Refocusing Civic Education: Developing the Skills Young People Need to Engage in Democracy

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231177798
• Author: D. Sunshine Hillygus,John B. Holbein
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: The Complex Demands of Civic Reasoning and Discourse

ANNALS, AAPSS, 705, January 2023 73

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231177798

Refocusing

Civic

Education:

Developing the

Skills Young

People Need to

Engage in

Democracy

By

D. SUNSHINE HILLYGUS

and

JOHN B. HOLBEIN

1177798ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYREFOCUSING CIVIC EDUCATION

research-article2023

Schools have traditionally taken a “just-the-facts-

ma’am” approach to civic education, focusing on gov-

ernmental structures and political systems. We argue

that preparing young people to engage with democracy

requires far more than rote memorization of facts and

figures. Schools should be laboratories of democracy,

where young people’s civic intentions are converted

into civic behaviors. We argue that to realize that trans-

formation, educators must impart real-world knowl-

edge, practical skills, and nurturing abilities that are not

captured by standardized tests of academic achieve-

ment: namely, the interpersonal and intrapersonal

abilities conducive to civic mindedness. We discuss

what these oft-labeled “noncognitive” skills are and

how they are measured, review the evidence that shows

how they foster democratic participation, articulate a

vision for how civics can help develop students’ non-

cognitive skills, and lay out a research agenda for schol-

ars seeking to teach young people the skills requisite to

actively participate in democracy.

Keywords: civic education; noncognitive skills; politi-

cal socialization; civic engagement; demo-

cratic participation; youth voter turnout

A

core mission of the American public educa-

tion system is to create an engaged citi-

zenry that participates in democracy. Thinkers

Correspondence: hillygus@duke.edu

D. Sunshine Hillygus is a professor of political science

and public policy at Duke University. Her research

encompasses American political behavior, campaigns

and elections, survey methods, and public opinion. She

is coauthor of the books Making Young Voters, The

Persuadable Voter, and The Hard Count. She directs

the Duke Initiative on Survey Methodology.

John B. Holbein is an associate professor of public pol-

icy, politics, and education at the Frank Batten School

of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of

Virginia. His research covers topics such as political

participation, democratic accountability, political rep-

resentation, discrimination, and education policy. He is

coauthor of the book Making Young Voters.

NOTE: This article draws from and extends our work

in Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes

into Civic Action (Cambridge University Press 2020).

74 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

from Plato to the present have argued for this central role of the education sys-

tem. The founding fathers agreed that the future of the republic would depend

on the knowledge and participation of the electorate. Thomas Jefferson, for

example, reasoned that the new country must “educate and inform the whole

mass of the people” because “wherever the people are well informed they can be

trusted with their own government.”1,2 In the mid-nineteenth century, the key

education reformer Mann (1846) likewise argued that “since the achievement of

American independence, the universal and ever-repeated argument in favor of

free schools has been that the general intelligence which they are capable of dif-

fusing . . . is indispensable to the continuance of a republican government.”

More recently, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told The

Washington Post that “the only reason we have public school education in

America is because in the early days of the country, our leaders thought we had

to teach our young generation about citizenship. . . . [T]hat obligation never

ends. If we don’t take every generation of young people and make sure they

understand that they are an essential part of [our] government, we won’t survive”

(Heffner 2012). Today, scholars, activists, and policymakers continue to look to

civic education as the path for increasing political participation in American

democracy (Holbein and Hillygus 2020, ch. 5).3

Despite these lofty goals, empirical evidence finds that although standard civ-

ics curricula can sometimes increase political knowledge—especially among the

disadvantaged (e.g., Campbell and Niemi 2016; Green et al. 2011; Neundorf,

Niemi, and Smets 2016; Niemi and Junn 1998)—it does not produce citizens who

are actually engaged in forms of collective governance (e.g., Holbein and Hillygus

2020; Persson and Oscarsson 2010; Weinschenk and Dawes 2022). In this article,

we argue that a key reason for this shortfall is the failure of civics curricula to

teach young people the appropriate skills required to engage in forms of

self-governance.

The structure and content of civic education in the U.S. has traditionally

focused on developing political knowledge and other so-called “cognitive” skills,

most often using a traditional transmission model of instruction, where teachers

transmit information to students through lectures and assigned readings. This

approach focuses on teaching facts about government, political institutions, and

democratic principles. Civic education has typically followed a model that prior-

itized fact-based learning and memorizing historical political structures. This

focus on historical structures is surfaced in systematic evaluations of the civic

education system (e.g., Patterson 2007), in surveys of education stakeholders

(e.g., Torney-Purta, Schwille, and Amadeo 1999), and in in-depth interviews with

civics teachers (e.g., Holbein and Hillygus 2020). Civics usually spends little time

focusing on how people can participate as citizens. In the limited civics courses

that most students take, they learn to memorize facts and figures about historical

political leaders, the structure of the three branches of government, and notable

dates in the formation of America’s republic. The information is presented, in

large part, via teacher-dominated lectures that involve very little hands-on stu-

dent engagement.4