The University of Notre Dame will partner with the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and Harvard University to improve civics education in U.S. schools in an effort to strengthen democracy. The UCR-led Civic Engagement Research Group will receive $600,000 in grants for its Civic Impact Project to complete the research, which will measure the effectiveness of civics education curricula used in the U.S.
The research group is led by Joseph Kahne, the Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor at the UCR School of Education, and is a joint effort with David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy in Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science, and David Kidd, the chief assessment scientist for Harvard’s Democratic Knowledge Project.
The Civic Impact Project will receive $500,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and $100,000 from the Stuart Foundation.
“This project will dig deep into understanding what America’s youth do and do not know about civic education,” said Campbell, who is also the director of Notre Dame’s Democracy Initiative. “To do so, we will develop new ways of measuring what young people are learning.”
Historically, funding for both civic education and civic education research has been limited. As a result, those seeking to make decisions on civic education often lack the evidence required to productively guide policy and practice, Kahne said. This funding aims to change that. The metrics developed will clarify ways in which education can support the pursuit of a more democratic society.
“The Civic Impact Project gives us the opportunity to bring researchers from many disciplines together with those working for change in schools to create new measures and then put them to use,” Kahne said.
This work will align with the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a nonpartisan framework designed to improve K-12 civics and history education in the U.S. It was launched in 2021 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education, and was developed by more than 300 scholars, educators and practitioners from across the political spectrum.
“Many Americans are concerned about the state of civic education,” Campbell said. “But to improve it, we need to have yardsticks to know if we are making progress. This project will enable us to see what works to ensure that today’s youth are prepared to be active, engaged citizens.”
The Civic Impact Project is organizing scholars to develop research briefs and essential next steps for metric development. The briefs will be discussed and refined over the course of the project at two convenings. Building on the work completed during the grant period, the project plans to field-test the metrics in partnership with key stakeholders and districts.
Campbell, who will direct the effort alongside Kahne and Kidd, said that the grant will allow Notre Dame to host these convenings with civic education scholars.
“Many people are concerned about the state of the American republic,” Campbell said. “We see this as an opportunity to revive civic education. Our aim is to help America’s schools foster an informed, engaged citizenry.”
The Notre Dame Democracy Initiative was launched as part of the University’s strategic framework to establish Notre Dame as a global leader in the study of democracy, a convenor for conversations about and actions to preserve democracy, and a model for the formation of civically engaged citizens and public servants.
Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu