What Social Scientists Have Learned About Civic Education: A Review of the Literature

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What Social Scientists Have Learned About Civic

Education: A Review of the Literature

David E. Campbell

To cite this article: David E. Campbell (2019): What Social Scientists Have Learned

About Civic Education: A Review of the Literature, Peabody Journal of Education, DOI:

10.1080/0161956X.2019.1553601

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2019.1553601

Published online: 25 Jan 2019.

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What Social Scientists Have Learned About Civic Education: A

Review of the Literature

David E. Campbell

University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana

ABSTRACT

Historically there has been a relative dearth of social science research into

civic education—even in political science, a discipline that had civic educa-

tion as one of its founding objectives. This is partly due to the mistaken

impression that civics instruction has no effect on civic and political partici-

pation, a conclusion that was once conventional wisdom but has since

been refuted. More and more evidence has accumulated that well-

designed civic education—both formal and informal—has meaningful,

long-lasting effects on the civic engagement of young people. Existing

research finds four aspects of schooling that affect civic learning and

engagement: classroom instruction, extracurricular activities, service learn-

ing, and a school’s ethos. Furthermore, state-level civics exams can posi-

tively affect knowledge about politics and government. The unifying

theme that arises from this burgeoning literature is that effective civic edu-

cation can compensate for a dearth of civic resources in the home and

community. However, the renaissance of research into civic education is

only just beginning, as more needs to be done. The existing data are too

limited, and randomized studies are rare. Truly advancing our understand-

ing of civic education will require a large-scale, multi-method, interdiscip-

linary effort.

If you were to ask most social scientists what, collectively, their respective disciplines know about

civic education, the answer would likely be “not much.” While that response may have been

accurate 20 years ago, times have changed. In recent years, more and more social scientists have

increasingly paid attention to the empirical study of civic education, although it is regrettably still

not a major area of research. As a result, many scholars are unaware of the full scope of recent

scholarship on civic education. A scan of this literature reveals that the social sciences do indeed

have a lot to offer the study of how, what, when, and why young people learn about politics. To

paraphrase Dr. Benjamin Spock’s famous advice to new parents: social scientists know more than

they think they do.

This article summarizes what social scientists know about civic education in secondary schools.

Most of the work cited herein comes from political science, although since civic education is a

multidisciplinary topic, it also draws on cognate fields such as psychology, economics, and soci-

ology. The focus is primarily on the United States, but this article references research from other

Western, liberal democracies where the findings are applicable to the American context. This is

CONTACT David E. Campbell [email protected] Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, 2060

Jenkins Nanovic Halls, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

ß 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION

https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2019.1553601

not to dismiss civic education research in other nations, as there is a lot of exciting research being

done on civic education in the developing world as well.

The objective of this article is to encourage more cross-fertilization among empirically oriented

scholars across disciplines who share a common interest in civic education. Indeed, the best work

on civic education draws from different scholarly perspectives.

Throughout the course of the art-

icle, I note areas where further research should be directed and which would benefit from collab-

oration between scholars of different disciplines. While beyond the scope of this article, social

scientists interested in civic education should also consult the thriving literature on social studies

education. A good place to start is Citizenship Education and Global Migration: Implications for

Theory, Research, and Teaching, edited by James Banks (2017).

The article proceeds as follows. First, I consider why there is a relative dearth of social science

research into civic education. The next four sections then draw on existing scholarship to high-

light aspects of schooling that have been shown to affect young people’s preparation for active citi-

zenship in a democratic society: classroom instruction, extracurricular activities, service learning,

and school ethos. I then discuss how public policy can impact the effectiveness of civic education.

Finally, the article concludes with specific recommendations for future research. My hope is that

scholars reading this article will take up the charge to conduct more high-quality research. Ideally,

the end result will be the development of a thriving literature and sustained research infrastructure

to study the effectiveness of civic education.

Why is there not more research on civic education?

While civic education is a subject of interest across many different disciplines, it has historically

been of particular interest to political scientists, going all the way back to the birth of the discip-

line. The American Political Science Association states that “education for civic engagement and

responsive governance were founding objectives of the political science profession” (American

Political Science Association, n.d.). In that spirit, political scientists often point to the need for

better civics instruction as a cure for various problems. For example, there is a perennial debate

over the level of political knowledge within the electorate and whether the (arguably) low levels of

factual knowledge are troubling for a representative democracy. Those scholars who lament the

level of information in the electorate often point to improved civic education as a remedy (Delli

Carpini & Keeter, 1996). Similarly, a major theme in political science research has been the

decline in civic engagement of all sorts, especially voter turnout. Again, in response to these con-

cerns, a common recommendation has been renewed attention to civic education (Hanmer, 2009;

Putnam, 2001; Teixeira, 1992; Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Delli Carpini, 2006). More

recently, a meta-theme in the study of American politics has been the heightened state of political

tension within the United States; again civic education has been offered as a solution (Hibbing &

Theiss-Morse, 2002; Mutz, 2006). In other words, civic education is often the requisite recommen-

dation in the conclusion of a book or article to answer the question of “what is to be done?”

Although civic education is often offered as a solution, empirical evidence on effective civic educa-

tion remains in short supply relative to other topics studied within political science

(Battistoni, 2013).

