“My aunt always said that knowing more than one language was a superpower.” Shareen Marisol Meraji, keynote speaker kicked off the WIDA 2023 Conference by talking about the importance of “Giving children a strong foundation in their heritage language so that children could be proud of where they come from.”
Being multilingual is a superpower indeed. Knowing another language boosts your memory, gives you a greater ability to multitask, and improves social skills since you draw experiences from different cultures and look at issues from multiple perspectives. One of the important aspects of teaching multilingual learners is to focus on the assets they bring into the classroom.
I attended this year’s WIDA conference because, as part of our mission, iCivics aims to empower and equip ELs and MLs by making our games and resources accessible to all. We are continuously working to improve our ELL materials. In the field of civics and social studies, it’s particularly important to make sure that students see themselves reflected in the stories we tell and we want to make sure that the content has the support and scaffolding that ELs and MLs need in order to be successful. I was able to connect with several leaders in the field and get their thoughts.
One of these leaders was Dr. Luciana de Oliviera, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Graduate Studies and Professor of the Department of Teaching and Learning at Virginia Commonwealth University. She said, “The WIDA 2023 conference was my first and I absolutely loved everything!! The fact that this conference is for K-12 teachers by teachers was prevalent throughout the program. What I loved the most was to see the value and interest in a functional approach to language development. For those of us doing research and practicing this for over 20 years, it is incredible to notice the changes in the field impacted by the inclusion of this approach in WIDA 2020.!”
Many of the sessions focused on the WIDA English Language Development (ELD) Standards Framework which is centered on equity and fosters the assets, contributions, and potential of multilingual learners. It focuses on a functional approach to language development and one of the big ideas is the integration of content and language. WIDA’s Key Language Uses—narrate, argue, inform, and explain—are core to communicating ideas and content in social studies and civics.
Another leader (former WIDA researcher and one of the authors of the WIDA ELD Standards), I spoke to was Dr. Ruslana Westerlund, an educational consultant at the Cooperative Educational Service Agency 2 serving Wisconsin school districts and Associate Adjunct Faculty in the Graduate School of Education at Bethel University. She was one of the authors of the WIDA ELD Standards who worked hard to represent disciplinary genres such as explanations and arguments through the Key Language Uses. To illustrate the synergy between C3 and WIDA, she wrote Scaffolding ML Access to Social Studies Inquiry Through the WIDA ELD Standards. When asked about this year’s conference, she said, “This year’s WIDA Conference exemplified the strength of what happens when we do transdisciplinary work. We are seeing math (such as Dr. Karen Terrel) and science (like Dr. David Crowther) and social studies (like iCivics)… CONTENT people come to language conferences! Now we, language people have work to do and go to science and math and social studies conferences. We have so much to learn from each other. We are stronger together. Our students will only benefit when adults start working together, walk across the hallway and humbly ask for help.”
Our students are learning content and language at the same time. We are integrating content and language instruction in our materials in many different ways through instructional strategies, language objectives, scaffolding, vocabulary integration, visuals, video viewing, and more. This is the very approach iCivics is using to develop its core curriculum for U.S. History, which will be published in summer of 2024. ELs/MLs can soar higher when their skills and superpowers are supported by high-quality instructional materials and celebrated.
Kristen Chapron is Senior Editor of Digital Learning and ELL at iCivics. She has worked on all of the EL and bilingual resources and looks forward to creating even more materials for English and multilingual learners.
Currently iCivics’ Chief Strategy Officer, Sue first joined iCivics in 2015 as Chief Operating and Financial Officer.
Sue specializes in helping entrepreneurial, early-stage organizations successfully grow. She has more than 20 years of experience building strategically focused, high-performing, team-oriented cultures equipped to expand quickly. Across Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Operations, and Programming, Sue builds scalable infrastructures that enable operational excellence and she helps teams reach their full potential in achieving organizational goals.
