Research: What We Must Do
Posted in James Madison Legacy Project Expansion We the People: National Symposium on Civic Education
Diana Owen and Patrick McSweeney, Civic Education Research Lab
There are ways that research can be enhanced.
- Different types of research evidence should be integrated. Large-scale, data-driven studies like the JMLPE can be complemented by studies of classroom experience.
- Students can be brought into the research process to provide first-hand accounts of what works.
- More ways of measuring how students experience civics and what they are learning in the classroom should be developed.
- Measures of core concepts, such as civic norms and empathy, should be improved.
- More studies of preschool and elementary school civic learning should be conducted. Better ways of measuring and evaluating early civic learning outcomes should be devised.
- Innovative quantitative and qualitative methodologies should be explored.
- There is a pressing need for longitudinal studies and big-picture political socialization research.
- AI and civic learning is an emergent research frontier that deserves immediate attention.
We prepared these summaries to serve as more than just a record of the symposium. We hope they help continue the conversation. The work of civic education belongs to all of us, and moving it forward will require continued collaboration across classrooms, schools, universities, organizations, and communities. Civic education is essential to public life.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who made the symposium possible — to the teachers who shared what this work looks like in classrooms, the students who reminded us why it matters, the panelists who pushed our thinking, and the participants who engaged in deep conversation over two days. The symposium demonstrated the strength of the civic education community and the value of bringing its different parts together. Thank you for being part of that effort.
