Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn

Front Cover
Yale University Press, 2005 M05 11 - 204 pages

Sound democratic decisions rely on a citizenry with at least a partial mastery of the rules and workings of democratic government. American high schools, where students learn the basics of citizenship, thus ought to play a critical role in the success of democracy. Yet studies examining the impact of high school government and civics courses on political knowledge over the past quarter-century have generally shown that these courses have little or no effect. In this important book, Richard G. Niemi and Jane Junn take a fresh look at what America's high school seniors know about government and politics and how they learn it. The authors argue convincingly that secondary school civics courses do indeed enhance students' civic knowledge.

This book is based on the most extensive assessment to date of civic knowledge among American youth--the 1988 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Civics Assessment. The authors develop and test a theoretical model to explain the cognitive process by which students learn about politics and they conclude by suggesting specific changes in the style and emphasis of civics teaching.

 

Contents

Civic Education and Students Knowledge
1
What High School Students Know and Dont Know about Civics
24
How Students Learn about Government The ExposureSelection Model
52
Exposure to Learning Civic Instruction
61
Selection and Retention
91
What Makes Students Learn
117
The Future of Civic Education
147
Design of the 1988 NAEP Civics Assessment
161
PublicRelease Questions from the 1988 NAEP Civics Assessment
164
Standard Errors for Chapters 2 4 and 5
169
Student Background Questionnaire from the 1988 NAEP Civics Assessment
173
Coding and Distribution of Variables Used in the Multivariate Analysis and Supplementary Regression Results
176
Notes
183
References
191
Index
201
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information