While traditional civic education in the United States is inextricably linked to notions of a public sphere, this paper argues that the digital era requires a reimagining of this premise. The opaque nature of digital spaces makes it difficult for young people to understand how large of an audience they are interacting with and to what extent a…

Teachers need new instructional strategies and systemwide support to educate students about the threats that racism, hyper-partisanship, and disinformation pose to democracy. Nicole Mirra, Sarah McGrew, Joseph Kahne, Antero Godina Garcia, and Brendesha Tynes explore the three major elements of digital citizenship education -- safety and civility,…

This study investigates teacher participation in a national online youth civic letter writing project through the lens of teacher civic commitments. Drawing on in-depth interviews and survey data from teachers who participated in the Letters to the Next President 2.0 project, civic commitments are articulated through civic beliefs, learning goals,…

This article analyzes how guns emerged as both urgent topics of dialogue and common features of everyday life for 228 students and their teachers in six communities across the United States who participated in the Digital Democratic Dialogue (3D) Project, a year long social design-based experiment aimed at foregrounding youth voice and fostering…

This chapter challenges dominant narratives about the civic disengagement of youth from marginalized communities by reconceptualizing what counts as civic participation in public life and how youth are positioned as civic agents. We examine ideologies that undergird traditional forms of civic education and engagement in the United States and offer…

This article investigates the civic writing practices of more than 11,000 students writing letters to the next president in the lead up to the 2016 U.S. election. We analyze how letter topics are associated with socioeconomic factors and reveal that 43 topics--including ones prevalent among students such as immigration, guns, and school…

This manuscript examines how national reading policies in the United States shape specific kinds of civic identities for K-12 students. We engage in a thematic discourse analysis of two contemporary national policy documents--the "Common Core State Standards" ("CCSS") and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…

In this essay, Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia explore how young people from six demographically distinct communities across the United States understand the social and political issues affecting their lives, engage in storytelling and dialogue across differences, and collaboratively imagine humanizing and hopeful civic futures. Drawing from…

This article explores how speculative civic literacies can support youth engagement in policy discourse in digital and analog contexts. We broaden the scope of civic literacies by emphasizing core principles of Afrofuturism and participatory culture. Articulating a specific framework for applying these principles to contemporary conceptions of…