Generating Dynamic Democratic Discussions: An Analysis of Teaching With U.S. Presidential Debates

Levy, Brett L. M.; Collet-Gildard, Lauren; Owenby, Thomas Clinton

doi:10.1080/00377996.2016.1266594

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Researchers in social studies education have found that examining and discussing public issues with peers can enhance engagement in those issues (e.g., Hess, 2009;Levy, 2013;Levy et al, 2017), and as the review below indicates, exploring science-related public issues can strengthen students' science content knowledge (Eastwood et al, 2013), understanding of scientific process (Brossard et al, 2005), and beliefs that science is related to their lives (Parchmann et al, 2006). Many explorations of public issues include collaborative inquiry-based learning (Levine, 2013;Newmann et al, 2016), and science coursework can productively integrate such activities.…”

Section: Enhancing Scientific Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The potential of “civic science education”: Theory, research, practice, and uncertainties

2021

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This paper explores the potential of civic science education (CSE), which includes experiences that have been intentionally designed to foster or enhance individuals’ interactions with and/or engagement in science‐related public matters. To begin, we provide a theoretically‐grounded definition of CSE, including three sub‐categories: foundational, exploratory, and purposefully active. We then explore the scholarly arguments for why enacting CSE could help to support students’ science learning and civic engagement and also strengthen civil society. Next, the paper examines current educational practices related to CSE, such as citizen science, exploring socioscientific issues, and various civic education pedagogies, detailing what researchers have learned from empirical studies of these practices. Building on this prior theory and research, we argue that CSE could motivate students both to learn science and become engaged in civic issues, with slightly different expected outcomes across the three CSE categories. We conclude by encouraging educators and researchers to explore the great potential of such practices, providing specific recommendations for curriculum development and empirical studies.

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Section: Enhancing Scientific Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The potential of “civic science education”: Theory, research, practice, and uncertainties

2021

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“…Relatedly, others have reported some success using mainstream political satire such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to stimulate interest and increase political self‐efficacy among students (Glazier, ); Glazier developed an online satirical resource repository (http://www.rebeccaglazier.net/satirical-resource-repository) for interested instructors. Levy and colleagues (, ) used a multisite case study to examine teachers' use of 2012 presidential election debate footage to facilitate discussions about contemporary political issues. Viewing and discussing these debates appeared to boost students' political interest, although the authors emphasized that certain pedagogical methods (summarized in their Dynamic Substantive Democratic Discussions framework; Levy, Collet‐Gildard, & Owenby, ) must accompany this viewing for it to be effective (Levy, Solomon, & Collet‐Gildard, ).…”

Section: Implications Stemming From Past Work and The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Levy and colleagues (, ) used a multisite case study to examine teachers' use of 2012 presidential election debate footage to facilitate discussions about contemporary political issues. Viewing and discussing these debates appeared to boost students' political interest, although the authors emphasized that certain pedagogical methods (summarized in their Dynamic Substantive Democratic Discussions framework; Levy, Collet‐Gildard, & Owenby, ) must accompany this viewing for it to be effective (Levy, Solomon, & Collet‐Gildard, ). Although additional empirical studies are needed, this emergent research suggests that innovative teaching methods can stimulate adolescents' civics learning and provide them with opportunities to apply their knowledge, as is recommended in civic education guidelines from the National Center for Learning and Civic Engagement (Guilfoile & Delander, ).…”

Section: Implications Stemming From Past Work and The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Developmental Science of Politics

Patterson

Bigler

Pahlke

et al. 2019

Monographs Society Res Child

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In this monograph, we argue for the establishment of a developmental science of politics that describes, explains, and predicts the formation and change of individuals’ political knowledge, attitudes, and behavior beginning in childhood and continuing across the life course. Reflecting our goal of contributing both theoretical conceptualizations and empirical data, we have organized the monograph into two broad sections. In the first section, we outline theoretical contributions that the study of politics may make to developmental science and provide practical reasons that empirical research in the domain of politics is important (e.g., for identifying ways to improve civics education and for encouraging higher voting rates among young adults). We also review major historical approaches to the study of political development and provide an integrative theoretical framework to ground future work. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model as an organizing scheme and emphasizing social justice issues, we describe how factors rooted in cultural contexts, families, and children themselves are likely to shape political development. In the second section of the monograph, we argue for the importance and utility of studying major political events, such as presidential elections, and introduce the major themes, rationales, and hypotheses for a study of U.S. children's views of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In addition, we apply a social‐justice lens to political thought and participation, addressing the role of gender/sex and race/ethnicity in children's political development broadly, and in their knowledge and views of the 2016 U.S. presidential election specifically. In interviews conducted within the month before and after the election, we examined two overarching categories of children's political attitudes: (a) knowledge, preferences, and expectations about the 2016 election, and (b) knowledge and attitudes concerning gender/sex and politics, particularly relevant for the 2016 election given Hillary Clinton's role as the first female major‐party candidate for the presidency. Participants were 187 children (101 girls) between 5 and 11 years of age (M = 8.42 years, SD = 1.45 years). They were recruited from schools and youth organizations in five counties in four U.S. states (Kansas, Kentucky, Texas, and Washington) with varying voting patterns (e.g., Trump voters ranged from 27% to 71% of county voters). The sample was not a nationally representative one, but was racially diverse (35 African American, 50 Latinx, 81 White, and 21 multiracial, Asian American, Middle Eastern, or Native American children). In addition to several child characteristics (e.g., age, social dominance orientation [SDO]), we assessed several family and community characteristics (e.g., child‐reported parental interest in the election and government‐reported county‐level voting patterns, respectively) hypothesized to predict outcome variables. Although our findings are shaped by the nature of our sample (e.g., our partici...

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“…Culturally relevant pedagogy is one approach educators may use to acknowledge differences and unveil the richness and value of diversity (Ladson-Billing, 1995. The fourth critical component is building a pedagogical community in the sense of nurturing a sense of trust, safety and belongingness (Feinberg, 2006;Smith, 2008;Wong et al, 2013), while encouraging students to practice peacemaking and peacebuilding dialogic mechanisms to develop their participatory and civic engagement skills (Campbell, 2008;Levy et al, 2016Levy et al, /2017.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teachers' Narratives of Pedagogical Practices: To Educate for Democratic Peace in Egypt and in Canada

Awad¹

2019

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

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Education for democratic peacebuilding citizenship includes four essential components: handling conflict, practising dialogue, recognizing diversity, and building a pedagogical community. Teachers can help one another to interpret, to learn, and to implement these pedagogical practice dimensions, in order to equip their students with democratic agency and values to participate in peacebuilding social change. This comparative case study research examines how two groups of private school teachers-four in the Greater Cairo area and three in the Greater Toronto area-voluntarily embarked on two journeys of non-formal professional learning to improve their teaching for democratic peace. The researcher developed and facilitated a six-session collaborative, reflective dialogic professional learning course for democratic peacebuilding, and studied each group of teachers' pedagogical practices. Introduction, Problem Statement and Research ObjectivesAn integral part of the peacebuilding process, during and after armed conflict, is to (re-)establish infrastructure to (re-)build healthy relationships and to nurture creative ideas and mutual understanding for social transformation (Maiese, 2003;Lambourne, 2004;Gill & Niens, 2014). Teachers are the cornerstone of schooling, who can effectively assume roles to support social change (Ginsburg & Kamat, 2009). Teachers who are transformative intellectuals view their students (and themselves) as democratic agents, question processes of knowledge production, and engage in dialogue to enhance critical knowledge building for themselves and their students (Giroux & McLaren, 1986). However, at present teachers themselves find scarce opportunities to engage in this very kind of authentic, active, dialogic

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Generating Dynamic Democratic Discussions: An Analysis of Teaching With U.S. Presidential Debates

Cited by 4 publications

References 30 publications

The potential of “civic science education”: Theory, research, practice, and uncertainties

The potential of “civic science education”: Theory, research, practice, and uncertainties

Toward a Developmental Science of Politics

Teachers' Narratives of Pedagogical Practices: To Educate for Democratic Peace in Egypt and in Canada

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