Prior to joining iCivics, Sue was the COO for Year Up, a social enterprise organization with a mission to close the opportunity divide by providing urban young adults skills, support, and access to opportunity. Sue led the operations of Year Up from a single site, early-stage organization to an award-winning national organization in 13 cities, with over 500 employees and a budget of over $70 million.
Earlier in her career, Sue was the COO at the Share Group. As a founding manager, she played an integral role in growing this start-up into a $20 million industry leader in fundraising for national progressive nonprofits. Sue has additional experience in political campaigns and in academia.
Sue’s passion for civic engagement started in grammar school, voting in mock presidential elections and working with her Dad on numerous political campaigns. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Colby College and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has spent her career in the social sector building organizations that increase engagement in improving our democracy.
Louise joined iCivics as its Chief Executive Officer in July 2014.
Louise discovered the power of education in the early 1990s as a co-founder of CASES, a New York alternative-to-incarceration program for youthful offenders where education helped reshape lives. Inspired by a deep commitment to creating pathways to lives of learning and purpose, she has devoted her career to ensuring that all students are prepared for civic life.
Louise has successfully led K-12 growth organizations that use educational media to improve student achievement across the private and nonprofit sectors. Most recently, as Managing Director of Digital Learning at WGBH, Louise helped launch PBS LearningMedia, a platform with more than 87,000 classroom-ready digital resources reaching 1.5 million educators.
Louise has received national recognition for her work. She received a Civvys award from Bridge Alliance, the People’s Voice Award from the Diane Von Furstenberg/Barry Diller Foundation, and was selected as a Donaldson Fellow in 2019 at Yale SOM. She is also a Draper, Richards, Kaplan Fellow. As a civic education expert, Louise has published and been interviewed widely in national and education press.
Louise began her career as an attorney in Montreal, Canada. She holds a law degree from McGill University and an MBA from Yale’s School of Management.
Louise, a native of Quebec, has two children who share her love of travel, reading, debating, and learning.
Interested in interviewing Louise or having her as a speaker? Contact [email protected]
¡Hola, historiadores! Private i History Detectives, our supplemental mystery-themed curriculum, is now available in Spanish for select mysteries. These lessons teach strategies such as notice, wonder, inference, and comparison.
Private i History Detectives can be used in a wide variety of classroom settings, including multilingual and bilingual classrooms. Two mysteries at each grade level, including the Introduction to Inquiry mysteries, are available in Spanish, allowing Spanish-speaking students to practice exploring primary sources, analyzing information, and asking questions.
Each mystery lesson includes English and Spanish student and class materials such as transcripts, handouts, Google Slide decks with audible Spanish narrations, and lesson plans. These resources will help students build social studies content knowledge, foster critical thinking skills, and develop disciplinary language.
Explore these Private i History Detective Spanish Lessons:
Historians are observant. In this introduction to inquiry lesson, students will learn some of the skills and strategies historians use to learn about the past. Students will use their historian skills to uncover a mystery object as they notice, wonder, infer, and compare.
Historians can learn a lot from a hat! In this lesson, students will look at images of historical and modern hats to learn how hats can give us clues about what people do for work and why their hats may need special features.
Historians draw conclusions. In this lesson, students are introduced to the concepts of citizenship and leadership. They are asked to consider the different groups they belong to and how members of each group help one another.
Historians make inferences. In this lesson, students explore primary source images and learn some of the skills and strategies historians use to learn about the past.
Historians observe. In this lesson, students learn some of the skills and strategies historians use to learn about the past. Students will look at an image of a classroom from the past and try to figure out what the class is learning about.
Historians make inferences. In this lesson, students learn some of the skills and strategies historians use to learn about the past. They will analyze information and provide reasoning.
Historians study the past. In this lesson, students learn some of the skills and strategies historians use to learn about the past. Students will gather evidence from primary sources, such as a law created in Virginia in 1617 that required everyone to grow corn.
Last Friday, I was fortunate to participate in one of my first iCivics events—a Civics Showcase celebrating the incredible work of Colorado students and educators piloting iCivics’ U.S. History curriculum.
