Rebecca Jacobsen

Today’s youth increasingly are being expected to engage in civil deliberation in classrooms while simultaneously living in a society with a high level of political incivility. However, teaching students to argue — particularly in oral form — is enormously complex and challenging work. In this article, the authors report on a study of four high school social studies classrooms in which teachers facilitated argumentation via deliberations on immigration policy. Based on their research, they provide recommendations related to argumentation, deliberation, and the promotion of civility in classrooms.

This mixed-methods study analyzed adolescents’ evaluation of the trustworthiness of different kinds of evidence and their reasons for why they trusted (or did not trust) them. Specifically, we analyzed adolescents’ rankings of seven kinds of evidence in the abstract and in the context of a settled historical event (school desegregation) and whether differences existed between their rankings. We explored the reasons adolescents provided for trusting or not trusting sources and whether differences existed between these reasons in the abstract and in context. We also explored whether rankings differed across sociocultural identities. We found that, on average, adolescents’ rankings, as well as their reasoning, differed when the evidence was presented in the abstract versus in the context of school desegregation. We also found that emotion and personal relationship with the topic are compelling factors in determining students’ trust in sources—a finding that has previously been overlooked in the scholarship. This study provides implications for K–12 social studies education, teacher education, and civic identity and citizenship studies.

In this age of real and fake news, students need to be able to assess the trustworthiness of evidence. The authors’ current research examines students’ use of evidence in secondary social studies classrooms as students deliberate contemporary public policy issues. The authors found that students shifted their evaluations of the trustworthiness of evidence depending on whether they were making these assessments in the abstract or in the context of a specific issue. In the abstract, evidence like statistical data ranked high, but when students considered a policy issue, they gave greater weight to anecdote and personal experience. The authors offer several recommendations for teaching good evidence use.

Whereas much has been written about the role of resources and motivation for activating adolescents to become engaged citizens, less work considers the role that recruitment within schools might play in shaping youth civic engagement patterns. Drawing on interviews with over 100 high school students and over 40 school officials, our research illuminates the critical role that school-based recruitment plays in fostering youth civic engagement. We find that while a majority of the students we interviewed are actively involved in their local community, a sizable portion of students remain unengaged and that a lack of recruitment from school officials is one important factor explaining this phenomenon. We also find that teachers, especially social studies teachers, can play a key role in recruiting and motivating students. However, teachers tend to act as “rational prospectors” who selectively recruit certain subsets of students (i.e., advanced students)—something that likely contributes to later inequality in participation.

In recent years, Teach for America (TFA) has invested in developing corps members as leaders. Although TFA asks corps members for a two-year commitment, TFA celebrates the achievements of alumni who have gone on to careers in politics, public policy, and advocacy. Thus, many community leaders see the arrival of TFA corps members as having a greater impact than just inside the classroom. While expectations for corps members are often high both from TFA and from the communities they serve, we seek to understand whether and how corps members become actively engaged in the broader political life of their placement city. Do corps members find the city fertile with opportunities to solve problems and engage in civic and political life? Or will these corps members leave their placements, viewing the political and educational challenges as intractable due to larger city politics? Using data from a panel study of 2012 corps members in four mid-sized city TFA placement sites, this study examines how attitudes towards and engagement with local politics shift as a result corps members’ experiences. Our research indicates that commitments to local politics shift significantly. While some corps members report an increased commitment to local politics, a sizable group actually becomes less enthusiastic and involved. These shifts appear to be related to the perceived openness of the local political arena to newcomers, one’s teaching placement and the local actions of TFA spin-off organization Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE).

Over the past decade, policymakers have expanded the use of performance management in public education in the United States. Education researchers have focused heavily on the ways these practices and policies shape teaching and learning, but have given much less attention to other expected outcomes of performance management. This article explores two specific areas where more research is needed: whether performance management improves public satisfaction and trust in public education, and whether it improves public oversight of education. We provide background on relevant educational issues and context for the study of performance management in education scholarship. Our goal is to draw additional researchers into this important line of inquiry.

This article describes the origins and goals for this special double issue of Educational Policy, which also represents the 2013 Politics of Education Association Yearbook. We provide an overview of each of the articles that comprise this issue and discuss key themes concerning the new politics of accountability that emerge when we consider the articles collectively. These themes include (a) accountability policy has expanded the number and diversity of political actors; (b) accountability policy has contributed to shifts in traditional alliances; (c) political actors are using traditional and new strategies to influence and respond to accountability policy; (d) accountability policy has altered institutional structures and norms, shifting the distribution of power and resources; (e) accountability policy creates more accountability policy; and (f) the focus on performance- or test-based based accountability has contributed to a decline in democratic accountability.

Until recently, educational governance was left primarily in the hands of locally controlled school boards. In the 1980s, however, states began to reassert their influence in education policymaking. More recently, the federal government has expanded its role in education through programs like No Child Left Behind. But, as state and federal policymakers continue to increase their involvement in education policy, does the public support such shifts? By examining public opinion from the 1970s to 2010, we find that, unlike some policy advocates who see local control of education as obsolete, the public often expresses strong support for local control. Additionally, the public recognizes that the state and federal government can play an important role in education. We find increased support for state and federal involvement when issues of equity are invoked in question wording.