A survey of the nation's civic health reveals troubling trends, with historic lows in trust among individuals and key institutions such as government, media, and the courts. Political polarization has significantly increased among Americans in the last 40 years, surpassing eight other democratic nations and challenging the idea that it is merely a…

Critics suggest that youth lack basic civic knowledge and are disengaging from civic action, particularly political action. The validity of these criticisms depends on how civic knowledge and civic engagement are defined. The results of four studies of civic education, conducted by the IEA over a period of almost 50 years, are examined in terms of…

This essay by René Arcilla examines Jean-Luc Nancy's understanding of the "spirit of 1968." It argues that Nancy's concept can guide a humanist approach to educating citizens for participation in democratic self-government, one that responds to the political challenges facing us today. In particular, it develops a critique of…

The purpose of this study was to identify patterns of Taiwanese students' perceptions of good citizenship in terms of citizenship behaviours rooted in Western democracy and character and moral (CM) oriented citizenship. Data from Taiwanese eighth graders participating in the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) were…

This article presents a review of interdisciplinary scholarship on digital citizenship with 3 different approaches: unidimensional, multidimensional, and critical/radical approaches. By addressing the intersectionality as a critical framework and inquiry, this article advances the concept of digital citizenship effectively responding to the…

Reducing education to pure technique is to anesthetize curiosity (Freire, 1997). Neo-liberal policies privilege private interests and promote a model of education based on competition and consumerism (Harvey, 2005). This model of education perpetuates and increases inequalities. It also affects education whose priority is not to deliver learners…

According to Douglas Challenger, American democracy just survived a near-death experience during the slow-motion coup that was the four years of Donald Trump's presidency. It culminated in his rejecting his electoral loss and pressuring officials and political allies to back his claims that the election was fraudulent and, at the end, inciting his…

Research on college student political engagement remains limited, often focused on classroom interventions and studied quantitatively (Bardwell, 2011; Beaumont et al., 2006; Mann et al., 2018). Students' lived experience of their political engagement, however, is "situational, emergent, and co-creative" (Hildreth, 2003, p8). During the…

Contemporary scholars have called for more diverse conceptions and practices of alternative 'democratic' education to contest the increasingly neoliberal and neoconservative educational systems. The current study responds to this call by exploring how the notion of 'democratic' education can be enriched using the contextual practices of education…

In this article, the authors review higher education's evolving role in this nation's democracy. They then describe a new collaboration, the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement (CLDE) Coalition, which responds educationally to the challenges facing our democracy. The CLDE Coalition aims to (1) reclaim and revitalize higher education's public…

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars brings together diverse people, across traditional divides, to build a constitutional democracy that works for all. In 2019, Citizens & Scholars released the whitepaper "From Civic Education to a Civic Learning Ecosystem: A Landscape Analysis and Case for Collaboration," which noted a…

Civics education continues to gain national importance, especially in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and with recent debates about the teaching of history that addresses the legacy of racism and discrimination in the United States. Despite the increasing interest in strengthening civics education, states continue to differ in…

In this interpretative case study, the researchers examined the democratic and multicultural beliefs and related practices of 11 preservice social studies teachers in the northeastern United States. They collected interview, observation, and classroom artifact data throughout the participants' teacher preparation experience. Using Banks's typology…

What is dissent? And how should educators teach students the skills and dispositions of this democratic virtue? By engaging with the 2011 article by Sarah M. Stitzlein on 'Democratic education in an era of town hall protests', this retrospective article discusses Stitzlein's definition of dissent, her curricular approach to teaching dissent, and…

In many democratic societies, schools are expected to prepare their students for participation in democratic societies. (Self)assessment frameworks, designed by scholars and curriculum developers, support the development of school initiated democratic experiences. Existing frameworks, however, are not designed to capture the interplay between the…