This inquiry-based curriculum was built in collaboration with expert educators, historians, and practitioners from across the nation. It is aligned with state standards, and districts and teachers can customize it to the needs of any state, community, and classroom.
Through the curriculum, students engage with curated primary and secondary sources such as historical documents, speeches, letters, journal entries, photographs, maps, and videos to dig deep and explore this country’s early history. Students are asked to engage in classroom projects that allow them to investigate and answer important questions about our country in the years preceding its founding through Reconstruction.
Colorado has been a trailblazer in this endeavor. Jeffco Public Schools in Jefferson County, Colorado, was one of the first districts to pilot the U.S. History curriculum last year (along with Santa Fe, NM, and Oklahoma City, OK). Building on the success in Jefferson County, another Colorado school district, Cherry Creek Public Schools, implemented the curriculum this year.
The impact of this project-embedded approach to U.S. History was on full display at the recent showcase. Nearly 100 students, family members, educators, schools leaders, and community members came to the History Colorado Center in Denver to view 22 unique student projects. Against the background of the artifacts, stories, and art that illustrate the history of Colorado and the American West, students presented a range of inspiring projects exploring key moments and questions from early U.S. History, and how they shaped institutions and civic life in the United States today. Their thoughtful, researched reflections touched on everything from the impact of early European settlers to Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny, from slavery and the Civil War to the Industrial Revolution and evolving rights, responsibilities, and expectations of Americans.
And it wasn’t just students who felt the impact of this modern approach to teaching history and civics. Participating teachers—even 20-year veteran teachers—shared how this curriculum shifted their practice to become more student-centered. I was particularly moved by the exuberance of so many parents who were amazed how different this was from their own history and civic education. Many wondered aloud if they would have loved history if they had learned it this way, and were grateful their children were able to benefit from such a meaningful educational experience.
This incredible event was part of a series of proactive family and community engagements to ensure transparency and promote connection beyond the classroom. This was made possible with additional support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation. These learnings and examples will also feature in an implementation toolkit to emphasize the importance of family engagement for widespread district adoption.
I can’t tell you what it meant to me and my colleagues who worked to make this vision possible to see the real and lasting impact this in-depth learning has on students, educators, and entire communities. We want to reiterate our thanks to all the funders who have made this work possible. Perhaps most importantly, we welcome other districts to adopt this highly engaging and effective curriculum as well. Please feel free to email me for more information.
Written by Mya Baker
Mya joined iCivics in 2024 as the Chief Learning Services Officer. Prior to iCivics, she led TNTP’s consulting work across 14 states, with a focus on helping educators, schools, and school systems expand access to opportunity. Mya also served as the Senior Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Uplift Education in Dallas-Fort Worth. She is a graduate of the University of Texas-Austin (BS in Communications/BA in Government) and earned her Masters in Teaching & Learning from American University.
WASHINGTON, DC — April 29, 2024 — iCivics, the nation’s leading civic education nonprofit, and the White House Historical Association today launched Brief the Chief, a new digital game that teaches students how the President of the United States makes difficult governing decisions, providing insight into how presidents rely on an array of advisors to make tough judgment calls.
Brief the Chief also gives students an inside look into the historic White House offices of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Lyndon B. Johnson as they navigated some of the most pivotal moments of their presidencies.
The game positions students as trusted advisors to the president, challenging them to consult with a variety of sources and confidants within the White House and use evidence-based reasoning to give counsel on a number of different situations. Students advise Jefferson as he determines whether he should continue trade with independent Haiti in 1804 amid tensions with France; Lincoln as he contemplates the Emancipation Proclamation; and Johnson as he decides if he should run for another term as president.
Along the way, students have conversations with likely sources such as secretaries of state, military advisors, and foreign diplomats. They also speak with historical figures such as civil rights leader Amelia Boynton, First Lady Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker Elizabeth Keckly, the Johnsons’ personal cook Zephyr Wright, and Haitian leader Jean Jacques Dessalines. In this way, the game gives students the opportunity to learn from those with unique perspectives and from underrepresented communities throughout history. Students practice listening and contextualizing facts and opinions.