A (perceived) lack of impact for civic education

One explanation for the lack of civic education research lies in the seminal influence of an article

published 50 years ago in the American Political Science Review, the flagship journal of the

For example, see Bleck, 2015; Finkel, Horowitz, & Rojo-Mendoza, 2012; Finkel & Smith, 2011; Gottlieb, 2016.

Illustrative examples include Campbell, Levinson, & Hess, 2012; Hart & Youniss, 2018; Hess, 2009; Hess & McAvoy, 2015;

Kahne, Crow, & Lee, 2013.

2 D. CAMPBELL

American Political Science Association. Drawing on a nationally representative study of American

high school students, Langton and Jennings (1968) concluded that civics courses had little to no

effect on a variety of civic outcomes: political knowledge/sophistication, political interest, spectator

politicization (i.e., media consumption), political discourse, political efficacy, political cynicism,

civic tolerance, and participation orientation (i.e., anticipated political involvement in adulthood).

For at least a generation, if political science Ph.D. students were exposed to any research on civic

education, it was likely this article. Ergo, further study of civic education did not seem like a fruit-

ful area of research.

Of importance, though, the conclusions of the Langton and Jennings article are often misre-

membered. While they found no overall effect on civic outcomes for high school civics courses,

they did note that such courses had a positive impact on the civic engagement of African

American students. When their data were collected in 1965, the United States was still a racially

segregated nation, which meant that African Americans were unable to fully participate in

American society and especially the political system. Civics classes in school were thus compensat-

ing for the disparities that they inferred existed in African Americans’ homes and communities.

That insight—the compensation effect—reverberates in the most recent research on civic educa-

tion. The irony is profound, as the same article that was thought to conclude that civic education

is ineffectual actually contains within it the fundamental insight of where civic education mat-

ters most.

Another reason for the relative inattention to civic education is the ongoing debate over

whether the robust relationship between educational attainment and political participation is

causal or merely a spurious correlation. Or, according to one argument, perhaps education is

no more than a marker of social status (Campbell, 2009; Nie, Junn, & Stehlik-Barry, 1996;

Tenn, 2005). If the education–political engagement connection is not causal, then it would seem

pointless to pursue any further inquiry into what it is about education, including civics instruc-

tion, that fosters greater engagement. A number of studies have employed creative identification

strategies to overcome the selection problem that bedevils research into the education–participa-

tion link—that is, the possibility that people who pursue more education might already be

inclined toward political participation. This wealth of research ranges from a study of identical

twins (Dinesen et al., 2016) to compulsory education laws (Dee, 2005; Larreguy & Marshall,

2017; Milligan, Moretti, & Oreopoulos, 2004) to a hookworm eradication program that had the

effect of increasing education rates where it was introduced (Henderson, 2018)—all of which

conclude that greater educational attainment leads to a higher rate of voter turnout. Perhaps

most convincingly, Sondheimer and Green (2010) examine three randomized educational inter-

ventions, including an intensive preschool for low-income children, a college readiness and

scholarship program for at-risk youth, and an initiative that reduced class sizes. All of

these interventions led to increased high school graduation rates, which in turn had a large

effect on voter participation. While the debate over causality has not been settled (Berinsky &

Lenz, 2011; Kam & Palmer, 2008, 2011; Mayer, 2011), the preponderance of the evidence sug-

gests that the well-established empirical connection between education and political participation

is indeed causal. The education effect appears greatest for people with low socioeconomic status,

who are also the least likely to be politically engaged—further evidence of the compensa-

tion effect.

There are two lessons to be learned from the body of research into educational attainment and

political engagement. First, the evidence of a causal relationship among the disadvantaged moti-

vates the study of how, when, and why education can correct the socioeconomic skew in political

participation. Second, the innovative identification strategies employed in this literature demon-

strate what can be learned when inventive researchers get to work on a thorny question. I encour-

age scholars of civic education, whatever their discipline, to take inspiration from these studies

and be equally creative.

PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 3

A lack of data

Another explanation for the relative lack of attention to civic education has been the paucity of

available data. In civic education, there is no equivalent of the American National Election Study,

the General Social Survey, or the Cooperative Congressional Election Study—the workhorses of

political behavior research. The data that are available have been put to good use, though, demon-

strating that high-quality research follows from the dissemination of “public utility” data sets.

Consider, for example, the Youth-Parent Socialization Study.

This prescient study began in 1965,

including interviews with a nationally representative sample of high school seniors and their

parents. Both generations were re-interviewed in 1973 and 1982. In 1997, the second generation

(the high school seniors of 1965) was interviewed again, along with their children (the grandchil-

dren of the parents in 1965). This study has produced a wealth of articles, dissertations, and

books, with scholars continuing to find ever-inventive ways to employ the data.

It was the first

wave of this study, in fact, that served as the data for the seminal piece on civics courses by

Langton and Jennings, which provided early evidence for the compensation effect. In light of the

success of the Youth-Parent Socialization Study, one might wonder why it has not been repeated.

