Fostering Democratic and Social-Emotional Learning in Action Civics Programming: Factors That Shape Students’ Learning FromProject Soapbox

Abstract

This research examines the factors that shape high school students’ experiences with an action civics program—Project Soapbox—that fosters democratic and social-emotional learning. Drawing on pre- and postsurveys with 204 students, classroom observations, teacher interviews, student work samples, and student focus group interviews, the study illuminates how specific features of the curriculum and its implementation are linked to its promising outcomes. Our findings indicate that the curriculum’s emphases and structure, along with instructional decisions and context, play key roles in influencing student outcomes. Project Soapbox’s power lies in its alignment with many well-established civic education best practices and in its intentional linkage with key social-emotional learning practices, many of which are newly recognized as having particular civic import.

Civic engagement across adolescence and early adulthood.

“…In contrast to service-learning, action civics approaches are more oriented toward social change and building political skills, knowledge, efficacy, and capacity for action through processes of identifying and addressing structural causes of community problems . Emerging evidence suggests that these programs promote civic agency (i.e., efficacy and voice), knowledge, and skills (e.g., Andolina & Conklin, 2020). Yet action civics can be challenging to implement.…”

Sorting through citizenship: A case study on using cognitive scaffolding to unpack adolescent civic identity formation

“…While this research has moved the conversation on civics education forward, it is often theoretical and less empirical. There has been an increase in empirical research on inquiry-based approaches to civics education (e.g., action civics and youth participatory action research; Vaughn & Obenchain, 2015), but much of this research is survey driven resulting in little knowledge “about the processes by which action civics programs create their positive outcomes and the specific aspects of program implementation that may shape differential outcomes across varied contexts” (Andolina & Conklin, 2020, p. 4). Therefore, one of our goals for this project was to extend the research by studying an activity we utilized within a summer civic institute designed to scaffold participants’ understandings of the intersection of citizenship and power and the value of working in solidarity to address the root causes of community issues.…”

“…Action civics is an educational model that centers youth's voices knowledge, and expertise and invites students to be civic participants rather than simply teaching them about citizenship. During the action civics cycle, teachers and students explore the principles of collective action, youth agency, and reflection (Andolina & Conklin, 2020). We have researched Youth Act for the past seven years with a focus on how an action civics pedagogy implemented at a weeklong summer civics camp contributed to youth participants' beliefs about themselves as citizens Blevins et al, 2018;Blevins et al, 2016;LeCompte et al, 2020).…”

“…To be a productive and engaged citizen, an individual must know how to recognize problems around them and identify effective strategies for working towards material change. However, learning to do this can be difficult for students if they are not provided conceptual scaffolds and shared experiences that help them understand how to participate in civic life (Andolina & Conklin, 2020; Campbell et al, 2012; Parker, 2008). For this reason, we created, implemented, and studied an activity using Westheimer and Kahne's (2004) citizenship typology during a summer civics institute to help students conceptualize the spectrum of “good,” “engaged,” and “active citizenship.” Our goal was to provide an experience for students through which they could consider the kind of citizens they were and wished to be and better understand the relations of power that situate civic knowledge, access, and participation.…”