While updating standards is done from time to time to reflect a changing world, content within them is ripe for ideological contestation as it reflects the official curriculum that schools follow; in the case of Social Studies education, standards hold the potential to impact students' understandings of civics and citizenship. Ambiguity…

The New Deal represented an unprecedented expansion of the federal government into new realms, including educational initiatives through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the National Youth Administration (NYA). Both programs, attempting to alleviate the "youth problem" of massive youth unemployment, took young people into the…

This study explores social studies teachers' self-reported instruction about teaching the 2020 election in U.S. secondary schools. We analyzed survey responses from 1,723 secondary social studies teachers from 12 states (3 left-leaning, 3 right-leaning, 6 battleground) collected in the weeks after the election, examining self-reported pedagogies,…

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…

Employing an institutional case study approach, this manuscript features two high-impact learning opportunities open to Albion College students who seek to contribute to solving real-world problems in collaboration with local and surrounding communities: Albion College Community Collaborative (AC3) and Human Rights Lab. The programmatic approach…

Although the majority of scientists agree that we are facing unprecedented climate crises, higher education's engagement with environmental and sustainability problems is lacking. While the role of human behavior on climate change has been well established by science, these insights have yet to be adequately applied by citizens, thus exacerbating…

The literature on civic engagement in higher education is rich with examples of courses and programs that promote the development of students as engaged citizens in our democracy. However, few of them involve the arts. This fact is unfortunate because all forms of engagement with the arts is an important and effective means of achieving our civic…

In this mixed-methods study, we examine the potential of place-based stewardship education (PBSE) for nurturing rural students' community attachment and aspirations to contribute to the preservation of the environmental "commons." Analyzing pre- and post-experience surveys (n = 240) and open-ended responses (n = 275) collected from…

In this article, the author discusses how teachers can develop empathy in students through reading and writing about literature, which contributes to their development as citizens in a global community. By choosing texts that trigger empathic reactions, English teachers can help students better understand others' experiences with oppression and…

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…

Service-learning has increasingly been implemented to enhance teacher education coursework in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Service-learning engages preservice teachers in activities or projects that benefit a particular community of stakeholders with ties to English as an additional language learning while…

Equipping students for citizenship has always been a core element of American higher education. Amid financial distress, changing technology, and global interconnectivity, the project of equipping citizens is becoming increasingly disembodied. Embracing the notion that one's physical place matters, one application of an "embodied"…

There is growing international concern about the lack of civic engagement among the youth in many nations. These concerns have sparked renewed interest in the quantity and quality of civic education in public schools in the United States. The objective of this study is to determine if the concerns about civic education are about the sufficiency of…

Students need to develop a variety of critical thinking and interpersonal skills in order to contribute successfully to today's increasingly globalized world. The Office of the Provost at the University of Michigan has implemented a plan known as Transforming Learning for a Third Century (TLTC) as part of its broader Third Century Initiative. This…

The civic education policy framework and gap analysis tool are intended to guide state leaders as they address the complexities of preparing students for college, career and civic life. They allow for adaptation to state- and site-specific circumstances and may be adopted in whole or in piecemeal fashion, according to states' individual…