One reason is likely the sheer logistical challenge and expense of research on adolescents, not to

mention the difficulty researchers face in obtaining access to schools, especially on a national

scale. Adding interviews with parents and making it longitudinal only makes such a study more

challenging and expensive.

Other commonly used data include the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

civics exam, periodically administered by the federal Department of Education. In most years, the

assessment has included 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade students, although the most recent exam

included only 8th graders (apparently, the next one will again have 4th and 12th graders). While

unquestionably valuable, NAEP data are limited to factual knowledge only, do not include parents,

and are not longitudinal.

A large number of studies draw on the 1999 Civic Education Study of the International

Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)—also known as CivEd.

This

multinational study of adolescents and teachers has generated many important publications.

However, it too has limitations. For either budgetary or political reasons—or both—the United

States has not participated in subsequent waves of the study, and so the data are now dated, dem-

onstrating the vagaries of federal support for civic education research.

Notwithstanding the volume of research that has been produced using CivEd, the study has

nonetheless been subject to criticism. Its most vocal critic is Lupia (2016), who argues that CivEd

employs poorly designed questions that produce more noise than signal. Lupia’s criticism could be

read as a devastating attack on the civic education literature writ large, especially since the CivEd

study is arguably the leading contemporary source of data—the product of a multiyear, multi-

national, multidisciplinary collaboration. If this study is deeply flawed, it does not bode well for

others. Perhaps, one might conclude, measuring knowledge about politics and government is futile,

so why even try? Yet a close read of Lupia’sbookUninformed: Why People Know So Little About

Politics and What We Can Do About It makes clear that this is not his point at all. Instead, his

objective is to improve civic education by calling for more attention to how knowledge is measured

and studied. I encourage readers to view Uninformed as both a clarion call for more—and better—

studies of civic education as well as a guide to best practices on how to conduct them.

This study has gone by different names over its duration. The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research

(ICPSR) data archive refers to it as the Youth Study Series, but I have opted to refer to it as the Youth-Parent Socialization

Study, historically its more common name. Colloquially, it is often referred to as the Jennings and Niemi study.

For a list of publications employing the Youth-Parent Socialization Study, consult https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/

instructors/series/138 (accessed April 15, 2018).

This multinational project is now named the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. See http://iccs.iea.nl/home.

html for more details (accessed April 15, 2018). For a thorough review of articles that employ CivEd, see Knowles, Torney-

Purta, & Barber, 2018.

4 D. CAMPBELL

In short, there are multiple reasons that research into civic education has been constrained,

which only makes the extant research all the more impressive. One can take hope from the

fact that the literature has advanced in spite of these impediments. It is as though researchers

have been working with one hand tied behind their collective backs. Imagine what could be

learned if they had both hands free—in particular, if they had data greater in both quantity

and quality.

I turn next to detailing key findings from the extant literature, noting where there is disagree-

ment, ambiguity, and promising lines of inquiry for future scholarship.

In the classroom

For most people, the term civic education refers to classroom instruction. Does anything that hap-

pens in the classroom matter? Recall that Langton and Jennings concluded that, for the most part,

it does not. There are reasons to suspect that formal instruction in civics may not have much of

an effect on civic outcomes because, unlike other academic subjects, knowledge about politics and

government is often gained through other channels. While there is not a lot of dinner table con-

versation about subjects like math or physics, many households do have a lot of discussion about

politics. Similarly, news coverage focuses heavily on politics—more than content relevant to most

other academic disciplines. There are not many news stories on the Pythagorean theorem or the

laws of thermodynamics.

A turning point in the study of formal civics instruction came in 1998, with the publication of

the book Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn? by Niemi and Junn (1998). In an exhaust-

ive study of the NAEP civics exam, they found that—contra Langton and Jennings—civics classes

did in fact lead to greater knowledge about politics and government. Since they drew on cross-sec-

tional NAEP data, their ability to test causal mechanisms was limited, but the very fact that they

could show an effect was significant. Researchers interested in civic education no longer had to

argue against the long-standing conventional wisdom that formal instruction in civics classes had

no effect. Nonetheless, Niemi and Junn’s results hardly led to the conclusion that civics courses

have a large effect on what students knew, reinforcing that civics-related information is often

absorbed through other means. They found that taking a civics course in high school leads to a

4–percentage point gain on the NAEP civics assessment, roughly the equivalent of moving up

one-third of a letter grade (e.g., B þ to A). To critics, this modest increase only underscores the

relative ineffectiveness of civics instruction (Hart & Youniss, 2018). Furthermore, since Niemi and

Junn rely on NAEP data, they could only examine the impact of civics instruction on a cognitive

outcome—factual knowledge—when the civic education literature has a broader ambit that often

includes measures of both behavior and attitudes in addition to knowledge.

While Niemi and Junn’s book is notable for making a convincing case that civics courses have

at least a small effect on civic knowledge, this conclusion is not necessarily “settled law.” A recent

review essay examines nine studies of various civics curricula and concludes that, taken as a

whole, “the results indicate little evidence for civic education having a discernible or direct effect

on voting or voter registration/enrolment” (Manning & Edwards, 2014, p. 22). Since the studies

included in this review were small in number and highly variable in quality, it should not be taken

as definitive. Instead, it simply further underscores the need for more high-quality research into

civic education.

