CMEI Colloquium
Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education
October 3, 2013
There is widespread concern that our national political system is often dysfunctional. Many youth report being turned off by the conflictual and seemingly ineffectual nature of the political process and express limited interest in elections and in the traditional political debates engaged in by politicians, interest groups, and elites. It is also clear that the practice of politics has changed significantly in the digital age—due in part to expanding opportunities for participatory politics. Professor Joseph Kahne argued that a redesign of civic education is required. Decades old visions of both traditional and progressive civic education, while valuable, require more than a tweak. His argument and proposals are based on analysis of a nationally representative survey of youth political engagement and on qualitative case studies conducted by scholars who are part of the MacArthur Foundation Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network.
Speaker Biography:
Professor Joe Kahne studies the ways school practices and youth engagement with digital media influence the quality and equality of youth civic and political engagement. Currently, drawing on a nationally representative panel survey of youth, he is studying the impact of civic media literacy learning opportunities and the degree to which they are equitably distributed. Together with colleagues, he is also working with district leaders to institutionalize district-wide commitments to civic education in Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and, soon, Riverside. He is also studying these reform efforts and their impact. Joe Kahne sits on the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and is an advisor to many civically oriented school reform efforts.
