This blog has identified a series of aims for civics
education. They are imparting knowledge
about the government and politics of the nation, training students about viable
skills regarding participation in the political processes of the nation,
instilling a disposition to become involved in those political processes, encouraging
civil demeanor among students in their social interactions, and encouraging a
law-abiding mode of social and personal behavior. This blog assumes that the reader agrees with
these general aims.
The blog has
just reviewed a set of evidence indicating that knowledge among students and
adults is wanting. This, in turn, has
led to inconsistent thinking or intolerant thinking among most Americans. The sum effect is that civics education has
not been particularly successful in this area of its responsibilities.
It has not, as this blog has indicated,
bolstered the overall levels of social capital[1] among
the citizenry. This posting proceeds to
review how well the citizenry has been exercising its participatory
responsibility; that is, how well civics education has encouraged and trained
students to engage in the political processes of the nation.
What does the
current research reveal are the participatory levels of Americans? In a
recent evaluation by the National Conference of State Legislatures reporting on
how well civics education is doing, it summarizes its findings: “… Americans have
shared a vision of a democracy in which all citizens understand, appreciate,
and engage actively in civic and political life. In recent decades, however, increasing
numbers of Americans have disengaged …”[2]
This
includes participation in civic organizations and the like. The natural tendency is for people not to
engage; after all, working for change benefits all, so why not let others take
on the burden? This is called collective
action problem;[3]
people are not prone to expend energy when many will accrue advantages from the
effort. To solicit such effort calls for
active encouragement. To be successful
in this realm of civic behavior, civics education needs to overcome an
intuitive proclivity – not easy to do.
These outcomes should be a focus of any evaluation of a civics
education program. The point is that
schools are influential in informing students about the world, its successes,
failures, optimisms, institutions, and other social affairs affecting a
citizen’s current conditions. The
question is: along with asking how
successful schools are, in which ways or in what directions is such an
influence manifested?
Using Robert Putnam's take on social
capital as it speaks to communal bonds and cooperative interactions – and again
assuming the reader agrees, – a public
school curriculum should actively promote this quality. One ways schools can do this is along with
imparting political and governmental knowledge, is to promote citizen
participation in governmental affairs, especially at the local level. This would highlight the communal aspects of
governance and the need to be cooperative in order to be effective.
It
is useful to insert a contextual word:
local involvement in politics is important. It is at the local level, not the national
level, that average citizens have the assets to be influential. A federalist/constitutional principle is,
therefore, that local governments need to be kept viable – it heightens the
quality of a democratic society.
However,
there are enormous forces that act against this principle. One prominent force is the inclination of
locals to be very parochial. Not only
are parochial concerns often anti-democratic, as in biases against minorities,[4]
but they also hinder a citizen in appreciating those developments that
originate elsewhere and affect local politics and economic conditions. This is a challenge for those who promote
local power.
Life
has become more and more affected not only by national forces, but also by
global forces as well, such as is the case with job creation. Global labor markets can and often profoundly
do affect local communities. Such
developments can be beyond the reach of the average person. One can easily feel justifiably overwhelmed. This whole development undermines both local
governance and the chances of increasing the levels of social capital of any
citizenry.
While
all of this is true, one can make the case that enough political realities are
still governed and generally handled by local politics, and that local access
to government is still the foundation of this nation’s democratic project.
Citing
an above concern, consistency in one’s political thinking, it is related to
political involvement. That is, an
approach to this concern is to look at levels of political participation. Engagement
is a motivator, a reason for holding political views and obtaining political
knowledge in the first place. Engagement
demands reasonable and logically consistent views, knowledge, and opinions, at
least is one wants to be effective. That
is why this blog listed participation as an aim of civics education and there
has been relevant research in this area of concern.
For
example, a 2013 Pew Research Center study which relied on an extensive
telephone survey, found that 48% of adults had engaged in a civic group or activity
in the preceding year. It also found:
§ 35%
of Americans have recently worked with fellow citizens to solve a problem in
their community
§ 22%
have attended a political meeting on local, town, or school affairs
§ 13%
have been active members of a group that tries to influence the public or
government
§ 10%
have attended a political rally or speech
§ 7%
have worked or volunteered for a political party or candidate
§ 6%
have attended an organized protest[5]
While the 48%
figure does not sound too bad (almost half), the descriptor of this variable is
too broad. This can be mostly voting,
although given voter turnout figures in the most recent elections, one can
safely determine that the 48% rate consists of mostly voting. And the more specific numbers do not describe
an actively engaged citizenry.
