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…

As education systems increasingly emphasize teaching for the development of competency, teachers need support in how to design classroom assessments of competencies associated with their areas of learning. Teachers who engage students in learning democracy through deliberative dialogue and participation in real-world processes will find limited…

High-quality civic learning opportunities remain the exception, rather than the norm, in public schools across the country. The health and future of the American democracy is dependent on all its public schools to foster democratic classrooms and prepare informed citizens--a reality far from realized in this third decade of the 21st century.…

Voting instruction typically provided to students is focused on educating for informed voting, but we believe it is essential that schools educate for informed and equitable voting. Indeed, in a well-functioning democratic society, participants need to be prepared to engage in critical, but civil, discourse with and about people who look and think…

This article describes the work of a civic education program in New York City schools called Youthbuilders, which existed from 1938 to 1948. Youthbuilders' aim was to engage youth in civic education projects and teach them about their place in a democracy and worked with them to support racial and social equality. Shortly after World War II, they…

Mission statements and public statements of values are widely recognized as important for educational improvement, even if often ignored. The mission statements and supporting documents of Utah's 41 school districts were analyzed to locate prominent themes and significant omissions. An unexpected and disturbing neglect of democratic citizenship…

Affective political polarization, or a sense of political identity-based animosity or distrust, became especially heightened during the Trump presidency. However, we know little about how youth experience such polarization in school and its effect on their political socialization. With unusual access to high-status independent schools, this paper…

This paper shares a participatory action research study conducted by a team of researchers at a university laboratory school in collaboration with three classroom teachers and 60 preschoolers. The team engaged in this research in order to examine the ways in which school personnel could generate more authentic community service experiences with,…

This instrumental case study of Generation Z preservice teachers enrolled in elementary teaching methods courses in social studies and literacy explores the impact of polarization on their political engagement and teaching. Using the 2020 presidential election as a teachable moment, participants developed and taught literacy-infused civics units…

The article adds to a growing conversation that recognizes and supports young children's civic capabilities, positioning them as citizens-now and not simply citizens in the future. They detail how three different classrooms sought to work with children to engage in social action on behalf of their broader community. This response wonders alongside…

Many civic education initiatives have developed across the United States in order to help prepare students for civic engagement in school-based settings. At the same time, research shows that quality of school-based civic learning opportunities remains insufficient, inconsistent, and inequitable. In this article, we propose a framework of civic…

Funded by Thinking Historically for Canada's Future, a research partnership supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, this article considers how, and the extent to which, contemporary research within the area of citizenship education for preservice teachers advances the creation of more genuinely democratic and…

This essay examines conservative Christian schools through the lens of democratic education theory in order to understand how these educational institutions might or might not be consistent with the principles of a liberal democracy. I identify four key characteristics of conservative Christian schools, including the way they attempt to withdraw…

Drawing on recent work on affective citizenship and agonistic emotions, this article explores the role of emotions in discussions of controversial issues in Norwegian high schools. Empirical material was collected through individual interviews with 11 teachers (two of whom were interviewed together) and group interviews with 28 students (five or…

In this essay, we consider how reconstructing our ideas about the nature of democracy, and its relationship to education, can help us respond to contemporary challenges. We focus specifically on the ongoing fights about critical race theory (CRT), providing an overview of the CRT controversy--we argue that its cultivation for political reasons has…