Should Political Scientists Care about Civic Education?

Abstract

For the past decade, concern about a crisis in civic education and engagement, especially among young people, has been rampant. In 2003, The Civic Mission of Schools report sounded a clarion call for greater attention to citizenship education in K–12 schools and touched off a national campaign, joined by such luminaries as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, advocating improvements in the way we educate American youth for participation in democracy. Two years later, the work of the American Political Science Association's Committee on Civic Education and Engagement culminated in the publication of Democracy at Risk, which examined growing trends toward civic disengagement and proposed reforms to reinvigorate political participation in the United States. Just last year, a joint effort by the US Department of Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities produced A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future, once again chronicling a “civic recession” across the land and issuing a “National Call to Action” for higher education to do more to educate young citizens for democracy.