Connecting Classrooms to Congress

• In Event: Democratic Renewal through Innovations in Civic Learning

Abstract

How can K-12 civics education respond to democratic backsliding? Ample literature in political science now documents the American public’s persisting decline in trust in government and over two decades of deep partisan polarization. Beyond the implications for current politics, these trends raise alarming questions about America’s next generation. Are kids being socialized into a society of declining democratic norms? If so, civics education is the one widely accessible practice that can counteract it, but to what extent can a civics model deepen kids’ faith in democracy and empower them to participate in politics? Employing the directly representative democracy framework, we design, implement, and test the effects of a high school civics module centered on fostering online deliberations between students and their member of Congress. We designed a new technological tool, Prytaneum, to facilitate the virtual discussions. Through three years of data collection, we find consistent evidence that participation in our curricular module increases students’ political knowledge, trust in government, and sense of political efficacy (both internal and external). Our paper has implications for the field of civics education and the study of democratic innovations.

Authors

• Kevin M. Esterling, University of California, Riverside

• Joseph Kahne, University of California, Riverside

• William Minozzi, Ohio State University