Neundorf, Niemi, and Smets (2016) is one such example of a high-quality study. They focus on

measures of political engagement—interest in and discussion of political affairs—and find that civ-

ics classes not only matter but that they compensate for social disparities, both in the United

States and Belgium. Their results are consistent with those of Langton and Jennings, who inferred

that civics classes had an effect for African Americans because they had limited civic socialization

outside of school. Neundorf et al. directly measure political exposure in the home and find that

civics courses taken in high school raise the political engagement of youth who have little

PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 5

experience with political discussion in the home, for decades following high school. This initial

boost pays long-term dividends, as it puts these youth on a steeper upward trajectory of ever-

higher levels of political engagement than their peers who did not take a civics course in

high school.

The conclusion that formal civics courses matter naturally leads to the question of what makes

for effective civics instruction. Throughout the literature, the most consistent theme is the signifi-

cance of an open classroom climate, which is defined as a classroom in which students are

exposed to the enlivening discussion of political and social issues, are encouraged to share their

own opinions, and have their opinions respected by their teacher. Both in the United States and

elsewhere, a growing number of studies find that an open classroom climate leads to greater civic

engagement in general, although studies vary in their specific civic outcomes (Kahne et al., 2013;

Martens & Gainous, 2013; Persson, 2015). In the United States, Campbell (2008) finds that an

open classroom climate affects both the likelihood of voting and factual knowledge for all stu-

dents. Further, there is a compensation effect for young people’s anticipated voter turnout—stu-

dents from socially disadvantaged homes are more likely to envision themselves as voters if they

are exposed to a civics-oriented class with an open climate (but there is not a comparable com-

pensatory effect on factual knowledge). The importance of an open classroom climate is a good

example of resonance between scholarship in education and political science, as education scholars

Hess and McAvoy (Hess, 2009 ; Hess & McAvoy, 2015) likewise find positive civic outcomes from

political discussion in classrooms.

There are, nonetheless, skeptics that the results for classroom climate are anything more than

a self-reinforcing perception of young people who are already predisposed toward civic engage-

ment. By this reasoning, students with a taste for political discussion are simultaneously more

likely to perceive an open climate and to be more politically active, efficacious, and knowledge-

able. As suggestive evidence that it is individuals’ preexisting inclination toward civic activity

that drives the climate effect, Hart and Youniss (2018) note that measures of an open classroom

from different students in the same classroom do not always correlate very highly (Barber,

Sweetwood, & King, 2015). It is precisely because of this concern, therefore, that at least two

studies have addressed differences in students’ perception. Campbell (2008) and Persson (2015)

purge any correlation between each student’s report of the classroom climate and the aggregated

measure from their peers. In other words, in both studies the aggregated measure of classroom

climate is independent of the individual student’s own perception and thus of their taste for

political discussion. Although this econometric strategy addresses the concern that the climate

results are merely spurious, it is still no substitute for an identification strategy that circumvents

the selection problem or, even better, a study that manipulates the amount of discussion within

a classroom.

Beyond classroom climate, the evidence for the effectiveness of other pedagogical techniques

is limited. Gainous and Martens (2012) examine how students react when teachers use a variety

of instructional techniques, ranging from traditional methods such as textbook reading and

worksheets to more interactive exercises like discussion of current events, debates, role-playing,

and writing letters to elected officials. They conclude that a wider variety of instructional meth-

ods increases political efficacy among students from disadvantaged backgrounds (still more evi-

dence for the compensation effect), while decreasing their factual knowledge. Although the

explanation for the diminished knowledge is not clear, Gainous and Martens attribute it to stu-

dents becoming “distracted or overwhelmed by a proliferation of teaching techniques” (2012,

p. 247). Similarly, Kawashimi-Ginsberg and Levine (2014a) measure the impact of a variety of

civic education techniques, including classroom discussion of political issues, researching current

affairs, and participating in community projects. Eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds who recalled

experiencing more of these techniques were more likely to vote and to be informed voters. Like

Gainous and Martens, they do not break out each pedagogical method individually, leaving

6 D. CAMPBELL

open whether some methods are more effective than others—suggesting questions to be

answered by future research.

There have also been studies of specific curricula, including programs like We The People

(Owen, 2015), Student Voices (Feldman, Pasek, Romer, & Jamieson, 2007; Pasek, Feldman,

Romer, & Jamieson, 2008), and Kids Voting, which generally find positive effects on a variety of

civic outcomes. In addition to positive outcomes for children, research into Kids Voting also finds

evidence that this program leads to greater “civic competence” among parents—increased atten-

tion to the news, greater political knowledge, and more fully formed opinions on political issues—

suggesting a trickle-up effect for effective civics instruction (McDevitt & Chaffee, 2002; McDevitt

& Kiousis, 2004). Such trickle-up effects are a particularly compelling avenue to study, as other

evidence has shown that when young people vote, their parents follow (Dahlgaard, 2018). It stands

to reason, then, that civic interventions that spur greater political activity among youth will have a

spillover effect, boosting the political engagement of their parents and perhaps others within their

familial and social networks as well.

