An Examination of Changes to State Civic Education Requirements, 2004–2016

Abstract

Across the country, states are considering policies that support civic learning among youth. Recent initiatives at the state level have changed graduation requirements and state assessments around high school civics. These initiatives can be grouped into three types: coursework, assessments, and accountability. The first type, coursework, refers to whether a state’s graduation requirements include a course in civics. The second, assessments, encompasses state requirements that students be assessed on civics or citizenship education. The third type, accountability, refers to whether a state’s accountability system includes state assessments in civics or citizenship education. The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to describe state policies in civics education and the variation in them among the American states, (2) to document the changes in state policies between 2004 and 2016, and (3) to help unpack the reasons behind changes to civics education policy among the American states. We find considerable variation in civics education policies across states, as well as substantial changes within states over time. Using event history analysis, we exploit the variation to examine the extent to which political, economic, and demographic factors inside a state as well as the actions of neighboring or regional states condition adoption of assessment policies. We find evidence that the proportion of Hispanic and black populations in a state are positively associated with adoption and discuss implications and areas for future research.

Notes

1 There are various theoretical mechanisms through which education is thought to work to affect political participation. Persson (2015) summarizes three such mechanisms as follows: “(a) the relationship is due to self-selection processes and education is only a proxy for pre-adult factors, (b) education actually has a causal effect on political participation primarily through the acquisition of skills and knowledge, or (c) the social status gained by relative higher education increases political participation” (p. 693). He criticizes the existing empirical work on the topic for not testing all three mechanisms simultaneously.

2 A third “national interaction” explanation is less well known but posits that state officials learn about policy ideas from other state officials with whom they interface continuously through nationwide professional networks (Gray, 1973; Glick & Hays, 1991).