In
summary, what can one say as to whether our civics education has been even
somewhat effective in inducing political participation among students and their
corresponding adult population? By any
reasonable standards, one cannot give very high marks. A rather inclusive bit of data justifying
this estimation is the following: in a
recent midterm election (2014) 63.6% of the eligible voters chose not to participate and only about half
in the last presidential election (2016) voted.
Nothing can ring louder alarm bells than these disheartening statistics.
There
are different spins among academic findings regarding the level of knowledge
and engagement that American citizens, including the young, have. For example, Putnam found in his review of
relevant research that except for voting, American rates of political
engagement are high compared to other democracies.[6]
Even
in terms of how much people knew about politics, both in terms of information
and skills, the National Center of Educational Statistics – the IEA study –
found US levels among adolescents were high when compared to twenty-seven other
nations.[7] Globally, Ronald Inglehart found increased
levels of participation in political activities among those who live in industrial
and post-industrial societies.[8]
But
the nature of that involvement, of the variety found in the US, changes. It has changed from those types of activities
this writer was taught when he was a student in civics and government
classes. For example, Charles Euchner
argues that American participation in politics has become, in many instances,
unconventional.
He
summarizes his argument as follows:
All
across the United States and around the globe, millions of people have decided
that protest offers the best opportunity to put pressure on the political
“system.” Millions of people have decided that the ordinary system of politics
lacks legitimacy and that the only way to practice democratic politics is to
operate outside that system.[9]
Naming this form of
participation as “extraordinary politics,” Euchner posits that traditional
forms of political involvement are disappearing. Given what one sees in the current town hall
meetings around the country, Euchner’s message rings true.
To
be clear, traditional forms of engagement include voting, working on political
campaigns, discussing politics with one’s neighbors, writing letters to an
editor or an elected official, collecting signatures on a petition, and the
like. By contrast, extraordinary
politics are acts such as civil disobedience, demonstrations, boycotts, and
creating or exhibiting subversive art and literature.
This
latter classification of activities can be very disruptive and one can see the
logical connection between extraordinary politics and the ideological extremism
among the political class described in a previous posting.
An
example of extraordinary politics was demonstrated by Cuban-Americans in Miami,
Florida, back in the 1980s. They mounted
an organized car and truck caravan strategy in which they drove on an
expressway at twenty miles an hour or slower to block traffic. Their aim was to protest a government policy. These types of activities can be very
divisive for a community.
In
recent years, we observed “Tea Party” demonstrations around the country or some
involved in the Black Lives Matter movement engaging in this sort of
involvement. Since the election, liberal
versions of these actions have become common.
Many of these demonstrations were conducted in legitimate forms, yet
some of them verged on disruptive behavior that at times promoted violence.
On
the other hand, Putnam also reports that a lot of political “involvement” has
become a matter of writing checks – “checkbook” involvement. A person shows his or her support by making
donations to a political party or lobbyists.
For example, many older Americans write checks to the American
Association for Retired Persons.
The
problem is that such engagement substitutes donations for the person-to-person
quality of more traditional forms of participation. In addition, it hands over to professionals
the actual planning and implementation of political action. Putnam reports a 25% decrease in traditional
activities between the ‘70s and the mid ‘90s[10]
and from just viewing the TV coverage since, one can easily conclude that that
trend has only been amplified. And there have been more recent studies that
find similar trends.
As
alluded to above, participation relies on knowledge and, in turn, adds to
knowledge; that is, there is a mutually enhancing link between political
participation and political knowledge.
The two have a reciprocal relationship, each strengthening the other. [11]
[1] Political
scientist, Robert Putnam, tells us that social capital means having an active,
public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social
environment of trust and cooperation.
[2] “The civic mission of schools,” National Conference of State Legislatures, 2015, accessed on
February 24, 2017, http://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislators/trust-for-representative-democracy/the-civic-mission-of-schools-executive-summary.aspx .
[3] Paul Burnstein, American
Public Opinion, Advocacy, and Policy in Congress: What the Public Wants and What It Gets,
(New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press, 2014).
[4] Some might see the current debate over transsexual
students and the use of bathrooms as an example of this concern.
[5] “Civic Engagement in a Digital Age,” Pew Research Center, April 25, 2013, http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/04/25/civic-engagement-in-the-digital-age/ .
[6] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York, NY: Simon
& Schuster, 2000.
[7] “What Democracy Means to Ninth-Graders: U.S. Results
from the International IEA Civic Education Study” National Center for Education Statistics (U. S. Department of
Education, Washington, D. C., 2001).
[8] Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and
Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1997).
[9] Charles C. Euchner, Extraordinary Politics: How
Protest and Dissent Are Changing American Democracy (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1996), xi-xii.
[10] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
[11] Herbert McCloskey, “Political Participation,” International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, 2008, accessed February 24, 2017, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Political_Participation.aspx.