The most compelling studies of classroom instruction are randomized controlled trials, which

provide the most rigorous tests of causation. These studies build on the foundation of observa-

tional studies, which provide many potential questions to test through experimentation. For

example, Green et al.’s(2011) exemplary but all too rare study of a randomized intervention

underscores what can be learned from rigorous attention to causation. They found that the intro-

duction of a civics curriculum focused on civil liberties increased knowledge regarding those liber-

ties but did not change the participating students’ attitudes—an important finding that warrants

replication. Is it generally the case that civic education curricula affect knowledge but not atti-

tudes? If this turns out to be a generalizable conclusion, it should give civic educators pause. Is it

enough to boost what students know without changing what they think?

A new study in Quebec likewise shows the potential of what can be learned from the random-

ized introduction of a new civics curriculum in the elementary years (in this case, grades 5 and 6;

Maheo, 2018). While this study is still preliminary (and to date unpublished), thus far the evi-

dence shows that the civics curriculum, accompanied by a card game the children took home to

play with their parents, increased the participating students’ civic knowledge. In addition, there

was evidence of a trickle-up effect, as parents also became more informed and more likely to

engage in political discussion with their children. Another intriguing example of a randomized

intervention with elementary-aged children is a recent study by Holbein (2017). He finds that a

North Carolina program that taught at-risk elementary school children psychosocial (i.e., noncog-

nitive) skills such as grit, delayed gratification, and social skills has a downstream effect on voter

turnout. Note that not only are these studies notable for employing randomized interventions, but

they also focus on preadolescents, when most of the civic education literature centers on adoles-

cents. More research is needed on how education prior to middle and high school affects young

people’s civic development.

Condon (2015) provides a model for how observational data can inform an experimental

design. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, she builds on research into civic skills to

show that developing verbal aptitude in adolescence leads to greater civic participation in early

adulthood. In a complementary study, Condon uses an experiment to demonstrate that the prac-

tice of verbal skills fosters greater political engagement (2012). Specifically, she randomly assigned

adolescents to one of two exercises that required them to write an email either to the governor or

a university professor about a policy-related topic and found that, when compared to a control

group, students given the assignment became more confident in their ability to express their views

to public officials (although the effect for writing to a politician was slightly greater).

These studies all demonstrate the potential for studies that pay careful attention to causal

mechanisms. For young scholars embarking on research into civic education, my advice is that

the most fruitful line of research is the introduction of randomized variation in both content and

methods of instruction. This is the next frontier in the study of civics.

PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 7

Extracurricular activities

Civic education is not limited to classroom instruction, as there are other ways that schools can

serve to educate young people about, and prepare them for, democratic participation. Numerous

studies have found that youth who participate in nearly all extracurricular activities—with sports

being a notable exception—grow into adults who engage in civic participation. The long-term

“civic boost” from such activity is greatest among adolescents who participate in groups that have

an explicitly civic component. For example, McFarland and Thomas (2006) analyze the National

Educational Longitudinal Study and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

and conclude:

membership experiences in politically salient youth organizations (e.g., service organizations, student council,

drama clubs, musical groups, and religious organizations) have modest, significant, additive, positive effects

on adult political participation, and net of indirect and direct effects of social background characteristics.

(McFarland & Thomas, 2006, p. 418).

This study is representative of the literature, as the essential finding that extracurricular activity

in adolescence predicts various forms of civic and political participation in adulthood is affirmed

in multiple studies (Beck & Jennings, 1982; Glanville, 1999; Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Plutzer, 2002;

Smith, 1999; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995).

The data are clear that there is a sharp socioeconomic divide in participation in extracurricu-

lars, with such activity more prevalent among youth from more educated families. As detailed by

Kawashimi-Ginsberg (2014), there are a variety of reasons for this disparity, including the fact

that extracurricular activities often require out-of-pocket expenses beyond the reach of many

working-class homes. In addition, many working-class teens live in neighborhoods with fewer

resources to support extracurricular activities, while their parents do not (often because they can-

not) prioritize structured activities for their children (Lareau, 2011). Regardless of the underlying

causes, the empirical fact remains that extracurricular activities are a quintessential example of the

“Matthew effect”—youth who are already socially advantaged are more likely to participate, further

compounding the class gap in civic participation.

Furthermore, this class gap is a relatively new

development. As recently as the early 1990s, extracurricular participation was not so sharply dif-

ferentiated by social class, likely a reflection that many high–socioeconomic status teens pursue

extracurricular activities to burnish their college applications (Putnam, 2015). Related to extracur-

ricular activity is adolescents’ volunteering which, like volunteerism among adults, may or may

not be organized through a group or association. According to the annual Monitoring the Future

study, a massive, nationally representative survey of high school students, volunteering is more

common among teens now than in the 1980s. This increase is in sharp contrast to other forms of

extracurricular activity, which have declined over the same period (Galston, 2001). Like extracur-

ricular activity more broadly, the rise in volunteerism is driven almost entirely by high–socioeco-

nomic status students. At least some of this increase is presumably to enhance their chances of

college admission (Kawashimi-Ginsberg, 2014). To date, the literature is silent on whether the

effects of community service on civic participation depend on the motivation for the service. It

could be that instrumentally motivated voluntarism (e.g., for college applications) inspires altruis-

tic behavior, engenders cynicism, or has no long-term effect at all—a research question waiting to

be answered.

