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Abstract
Civic Voices: An International Democracy Memory Bank Project is building an inspirational and educational tool for transmitting the stories of the world's great democratic struggles from one generation of citizens to the next. It is a partnership between teachers’ unions and other partners in eight countries: Colombia, Georgia, Mongolia, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa and the U.S. Teachers in all eight countries have begun working with students to conduct and record oral histories from activists in iconic social movements. These personal narratives are being submitted to an online memory bank housed on the project Web site (www.civicvoices.org), making them available for comparative and historical study by teachers, students, and researchers worldwide. In addition to producing a resource for future historians, the project strives to inspire students to greater civic engagement and political activism.
Notes
1 Civic Voices is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education under the Education for Democracy Act and administrated by the AFT Educational Foundation.
2 AFT, “Education for Democracy: Statement of Principles,” 1987.
3 Freedom House, www.democracy.org.
4 Freedom House, Annual Global Survey, 2010.
5 A new wave of comparative historical scholarship on the twentieth-century rise of fascism, Nazism, and communism has shown that electoral majorities cast in free and fair elections voted down such parties time and time again. See for example, Nancy Bermeo, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
6 Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (Toronto: Penguin, 2008); Jill Lepore, The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
7 Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 197.
8 AFT, “Education for Democracy.”
9 See Robert J. Marzano, What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003), 80, 82, 83.
10 Kermit L. Hall, “The Power of Comparison in Teaching Civic Literacy,” Speech to Civic Mosaic Institute in Washington, DC, July 10, 2006.
11 Quoted in Civic Voices: An International Democracy Memory Bank Project Teacher's Guide, 10, http://www.aft.org/pdfs/international/civicvoicesteachguide1109.pdf (accessed January 13, 2011).
12 Ritchie, Doing Oral History, 198–9.
13 Russell J. Dalton, “Citizenship Norms and Political Participation in America: The Good News Is … the Bad News Is Wrong,” Occasional Paper Series, Center for Democracy and Civil Society, Washington, DC, October 2006, http://www.civicvoices.org/Docs/DaltonOccasionalPaper.pdf (accessed January 13, 2011).
14 See for example, Sabrina Oesterle, Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, and Jeylan T. Mortimer, “Voluntarism during the Transition to Adulthood: A Life Course Perspective,” Social Forces 82 (2004): 1123–49.
15 See The Civic Mission of Schools, A Report from Carnegie Corporation of New York City and CIRCLE (2003); Judith Torney-Purta et al., Citizenship and Education in Twenty-eight Countries: Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen (Amsterdam: IAEEA, 2001).
16 Civic Mission of Schools, A Report from Carnegie Corporation, 6.
17 Joseph E. Kahne and Susan E. Sporte, “Developing Citizens: The Impact of Civic Learning Opportunities on Students' Commitment to Civic Participation,” American Educational Research Journal 45 (September 2008): 738–66.
18 Ibid.
19 Interview of Salman Ahmad conducted by Forest Hills High School in Queens, New York, December 7, 2009, http://www.civicvoices.org/UserFiles/Salman%20Ahmad.pdf.
20 Anonymous student response gathered by Marina Grant at Forest Hills High School.
21 Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Abby Mills
Abby Mills is an associate in the International Affairs Department of the American Federation of Teachers. There, she works with teachers and civic education specialists to develop internationally themed projects and classroom materials focused around democracy and human rights
Stephen Schechter
Stephen Schechter is Professor of Political Science in the Department of History, Law, and Government, at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, where he also serves as Professor and former Director of the M. A. T. Social Studies Program, and Director of the Council for Citizenship Education
Shannon Lederer
Shannon Lederer is an assistant director in the International Affairs Department of the American Federation of Teachers. She has 15 years experience administering international civic education exchange programs and has helped to design and implement training programs for teachers and trade unionists in many parts of the world
Robert Naeher
Robert Naeher is chair of the history and social sciences department and teaches at Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. He holds a BA from The King's College, an MA from Trinity College, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut