lab exist many schools capitalize on that opportunity but not every school has such resources. Secondly, the suggested tasks and activities for the state standards are just that- suggested. Teachers must ensure that students have the textbook knowledge to pass state enforced standardized exams but are not required to encourage or even require participation outside the classroom.
Some of the complications inherent in both offline and online spaces–access to government institutions, inclusivity of youth in traditional adult led organizations, and fostering a sense of youth leadership and responsibility also need to be considered when suggesting how civic education and engagement can be addressed in New York City public schools. These complications would have to be addressed by providing information and opportunities for students to work with such organizations and go beyond simply covering information for standardized testing. This is easier said than done. But, and in response to Theiss-Morse and Hibbing (2005), educators can make their jobs easier by incorporating strategies that encourage intrinsic motivation for civic engagement. As Theiss-Morse and Hibbing concluded earlier, associational activity, as defined as any type of voluntary membership, political or not, does not always lead to more democratic citizens and nation. Democratic participation must be directly encouraged rather than simply encouraging civic participation in general.
Educators and other youth workers who design civic education programs can benefit from incorporating the appeal of social networks and the identities that exist there with political preference formation. In doing so civic engagement can be seen as more appealing and relevant to the every day lives of youth. Students have to be reminded that simply becoming active in their favorite clubs does not fulfill their citizenship obligations and that meaningful civic life is not always entertaining. Making participation relevant and personalized, which is how students are currently engaged in the commercial private realm, is a way to make our assumptions about human motivation clear and relevant to public schools. In agreement with Bennett and Theiss-Morse and Hibbing, public schools, and American political culture in general, should support a certain type of engagement that is specifically political and policy minded.
Based on research from Bennett (2008) and my own observations with education and technology in New York City public schools, there are a few recommendations to encourage educators to use an interactive online/offline civic course. First, free and “ready-made” online courses are more likely to be used. Bennett reports a project he has worked with called Student Voices and found that free curriculum downloads are most likely to be used and incorporated in the classroom.
An example of this first suggestion, as well as the next few, can be found in my own work with an interactive learning environment called the “moodle”. The moodle, located at moodle.gc.cuny.edu, is an adaptable, free, web-based program that allows teachers and students to collaboratively chat, blog, create websites, take quizzes and link or interact with other public websites. The work that students engage in is privately conducted within each school but the moodle format allows for ‘measurement’ of offline participation.
A second recommendation based on my own work as well as others mentioned in this paper is how to make American identity and participation relevant by appealing to the ‘actualizing citizen’ model. Civic courses can incorporate recent newspaper articles and online news with local community involvement as part of required coursework. This makes participation relevant and “real” while incorporating the history of what an American citizen is or does.
Lastly, civic education courses can incorporate the social and technological skills students already or will have with traditional ways of participating in the offline political realm.
“Recognizing the shift in emphasis from dutiful to actualizing citizenship among younger citizens, and then deciding how to accommodate both dimensions of citizenship of theory and practice may have important implications for what the various players in citizenship production can (and dare, I say, should?) learn about youth civic engagement in the digital age.” (Bennett, 2008, 13).
Overall, I argue that research should focus on identifying and assessing strategies of engagement that appeal to the actualizing citizen model and creates connections to government that help promote dutiful citizen democratic ideals. This could continue the call for more explicit research into human motivation and how we define civic engagement. New media technology is useful for encouraging collaborative learning and easy access to public institutions but it is not a panacea for appealing to the actualizing citizen model. The internet and technology is patterned after how individuals are already engaging in public and private life thus investigating and influencing human motivation must occur in conjunction with innovative uses of technology.
For New York City, public schools have unequal access, often poor quality to new media technology, and lackluster or non-existing encouragement to participate outside the classroom. I would like to continue this research with more emphasis on theories of motivation and how motivation to learn and act is or is not addressed in public schools. I also would like to quantitatively measure the use of civic engagement education in the moodle program and its effect on participation in offline political realms. New York City public schools could benefit from a thorough investigation of the use and adequacy of computer labs and technology into everyday learning, specifically at the high school level. An incorporation of civic education and engagement can be incorporated either with or without technology.

Filed under: fostering identity on May 30th, 2008