Disrupting Perspectives on Civic Education for Children and Youth in a Multicultural Society

In November 2016, the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) and Kappa Delta Pi (KDP) cofacilitated an Education Summit with eminent scholars to develop a shared plan of action committed to “The Multicultural Lens of Equity for ALL.” Through the leadership of H. Prentice Baptiste, former president of NAME, and Faye Snodgrass, executive director of KDP, they pooled their collective assets to challenge oppressive educational practices and establish an alliance focused on preparing and supporting critically conscious, sustainability literate, and equity-minded educators. Kappa Delta Pi, founded in 1911, advances quality education by inspiring teachers to prepare all children and youth for future challenges. Founded in 1990, NAME promotes cultural pluralism and social justice through multicultural education. The complementarity of the organizational missions included a commitment to contribute to a research literature base, and in 2017 NAME and KDP collaborated on a special issue of the Kappa Delta Pi Record, featuring contributions from multicultural educators and leaders in teacher preparation education on the topic of “Sustaining a Quality Education for All Students.”

The continuation of this partnership is reflected in this special issue of Multicultural Perspectives, which focuses on the theme of “Disrupting Perspectives on Civic Education for Children and Youth in a Multicultural Society.” In these tumultuous times, increasing polarization has drawn attention to the concept of citizenship and its role in promoting an inclusive society. Although normative frameworks of citizenship typically emphasize rights and duties granted or mediated by the nation, the intensifying political discourse has revealed the flawed assumption that all individuals are all equally positioned to engage in the public sphere. Although public schools in the United States were conceived in part to provide civic education and are uniquely positioned to strengthen civic culture, educators have faced challenges in preparing children to assume their roles as the change agents for the future.

In this special issue contributors critically examine frequently overlooked questions concerning the differential access to social, economic, and cultural resources that structurally exclude children and youth and result in an unfilled goal of civic education. The articles in this special issue disrupt traditional perspectives on citizenship by exploring research and exemplars of practice that elevate children’s agency as participatory citizens in a multicultural society and suggest strategies to empower individuals who are often marginalized. By expanding upon civic education as an emancipatory experience in which children learn to actively negotiate their identity and sense of belonging, educators may reimagine the possibilities for more viable and transformative approaches that accommodate inclusion within our pluralistic society.

Advancing the Conversation Section

In “Champions of Equity: Fostering Civic Education to Challenge Silence, Racial Inequity, and Injustice,” Amy J. Samuels, Gregory L. Samuels, and Christopher Self examine teachers’ reflective practices that promote culturally responsive teaching. Drawing from the perspectives of a focus group of educators, the authors explore proactive strategies to disrupt race-based privilege, promote racial justice, and create more inclusive classroom learning experiences.

In their article “Images, Civic Identity, and Cultural Narratives of Puerto Rico: Using Intertextual Articulation to Develop Culturally Responsive Practices,” Ilene R. Berson, Michael J. Berson, and Annette López de Méndez explore how preservice teachers’ potential for culturally responsive teaching influences their selection and application of primary sources, cultural narratives, and intertextual articulation as tools to counter narratives of colonialism and oppression that suppress the civic identity formation of young children. They describe a promising approach for teacher preparation programs to prepare educators who encounter curricular/pedagogical decision-making challenges and displace majoritarian representations of traditionally misrepresented and marginalized students.

In “Outstanding: Centering Black Kids’ Enoughness in Civic Education Research,” Ashley N. Woodson and Bettina L. Love reject deficit-based frames used to describe Black children’s civic attitudes. They advocate for a civic empowerment framework that prioritizes the capabilities, pride, and brilliance of Black children.

David Gillborn, KDP laureate and director of the Center for Research in Race and Education at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, challenges the discourse on White identity in the polarized political and educational debates on parity among ethnic groups. His essay, “We Need to Talk about White People,” highlights the threat of nationalist populism and White fragility in the enterprise of education across global contexts.

Creating Multicultural Classrooms Section

Jane Lo’s article, “The Role of Civic Debt in Democratic Education,” argues that civic debt creates systemic inequities that manifest as pervasive gaps in civic empowerment, resulting in racial and socioeconomic divides among students. Classroom instruction exacerbates civic debt when teachers avoid discussions about race and inequality and when implicit biases privilege White-centric narratives in the curriculum.

In their article “Rooted Indigenous Core Values: Culturally Appropriate Curriculum and Methods for Civic Education Reflective of Native American Culture and Learning Styles,” Jessica Helen Lopez and Kara L. Bobroff provide an overview of the Navajo (Diné) K’e model, a culturally responsive curriculum implemented by the Native American Community Academy teachers as a cornerstone of civic Indigenous education. They draw on the voices of youth to describe restorative practices grounded in the core values reflected in their students’ Native, multitribal, and multicultural identities.

Katy Swalwell and Katherina Payne, in their article “Critical Civic Education for Young Children,” present a framework for critical civic education in the early years. They share rich exemplars of implementation in early childhood contexts that highlight the capacity of young children to enact an identity as civic beings with agency to identify and solve problems.

Articles in this special issue offer a compelling array of counternarrative frameworks and instructional approaches that promote purposefully complex and critical civic engagement. We believe that they will inspire readers to reflect on the tenets of a quality education and consider their own path toward enacting education for a diverse democracy.