Participation in extracurricular activities is partly a matter of supply (opportunities made avail-

able) and partly driven by demand (the individual student’s own interests). Both lend themselves

to further study. With the existing evidence, one cannot rule out the possibility that people who

are naturally, perhaps even genetically (Fowler, Baker, & Dawes, 2008; Fowler & Dawes, 2008),

inclined toward civic participation as adults are drawn to extracurricular activity as adolescents.

Note their expansive definition of “politically salient” organizations, as they include drama, religious, and musical groups.

Named for the biblical verse that “For whoever has will be given more” (Matthew 25:29; different translations render the

verse slightly differently).

8 D. CAMPBELL

The fact that the biggest effects on adults’ participation are found for membership in groups with

political salience (broadly defined) once again leaves the causal question ambiguous. Do such

groups kindle an interest in civic activity that is manifested later in life? Or do people who partici-

pate in such groups already have a civic predisposition? The literature awaits a study that convin-

cingly overcomes the problem of self-selection into extracurricular activity, either through

randomization or, more likely, a natural experiment or some other exogenous instrument to pre-

dict extracurricular participation. If well-designed, such a study could also answer the question of

whether the compensation effect applies to extracurricular activity. While, descriptively, there is

an upper-class skew in extracurricular activity, the possibility nonetheless remains that any causal

effect for extracurriculars is greater for students who, because of their low socioeconomic status,

are otherwise less likely to be civically engaged.

Service learning

A number of teens also participate in service learning, which combines elements of both class-

room learning and extracurricular activity. Like an extracurricular, it takes place outside of the

classroom. But it is not actually “extra,” as it consists of service work done under the auspices of

a class or, in some schools, as a graduation requirement. There are many studies of service learn-

ing, but most of them are based on observational data, leading to the same questions about caus-

ation as studies of extracurricular activity (Billig, Root, & Jesse, 2005; Morgan & Streb, 2001;

Niemi, Hepburn, & Chapman, 2000; Schmidt, Shumow, & Kackar, 2007). One notable exception

is a study by Metz and Youniss (2005), who were able to test the effects of introducing a service

requirement for graduation in one high school. By collecting data from cohorts of students who

were and were not subject to the new requirement, they can make a strong causal claim, as there

is no reason to think that students were either enrolling in or dropping out of this school because

of the new service requirement (an excellent example of research that exploits naturally occurring

exogenous variation). They find that among students who were not involved in community service

of their own volition, the service requirement led to an increase in their intention to participate in

a variety of political and civic activities, including boycotting, participating in a demonstration,

working on a campaign, volunteering in their community, and joining civic organizations. They

also became more likely to discuss politics, to say that they understand political issues, and to

think that teenagers should pay attention to political matters. On the other hand, although this

analysis of students in one high school suggests positive civic effects for required community ser-

vice, at least one study suggests the opposite. Using a difference-in-difference design and data

from the annual Monitoring the Future survey, Helms (2013) finds that the mandatory commu-

nity service requirement for high school graduation in the state of Maryland has actually led to a

decline in self-reported volunteerism. Rather than giving them a taste for more service, it seemed

to sate their appetite.

None of these service learning studies is definitive. In particular, no study of service learning

has examined its long-term consequences with an individual-level longitudinal study. High on the

agenda of future civic education research should be studies of whether service learning in adoles-

cence, whether mandatory or voluntary, enhances or dampens civic and political engagement

in adulthood.

School ethos

Studies of classroom instruction, extracurriculars, and service learning each focus on individual

components of the civic education provided by a student’s experience in school. Other research

has focused on schools as immersive institutions, examining whether they can also provide an

education in civics through their culture or ethos. Admittedly, “ethos” is a nebulous term, but it

generally refers to the values reinforced within the school, either implicitly or explicitly.

PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 9

The importance of the school ethos is consistent with the social capital literature, which suggests

that people adopt the social norms within their environment (Coleman, 1988, 1990; Coleman &

Hoffer, 1987; Putnam, 2001). For example, Bruch and Soss (2018) find that, ceteris paribus, adoles-

cents who experience punitive school policies and believe they are treated unfairly by their teach-

ers are less likely to turn out to vote and have a lower degree of trust in government in early

adulthood. These experiences are more common among minority students, thus contributing to

lower political engagement among students of color. “[S]chools appear to operate as institutional

mechanisms that convert social hierarchies into predictable patterns of political inequality and

civic marginalization” (2018, p. 50).

Other aspects of a school’s ethos can also foster greater civic engagement. For example,

Campbell (2006) finds that attending a high school with a richer civic ethos—measured by the

percentage of students who endorse voting as essential for being a good citizen—correlates with a

higher rate of both voting and community volunteering 15 years after graduation, even when con-

trolling for the individual’s proclivity toward civic participation. In a more localized study of high

school students in the Baltimore–Washington area, Gimpel, Schuknecht, and Lay (2003) also con-

clude that the school ethos matters; adolescents who felt that their school’s policies were fair

scored higher in political knowledge, efficacy, and discussion of political matters.