Brief the Chief continues a growing partnership between iCivics and the Association. In 2023, iCivics and the Association released a Spanish-language version of Executive Command, one of iCivics’ most popular games that teaches students how the Executive Branch functions.
“We’re incredibly proud and honored to partner with the White House Historical Association,” iCivics Chief Executive Officer Lousie Dubé said. “Brief the Chief teaches young people a skill that is increasingly more important: how to engage with people from different perspectives, gather important insights, and make evidence-based decisions.”
Brief the Chief leverages the strengths of both iCivics and the Association. Up to 145,000 teachers rely on iCivics resources each year to help some 9 million students learn foundational civic knowledge and the skills needed to become engaged citizens. A team of three Association educators and three Association historians with advanced degrees in public history provided insight into the presidents and their respective administrations. Content experts and educators from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the LBJ Presidential Library, and George Washington University provided insights on the history presented throughout the game as well.
“Education is critical to the Association’s mission and investment in civics is vital as the next generation is taught the awesome responsibilities of citizenship and considering different perspectives,” said Stewart McLaurin, President of The White House Historical Association. “We are excited to launch this new tool to help students understand the past as an essential key to understanding who we are today.”
The game presents students with the opportunity to investigate two key decisions from each of the presidencies of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Johnson, and provides educators with incredible flexibility to teach across U.S. History. With nearly 30 characters available to interview, students can play the game multiple times and learn new facts and perspectives with each gameplay.
The game can be used to teach different geographies, content, civics and historical timelines, allowing flexibility for teachers to use it in a variety of different classroom applications. And its content can be tied to current events.
Brief the Chief includes English Language Learner support and is available in Spanish.
On Civic Education and the iCivics Youth Fellowship
I was fortunate to get one of the best civic educations possible when it comes to the iCivics Youth Fellowship and my 8th grade “We the People” class. As a result, I know my constitutional rights and I feel very prepared to vote and otherwise engage.
But there were 200 other students in my grade level who opted out of civics, and I’m not sure a lot of my peers understand much about what is going on in government, how they are affected by it, and how they can affect it in return.
As part of the iCivics fellowship, I interviewed two groups of students—those who got the same classes I did those who did not.. The first group gave long, elaborate answers and there was open communication between the students. But when I interviewed kids who did not get this form of civic education, they gave one- or two- word answers, didn’t seem to really be familiar with the word “civics” or what it entailed, and didn’t really talk to each other. This exercise really put into perspective how even one single class can alter a person completely.
On the State of the Nation
It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when members of opposing political parties could “agree to disagree”—or even come together on certain issues. Today, it seems our elected officials are punished for working with members of another party, yet that’s the very foundation of the U.S. Constitution. As someone who is civically engaged, such actions don’t feel like serving the community—they feel antithetical to what they teach us in civics class.
When I think about what our nation could be, the word that springs to mind is “open.” Open to differences of opinion—not always having to be right. More open to listening to each other, and not always yelling.
On iCivics
With iCivics, it’s not just about supporting a program or a website. but actively supporting the next generation of this country. What iCivics does is amazing: it helps young people find the answers to questions they’re too afraid to ask. If “the next generation will “fix it,” then we need tools, knowledge, and support systems. We need the space to meet up a few times before figuring it all out and supporting programs that provide just this—a space to try, and mess up, and try again, and succeed—it fosters a true interest in our country.It’s about supporting an entire generation that can finally find its voice, and that will want to create a better world for all.
April is the Month of the Military Child. To honor our service members and their children, the iCivics: Civics, Service, and Leadership Program hosted an educator immersion day on MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL in partnership with Blue Star Families and Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS).
MacDill Air Force Base is home to over 6,000 people, with an additional 20,000 coming to work on the base each day. The base is a world unto its own, but most military children attend school in the community through HCPS. Next week, MacDill will deploy about 200 service members, one of the largest deployments in recent years. This means a number of students will show up for school coping with that reality. The immersion day was an opportunity for iCSL educators to learn about the unique strengths and challenges our military-connected students and families face, so they might better support them in school.
Teachers started the day with a panel discussion between military parents and school district staff. One parent shared that by the time her son was ready to graduate high school, they had moved 9 times. These transitions are one of the biggest challenges military-connected students face. Moving schools means integrating into a new school culture. It means that different state standards and requirements may delay academic progress. It means, as one parent shared, that key pieces to a child’s education–like learning the branches of government–can fall through the cracks. A parent’s deployment is equally challenging. Another panelist shared, “Deployment affects the whole family.” “Our children are deploying as well.”
After the panel, our educators met Colonel Bingham, the base commander. They met Champa Boom, the base mascot. They toured the base. They talked with a young pilot and her crew. They walked the flight line and climbed into the cockpit of a KC-137. They learned that our military community, and the base itself, is a place full of opportunities for service members, civilians, and students. They gathered new resources and ideas for how to support military students when they return back to their school communities. We all learned that our military families, including the little ones, know and embody civic values and civic responsibility.
The goal of the day was to foster awareness across our military and school communities. Everyone left empowered and excited to keep building connections and opportunities on behalf of our students and civics education. It was a mission well accomplished!
Written by Frank Anderson
Frank Anderson is the director of special projects at iCivics and the program director for the Civics, Service, and Leadership program. Frank works with educators from across the country to connect them to civics education resources and to help students build a service mindset and leadership skills within the classroom. Before iCivics, Frank taught in alternative education in Baltimore and managed education programming for students involved with the juvenile justice system.
The Civics, Service, and Leadership (iCSL) program aims to prepare students exploring careers in military and public service with high-quality civic learning experiences that build critical thinking, media literacy, civility, civic knowledge and participation, and service. iCSL is sponsored by DoDSTEM, the National Defense Education Program.
“I love iCivics! My kids love to play Win the White House!”
“Awesome! Have you ever used any of the other resources from iCivics? They go great with the games!”
“No, tell me more!”
I had this conversation multiple times with educators I met last fall at the annual National Council for the Social Studies Conference while I was helping out in the Exhibit Hall at the iCivics booth. I teach at Maranacook Community High School in Readfield, Maine, a rural community next to Maranacook Lake just outside the Maine State Capitol. I use iCivics in a variety of ways in AP U.S. History and non-level U.S. History. This Spring, I have a student intern working with me from the University of Maine at Farmington named Tom Tubman. In an effort to promote iCivics beyond the games, I thought it would be interesting to document our use of an iCivics DBQuest in our classes titled “Woman Suffrage and World War I.”
As I said earlier, it seems many educators are familiar with the amazing learning games on the iCivics website, with Win the White House often being the one everyone knows. What seems to be lesser known are the lesson plans and activities iCivics also offers. These resources include connections to state standards and how they can fit into scope and sequence. They also show how they connect to the games iCivics hosts on their site.
I selected this DBQuest because it fits well within the curriculum for content in US History and includes other important aspects such as multiple viewpoints, primary source analysis, argument analysis, sourcing, and inquiry. Most of my students currently in my U.S. history classes have played the iCivics game Cast Your Vote, and so this DBQuest connects well to this game in getting students reflecting on a time when some of them would not have been able to cast their ballots.
My student teacher, Tom, and I took a team-teaching approach to this, each leading a different part of the lesson. Tom led the discussion using the timeline and I facilitated the document analysis. We closed the lesson with an extension video that added context and gave them a sense of how suffrage came to pass.
Our first class was at the end of the day on a Friday! We started with a question to engage students and get their brains working, “What is suffrage?” A brief discussion revealed that most students had heard of this term in conjunction with voting and had a sense of its meaning. As this is a U.S. History course, students had learned previously about the early days of the women’s rights movement, including the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others at Seneca Falls in drafting the “Declaration of Sentiments” and Susan B. Anthony. This historical context is important in getting the most out of this DBQuest to help students draw conclusions about the timeline and the accompanying Primary Source documents. Upon reflection, Tom concluded that historical context was important to this activity. Information about the early days of the push for women’s rights and women’s suffrage going back to Seneca Falls would greatly help students understand that women were fighting for a voice long before the First World War. Ensuring students have this context is important in having a deeper understanding of the agency of women in bringing about Suffrage.
Students received the student handout on paper and went to work highlighting in different colors, events that helped women’s suffrage make progress, and events that worked against Women’s Suffrage. The ensuing discussion elicited several insights from students, such as events may in fact be well-intended and essentially good even if, from the perspective of the Women’s Suffrage movement, the event worked against their progress.
Students worked individually to complete the “Math Moment” and “Reflection,” placing the events from the First World War, and we then had a class discussion around their thoughts about why it took so long for women’s suffrage to pass. This activity revealed many interesting insights including the quotes below.
“The major shifts of WWI, including women proving themselves capable of fully taking charge of duties left behind by men… “
“… because misogyny had been a part of western culture for a long time…”
“… (post-Civil War/Reconstruction) Civil Rights proved more of a pressing issue and women were seemingly unimportant to the government…”
“Because the society of most nations and cultures of the time were built around strict gender roles…”
“The fight for Black suffrage was also occurring at the time and that may have caused more focus on that rather than woman’s suffrage.”
“I think a lot of people in power, men, didn’t see it as an issue and didn’t care…”
The next part of the lesson required students to examine three different types of primary source documents from the era. In the first class, we had students in small groups of 3-4 analyze all 3 documents and draw conclusions. We made a modification in the second class that turned this into more of a jigsaw activity where we had students in 3 groups to start and together they analyzed one document. Then we mixed them into groups so at least 1 student from each of those 3 groups was in the new groupings. Then they took turns sharing out their document and their analysis. We found this produced more discussion between the students and likely gave them more confidence in completing the final section of the handout titled “Argument On!” In this section, students document their analysis and conclusions about the documents. They locate key arguments quoted from the documents and identify where they came from and whether the argument was intended to “inform,” “persuade,” or “inflame”. At the end of this, they discussed the 2 questions at the end: Which wartime argument to promote suffrage appeals to you more? Why? And: Does the way in which the message is communicated affect your decision? (Ex: picket vs. political cartoon vs. leaflet). This was followed by a class discussion on these questions. Students have some interesting responses, some examples are included below.
“The leaflet argument for war… this played on democratic/freedom built pride for America”
“Cartoons are eye-catching and quick to look at, but they can also be thought provoking to the reader.”
“Leaflet… it also has the best view on how women are important to society…”
“…the Article was just informing while the Leaflet was trying to start something…”
“The most convincing argument for me was the rational approaches of the statements that if women can serve the country they should be able to vote in the country’s politics.”
We finally turned to the video we selected to close out the lesson. The video, produced by the History Channel is titled “The 19th Amendment.” We gave students the following questions for discussion that went with the short video.
What were the two approaches taken to get Women’s Suffrage passed?
What happened at the Women’s Suffrage Parade before Wilson’s inauguration in 1913?
What happened to Alice Paul?
What was Wilson’s argument for Women’s Suffrage?
We didn’t have a lot of time for discussion after the video, but we did briefly talk about the different strategies, how Alice Paul and other women suffered, and how the 19th Amendment came down to needing Tennessee’s vote to pass—and how it seemed doomed to failure by one vote until Harry T. Byrne changed his vote at the last minute thanks to a letter from his Mother! Many students expressed amazement and these “Hollywood-like” details!
In the end, we found this DBQuest to be engaging and thought-provoking! It promoted historical thinking skills such as primary source analysis, cause and effect, and change and continuity over time. Additionally, it connected well to civics by getting students to reflect on the importance of voting and the lengths people will go to in order to secure their rights, as well as the various modes available to persuade, inform, or inflame others about one’s cause. Students came away with an understanding of civil rights, discrimination, and changing attitudes around these issues. We thoroughly enjoy the iCivics games and the lessons they support, but it’s awesome that they also have supplemental lessons like this DBQuest! Give it a try!
