Civics education continues to gain national importance, especially in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and with recent debates about the teaching of history that addresses the legacy of racism and discrimination in the United States. Despite the increasing interest in strengthening civics education, states continue to differ in…

Building on the literature of student leadership development, Natalie Sew, Adrianne Billingham Bock, and Danielle Allen share an approach to civic education: Deeper Civic Learning. This approach offers students the opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills, and key civic dispositions needed to engage in their communities and develop their…

This article argues that current approaches to civic learning tend to normalize Whiteness. It describes how a team in Massachusetts developed a framework for civic learning through a lens of racial equity and provided professional development opportunities based on this framework. Civic learning for a multiracial democracy cannot be done in a…

In this paper, we discuss the design and development of an eBook titled "Building Democracy for All: Interactive Explorations of Government and Civic Life," which serves as an open educational resource for the eighth-grade Massachusetts social studies curriculum standards. This design case offers an example of an interactive,…

Today's myriad local and global challenges highlight the need for STEM professionals who have discipline-specific competencies as well as an understanding of social issues and how to get things done in our democracy. In addition, there has never been a greater need for scientific, mathematical, and technological literacy for all citizens. This…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many youth felt disconnected from on-the-ground engagement with their peers, their communities, and the wider society. School closures also impeded progress in some students' abilities to write, speak, and express themselves through various media. A team of interdisciplinary and intergenerational faculty and…

There is increasing urgency to broaden access to inclusive and culturally sustaining K-12 civic education. Civic education can foster young people's development of their civic identity, which can support a functioning American democracy. Civic education often includes opportunities for learners to develop civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions,…

Using a student-centered approach, Generation Citizen's (GC) action civics model helps students gain civic knowledge and skills as they work together to take action on a local issue in their community. This paper draws upon reflections from GC's decade-plus of teaching action civics at scale in middle and high schools across the United States,…

Field trips have long been a part of the elementary student experience, and through the years a great deal of research and work has been done around how field trips best support and facilitate learning. When new earth science unit was being rolled out across the Burlington (MA) Public Schools' second grades, the opportunity to shake up the…

Amid a devastating pandemic and increasing polarization, how can US colleges and universities help students bridge divides, make their voices heard, and understand their responsibilities to others in a democratic society? This article is an interview of Nancy Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts…

Drawing on data from a multi-sited study examining making and makerspace technologies' impact on early social studies education, this article explores how two 1st-grade children mobilized digital media to write (right) a personal issue of geo-civic injustice. Using speculative civic literacies and sound studies as conceptual tools to interrogate…

Serious history instruction in K-12 U.S. schools has been in decline for decades. History education in Massachusetts has, until now, fared somewhat better than in the nation at large. In 1993 the commonwealth enacted the Massachusetts Education Reform Act--a bipartisan plan to improve education--which mandated core standards and assessments in…

This Promising Practices report explores the civic learning and engagement efforts of Massachusetts' public higher education system in five areas: vision of Preparing Citizens as a core educational commitment, development of a state higher education Policy on Civic Learning, creation of civic engagement and service-learning course designations,…

There is growing international concern about the lack of civic engagement among the youth in many nations. These concerns have sparked renewed interest in the quantity and quality of civic education in public schools in the United States. The objective of this study is to determine if the concerns about civic education are about the sufficiency of…

This article tells the story of the first state in the U.S. to set the expectation that every undergraduate in public higher education would be involved in civic learning. In 2012, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education made "Preparing Citizens" one of seven key outcomes of its Vision Project for public higher education. In 2014,…