The Contentious Rise of the New Civics: Contending With Critiques of New Civics as a Leftist Enterprise

Abstract

Background/Context:

New Civics scholars and practitioners aspire to move beyond curricula focused on voter participation and knowledge of government structures and mechanisms to instead prepare youth to act upon their values in ways that lead to systemic change. Critics of New Civics argue that this approach is a form of pervasive leftist politics on campuses that seek to train youth activists with particular political agendas.

Purpose and Research Questions:

New Civics scholars must contend with conservative critiques as they envision curricula and programs to encourage greater civic action and engagement universally. Because these curricula and programs embrace nontraditional notions of civic action, they must garner some modicum of public trust to gain broad traction in schools and nonprofit organizations. Opponents of New Civics frame it as exclusively leftist, “politically correct,” and hostile to alternative views. These accusations may convince an already skeptical public that New Civics advances a particular political agenda, rather than modes of civic action and engagement in a democratic and pluralistic society. We analyze the extent to which these critiques have merit.

Research Design:

Our approach explores the curricula, programs, and social movements associated with New Civics. We contextualize these critiques within historical campus culture wars that portray the university as an echo chamber of liberal politics lacking intellectual diversity, with special attention to contemporary debates about free speech and identity on campus. Finally, we consider the extent to which a conservative New Civics practice is possible and whether New Civics needs to embrace a more inclusive ideological stance to mitigate critiques.

Findings/Results:

We discuss the possibility of scholars and practitioners transcending the culture-war framework to pursue their cardinal goal of preparing all youth to initiate and engage in action that leads to social change.

Keywords

civic education New Civics citizenship culture war democratic education

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