Shane Gower is passionate about ideas! He considers himself fortunate to have a career as a teacher that allows him to explore his passion as he has done for the past 25 years. He was the 2016 Gilder-Lehrman Maine State History Teacher of the Year and currently teaches AP US History, AP Psychology, Ethics, and History through Film. These courses are all dual enrollment through the nearby Thomas College. In addition to the classroom, he is also Past-President of the Maine Council for the Social Studies and a Retro Report Teacher Ambassador.
Through the iCivics Educator Network, the perspectives of teachers across the country contribute to the public conversation about civic education in the United States. Each contributor represents their own opinion. We welcome this diversity of perspectives.
Leading researchers today released new analyses that indicate areas of focus for the expansion and improvement of K–12 civic education. This includes more robust civic learning opportunities in high school, the positive effects of students openly discussing civics and political issues, the effect of legislation on teachers and students, and the need for more civic role models.
The reports, which were discussed as part of the Civic Learning Week National Forum, come from RAND, Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, More in Common, and the Educating for American Democracy Research and Evaluation Task Force.
Civic Learning Week, March 11–15, is a nonpartisan effort that brings together students, educators, policymakers, and leaders in the public and private sectors to highlight and further energize the movement for civic education. It is designed to further understanding of what a modern civic education needs to sustain and strengthen our nation’s constitutional democracy.
This year’s theme, “2024 and Beyond: Civic Learning as a Unifying Force,” focuses on how to make civics a national priority, and how it can provide a way to combat polarization by building civil discourse and understanding.
Research highlights:
Civic learning and engagement among 18–34-year-olds: This latest contribution to CIRCLE’s “Growing Voters” research shows how students’ self-reported civic learning and student voice experiences in high school relate to current levels of civic engagement, including attention and interest in the 2024 election. The data from a nationally representative survey of 18–34-year-olds fielded in fall 2023 shows how schools can contribute to efforts to grow voters by centering student voice in and out of the classroom as well as through civics classes, school climate, adult encouragement and collaboration, and extracurricular activities. According to the report, student voice in high school is essential to growing voters and future active community members, as those who have positive civic experiences in high school in which they feel their voice and or opinion matter are much more likely to say they now vote and are civically engaged than those who did not report these experiences. The full report is here.
Effect of legislation regarding teaching of race and gender: RAND released new data from a survey of more than 8,000 K–12 public school teachers that indicate how restrictions on addressing race- or gender- related topics in the classroom are influencing teachers’ instruction and students’ learning two years after such state-level legislation was first passed. The survey, conducted in spring 2023, updates previous data that found that about one-quarter of teachers reported that limitations influenced their curriculum choices or instructional practices, while only 3 percent said that limitations on race- or gender-related topics positively impact student learning. According to the report, this could lead to long-term consequences for students’ futures and the future of the education system, country, and democracy. The full report is here.
Students learn more when they can discuss civic and political issues openly: The Educating for American Democracy Research and Evaluation Task Force released three research briefs that synthesize existing research and show steps that can be taken to strengthen the way young people engage in democracy. Among their findings:
High-quality assessments and accountability structures lead to increases in young people’s civic knowledge, and students learn more when they are in classrooms where civic and political issues are discussed freely and openly.
When students engage in asking and answering questions by analyzing information, they experience greater engagement and deeper understanding than if they just use a textbook.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) and civic learning are often mutually reinforcing, as students’ social, cognitive and emotional skills can help them critically and collaboratively engage with civic issues.
Few Americans have civic role models, but those who do most often identify parents or family members as these role models: More in Common released data from an online focus group-type of research activity with over 100 American adults. The data underscored the importance of proximate civic learning and helping young people build relationships with mentors and individuals who can help orient them toward constructive, lifelong civic engagement so that they see themselves not only as civic agents, but as role models for others to follow. The full report is available here.
