{"id":4238,"date":"2003-07-08T11:31:26","date_gmt":"2003-07-08T11:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4238"},"modified":"2003-07-08T11:31:26","modified_gmt":"2003-07-08T11:31:26","slug":"new-research-on-civic-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4238","title":{"rendered":"new research on civic ed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was in Boston today, for the <a href=\"http:\/\/ispp.org\/\">International<\/p>\n<p>Society for Political Psychology<\/a>&#8216;s annual conference. I went to give a presentation<\/p>\n<p>on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.civicmissionofschools.org\">The Civic Mission of Schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While there, I heard interesting papers on civic education and on the effects<\/p>\n<p>of public deliberation. I&#8217;ve summarized the latter papers on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deliberative-democracy.net\/mt\/archives\/000045.html\">DD-Net<\/p>\n<p>blog<\/a>. Regarding civic education:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Jon Miller of Northwestern\n<p>University Medical School presented a very important study that has followed 3,000<\/p>\n<p>young Americans from 1987 to the present. Based on the data that his group has<\/p>\n<p>collected, they are able to show what factors predict political engagement in<\/p>\n<p>early adulthood. The courses taken in high school and students&#8217; performance in<\/p>\n<p>these courses do not seem to matter at all. This finding is somewhat at odds with<\/p>\n<p>the <i>Civic Mission of Schools<\/i>, which claims that school-based civic education<\/p>\n<p>works, at least when done well. <\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot more to be said on this topic.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Miller&#8217;s work doesn&#8217;t distinguish between the kind of civic education<\/p>\n<p>that we would recommend and ordinary civic education. Furthermore, ordinary civic<\/p>\n<p>education does seem to increase students&#8217; <i>knowledge<\/i>, which can itself be<\/p>\n<p>considered a good. Still, it should give us pause to note that there was no observed<\/p>\n<p>connection between taking a government\/civics class in high school and voting<\/p>\n<p>later on.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>Arthur &quot;Skip&quot; Lupia of Michigan is writing a very\n<p>interesting book that applies insights from cognitive science to the question<\/p>\n<p>of civic education. There are obstacles to learning about civics that are hard-wired,<\/p>\n<p>he believes; and good teaching must address these obstacles. For example, when<\/p>\n<p>two equally respectable people say opposite things&#151;which often happens in<\/p>\n<p>politics&#151;we tend not to put either view into our long-term memories. I think<\/p>\n<p>it is undeniable that biological constraints are relevant. But I would have to<\/p>\n<p>be persuaded that the findings of cognitive science were very solid before I would<\/p>\n<p>want them to influence policy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was in Boston today, for the International Society for Political Psychology&#8216;s annual conference. I went to give a presentation on The Civic Mission of Schools. While there, I heard interesting papers on civic education and on the effects of public deliberation. I&#8217;ve summarized the latter papers on the DD-Net blog. Regarding civic education: Jon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}