Similarly,

Kahne and Sporte (2008) draw on data from Chicago City Schools and find that school ethos—

including whether students feel a sense of belonging to the school—has a positive effect on

“commitment to civic participation,” which they operationalize as a five-item index measuring the

youth’s sense of civic responsibility. The index includes the adolescents’ self-perception of whether

they have good ideas to solve community problems and whether they envision themselves working

to improve their community in the near future.

The innovation found within charter schools presents a compelling opportunity to study how a

school’s ethos can effect young people’s civic involvement, as many charter schools explicitly

define their mission as promoting good citizenship (Seider, 2012). One of the few studies of the

impact of charter schools on civic outcomes uses propensity score matching to compare students

who are enrolled in Washington, DC–area charter schools to those in traditional public schools.

In their analysis, Buckley and Schneider (2007) find that students enrolled in charters are more

likely to volunteer in their community, participate in a debate or discussion, and speak at a com-

munity meeting. However, although methodologically sound, matching is still no substitute for

true random assignment, the proverbial gold standard for determining causation.

Because many charter schools are oversubscribed and thus rely on admissions by lottery, they

are essentially experiments “in the wild” waiting to be analyzed. As an example of leveraging

randomized admissions for causal inference, Gill et al. (2018) have studied the network of

Democracy Prep charter schools in New York City. Students are admitted to Democracy Prep

schools through a lottery, enabling a randomized controlled trial. As their name suggests,

Democracy Prep schools explicitly encourage civic and political engagement. A former Democracy

Prep teacher describes the schools’ civic emphasis this way:

Nearly every fall, students as young as kindergartners can be seen on the streets of Harlem registering

voters; they are unmistakable in their distinctive bright yellow T-shirts with the slogan “I can’t vote, but you

can!” High school seniors work all year on capstone “Change the World” projects wherein they research a

social problem of interest to them and then plan and execute some manner of public response—a

fundraising drive, a protest, an awareness campaign, etc. Students routinely offer testimony to

representatives at all levels of government. Food drives, volunteerism, and “service learning” are encouraged.

Passing the U.S. Citizenship Test is a graduation requirement (Pondiscio, 2018).

In other words, Democracy Prep schools have a strong civic ethos. Results show that alumni of

Democracy Prep schools have a noticeably higher rate of voter turnout than the control group

This study also includes a different perspective on the compensation effect. Gimpel et al. (2003) examine how the

community context (specifically, the level of political competition) can compensate for less effective civic education

at school.

10 D. CAMPBELL

(i.e., students who were not selected for admission)—a16–percentage point increase in voter

registration and a 12-point increase in voter turnout.

Given Democracy Prep’s explicit focus on

civic engagement, these results are probably the upper bound for a school’s effect. Further

research should be directed toward understanding whether these effects are driven by a specific,

replicable component of Democracy Prep’s culture and whether it is scalable to other schools—

whether charter, traditional public, or even private.

Alongside research into charter schools, private schools also offer the opportunity to study

schools’ distinctive ethos. However, in contrast to these studies of charter schools (which are pub-

lic), past research into the civic outcomes of public versus private schools has been mixed. The

bulk of the evidence suggests that simply identifying schools as public or private is not all that

informative for the purposes of measuring civic outcomes and that a more fruitful line of inquiry

is studying distinctions within the public and private sectors (Carlson, Chingos, & Campbell,

2017; Dill, 2009; Fleming, Mitchell, & McNally, 2014). Given that many private schools, especially

those with a religious character, seek to create a distinctive culture, much could be learned from a

rigorous study of different approaches to civic education in both the public and private sectors.

The complementarity among all these studies of school ethos suggests a rich vein of future

research. What are the long-term civic consequences of how disciplinary authority is exercised

within schools? How can a civic-oriented ethos be promoted within a school? Can schools with

strong internal social capital compensate for a dearth of social capital in students’ communities?

Public policy

One reason for the interest in civic education in schools among social scientists is that education

is subject to public policy to a much greater extent than other levers to enhance and improve civic

engagement. For example, Holbein’s(2017) study of soft skills provides an example of a policy

that had a long-term effect on voter turnout, notwithstanding that a civic outcome was incidental

to the primary objective of the intervention. Are there effective policy levers focused specifically

on civics?

One potential way to gain leverage on the question of whether policy matters is the sheer var-

iety in civics requirements across the states. In light of this variety, there might be state-level poli-

cies that have a measurable effect on young people’s civic outcomes. On the other hand, the low

salience of civics as a subject argues against finding that policies matter much, as it could be that

the variation is too modest to have any effect. Indeed, both Carlson (2012) and Kawashimi-

Ginsberg and Levine (2014b) conclude that state-level policies have no effects on civic outcomes.

More recently, though, Campbell and Niemi (2016) have taken a closer look at states’ civic edu-

cation requirements and found evidence of the compensation effect. Specifically, they report that

when states introduce civics assessments as a high school graduation requirement, it leads to

higher NAEP Civics scores for Latino students. Furthermore, they draw on data from 18- to 24-

year-olds to show that this heightened level of political knowledge endures following high school.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, having graduated high school in a state with a “high-stakes” civics

assessment results in higher political knowledge for all Latinos, first- and second-generation immi-

grants, and—most of all—Latino immigrants. Although the implementation of these exams was

not random, there is no obvious pattern to those states that did so, bolstering the case for caus-

ation. Indeed, the low salience of civics as a subject assuages concern over selection, as it seems

inconceivable that parents are selecting states on the basis of their civic education requirements.

