NCoC: Benefits of Civic Learning: Promoting Civic Equity

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Benefits of Civic Learning: Promoting Civic Equity

Guardian of Democracy

September 15, 2011

To truly understand current events is to understand that crucial decisions being made today will inevitably raise new the issues ahead of them and develop habits of deliberation now that will help them make the wisest possible decisions. Young people must learn how to make these decisions together, even as our country becomes more diverse.
DAVID MATHEWS, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND WELFARE AND PRESIDENT, KETTERING FOUNDATION

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Effective civic learning increases the civic health of our nation by empowering young people to exercise their democratic rights and responsibilities. But it also goes further. Effective civic learning promotes civic equality. By giving all students access to civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions that otherwise would be the province of a lucky few, effective civic learning doesn’t just serve democratic practices; it also directly enacts democratic principles. Civic equality is an essential democratic norm—consider the maxims of “one person, one vote” and “equal justice under law”—and we cannot be said to live in a true democracy if individuals or members of groups systematically possess unequal civic and political power, if some votes and voices count more or less than others, or if some stand either above or below the law.

When young people have limited or no access to effective civic learning opportunities, however, they inherit an unequal democracy. Without civic knowledge, skills, identity, and propensity toward engagement, some students are essentially disenfranchised and disempowered. Civic learning opportunities are thus essential for promoting civic equity as a democratic ideal.

Unfortunately, we see antidemocratic effects of uneven civic learning opportunities throughout contemporary American politics and civil society. The United States suffers from a civic empowerment gap that is as large—and as potentially destructive—as the overall academic achievement gap. Perhaps the strongest predictor of individuals’ civic and political power, for example, is their income, not their civic engagement or patriotism. As political scientist Larry Bartels explains, “political influence seems to be limited entirely to affluent and middle-class people. The opinions of millions of ordinary citizens in the bottom third of the income distribution have no discernible impact on the behavior
of their elected representatives.”23 But income is only one marker of political and civic inequality. Race, ethnicity, education level, and immigration status also all too often divide the civic and political “haves” from the “have nots.”(24)

Whether as cause or effect of these disparities, American citizens do not participate in civic and political life at equal rates. Consider the table on page 19, which shows differences in participation rates from the 2008 presidential election, which—despite the highest overall levels of political participation in a generation— illustrates persistent civic participation gaps.(25)

Significant participatory disparities also persist beyond voting. Reliable analyses of political participation, as measured by political party membership, contributions
of money or time to political campaigns, participation in protests, contacting an elected official, and other non-electoral political activities, show vast disparities linked with class, education, and race. Broader measures of both youths’ and adults’ civic participation—engaging in informal or formal community service, working on a community problem, attending a community meeting, following the news, joining a group, or even just participating in cooperative activity with a
neighbor—also seem to be highly unequally distributed by income, educational attainment, and ethnoracial group.(26) For example, college graduates are more than four times more likely to volunteer or to work with neighbors to address a community need than are high school dropouts.(27)

These patterns of engagement do not result solely or even primarily from what schools are doing. They reflect many other disparities in society. Political parties
target outreach and fundraising efforts to already mobilized citizens, declining union membership has led to a reduction in mobilization among working- class Americans, and linguistic and cultural diversity poses challenges to communities attempting to solve problems collectively.(28) Histories of neglect, shortsighted
public policies, and outright discrimination leave whole communities—especially low-income communities of color—mistrustful and cynical about the purpose of
public life and value of civic action. Poor neighborhoods also offer residents access to significantly fewer civic engagement opportunities than are available to those
who live in more mixed or affluent communities.(29) Insofar as civic learning takes place across the lifespan in workplaces, homes, neighborhoods, and many other
venues, the civic learning opportunity gap is spread far and wide in American civic life.

But schools are also partly responsible for the civic empowerment gap. They exacerbate the civic learning opportunity gap by providing poor and nonwhite students fewer and less high-quality civic learning opportunities than they provide to middle class and wealthy white students.(30) A large-scale study of young people’s civic learning opportunities in California, for example, shows that “[h]igh school students attending higher SES schools, those who are college-bound, and white students get more [civic learning] opportunities than low-income students,
those not heading to college, and students of color.”(31) These findings for low-SES schools were replicated in a study of 35 high school classrooms across the Chicago Public Schools, which serves an overwhelmingly low-income and nonwhite student population. In none of the observed lessons were the majority of the students engaging in deep inquiry or discussion for a significant length of time.(32) This is especially unfortunate since other research shows that if civic learning opportunities were provided in classrooms, they would likely more than offset the civic empowerment gap caused by other factors.(33)

Furthermore, because they reach virtually all young people, schools bear significant responsibility for shrinking the civic empowerment gap, even if it is a
problem mostly not of their own making. Scholars generally agree that three components influence individuals’ civic and political engagement: (1) resources/
ability, including civic knowledge and skills as well as time; (2) motivation, which may include senses of civic identity or duty, a belief that one can make a difference (efficacy), and passion about a cause; and (3) opportunities/recruitment, especially being invited to participate in a civic or political activity or join a group.(34)
Schools have the capacities to increase all three of these for young people.

Widespread and equal distribution of effective civic learning opportunities will help reduce the civic empowerment gap by inviting all students to participate
in civic life. Political scientists have uniformly found that the most powerful way to engage in civic or political activities is to invite him or her to participate:35 Schools have an unparalleled opportunity to invite students into engaging and empowering civic activities. As we discuss below, these opportunities include in-class discussions, simulations, extracurricular activities, student government, school newspaper, service learning, internships, and more. When other sectors of civil society are not extending their hands in invitation to young people to become civically and politically engaged, schools can and must fill the gap.

This report’s policy recommendations include tangible ways for education stakeholders to narrow the civic knowledge and empowerment gaps through increasing the empowering and engaging civic learning opportunities across all grade levels and in all schools—especially in schools that serve low-income students of color. In providing such civic learning opportunities to all youth, schools can reduce the civic empowerment gap and promote our more democratic future.

Benefits of Civic Learning: Promoting Civic Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions • Benefits of Civic Learning: Building Twenty-First Century Competencies

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