Nor is it the case that effective civics education is merely a proxy for high test scores across the

board, as the analysis controls for state-level NAEP scores in math and reading. Of interest, like

the civil liberties curriculum studied by Green et al. (2011), this study also finds an effect limited

As of this writing, the analysis of Democracy Prep is in a report from the policy research firm Mathematica and has yet to be

formally peer-reviewed.

PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 11

to knowledge, as the introduction of an assessment in civics does not have an effect on attitudes

or even participation.

Why would introducing an exam in civics lead to greater knowledge of government and polit-

ics? Campbell and Niemi (2016) hypothesize that a meaningful civics assessment incentivizes stu-

dents, teachers, and administrators to put greater emphasis on civics. Why would introducing

such an exam matter most for Latinos? Campbell and Niemi’s explanation for their results draws

on the seminal 1968 study by Langton and Jennings. Recall that Langton and Jennings (1968)

found that civics classes had an impact on African Americans and thus compensated for a relative

lack of political socialization in the home. Today, African Americans have high rates of political

participation, while Latinos—and, especially, immigrants—do not. Campbell and Niemi’s study is

complemented by an in-depth study of what immigrant students learn about civics, both from the

formal and informal curriculum, by Callahan and Muller (2013). These studies, however, only

scratch the surface of what can be learned about the civic education of immigrants to the United

States and their children—an especially promising area for future research.

Conclusion

What do social scientists know about civic education? Hopefully this article has convinced you

that they do indeed know more than they think they do. But there is far more yet to be learned.

As scholars across disciplines consider further study into civic education, I close with a set of

recommendations.

First, and most important, measures of civic outcomes should be routinely added to studies of

educational interventions. Holbein’s(2017) study of soft skills is an excellent example of how even

interventions that seem far removed from civics can nonetheless foster greater civic engagement.

His study relied on matching study participants to voter records, which inevitably means inaccur-

ate matches and lost data. It would be even more informative if civic outcomes were included in

the evaluation instruments native to the study.

Second, studies of civic education should include—and perhaps even focus on—the compensa-

tion effect. Theoretically, there are reasons to expect civic education to have the largest effects on

youth who are socially disadvantaged and/or exposed to the least political socialization in the

home. Empirically, more and more evidence has accumulated in favor of civic education as com-

pensation. Normatively, it is important to know how schools serve to level the existing biases in

political participation so that best practices can be widely adopted.

Third, wherever possible, civic interventions should test for “trickle-up” effects—young people

having an effect on their parents and perhaps other family members and friends as well.

Fourth, researchers should be encouraged to study a variety of schools in both the public and

private sectors. In particular, charter schools represent a rich opportunity to study variation in

approaches to civic education, as well as differences in school ethos. The fact that many charter

schools use lotteries for admission opens the possibility of exploiting random assignment, thus

strengthening any causal claims. Similarly, scholars could profitably learn from comparisons of

public and private schools, particularly variation within the private sector.

Fifth, scholars should look beyond the conventional forms of civic education, including those

discussed in this article, and consider other ways that schools provide preparation for active citi-

zenship in a democratic society. Examples might include the use of schools as polling places, voter

registration drives held in the schools, and school visits by elected officials. Likewise, scholars

could examine ways that school-based civic education efforts interact with the political environ-

ment. Can effective civic education counteract policies that make it more difficult for young peo-

ple to vote? How is civic education affected by school shootings, including the security

precautions that have become commonplace (active shooter drills, closed campuses, etc.)?

Sixth, whatever the specific research question, careful attention should be paid to causal path-

ways. Ideally, this would include randomized interventions. When randomization proves

12 D. CAMPBELL

impossible, be imaginative—take advantage of exogenous variation where it occurs. Likewise,

more attention needs to be paid to longitudinal effects. It is one thing for civic education in sec-

ondary school to have an effect while students are enrolled in school; it is quite another to show

that those effects endure into adulthood. The civic education literature will not advance merely

with more observational studies using cross-sectional data that are limited to measuring short-

term effects.

Effective civic education should always be a priority, but it has become especially urgent in

light of the evidence that today’s young people are skeptical of democracy’s promise (cf.

Westheimer in this volume). Unfortunately, civics is typically given lip service by policy makers

but then shunted aside in favor of reading, math, and science. Of course, these other subjects

are important too, not least because they contribute to an informed electorate, but it is equally

important to understand what works in civic education specifically. This task is too important

to leave to one scholarly discipline. It will take many scholars approaching the question from

different angles, wrangling with one another about methods, theory, and interpretation. It is

only from that process of research, review, and replication that consensus on best practices will

emerge. The good news is that the existing body of research provides a healthy “starter culture.”

I look forward to a similar review article written, say, 10 years from now, detailing the many

ways that scholars across the disciplines have significantly advanced both the study and practice

of civic education.

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