Combatting Declining Civic Participation Rates by Educating North Carolina Students to be Informed and Active Citizens (2015)

Undergraduate: Marielle DeJong

Faculty Advisor: Patrick Akos
Department: American Studies

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This project seeks to outline a potential supplementary curriculum for civics classes in North Carolina public high schools. Nationwide, civic participation rates such as voting are declining. Students often exit high school lacking the skills necessary to navigate procedures of local, state, and federal systems of government. Some areas of difficulty include financial literacy, voter registration, and the technicalities of the legal system. Providing students with high quality civics education generates citizenship agency¿¿¿effectively making civics education a tool of combatting social inequalities. This project offers a framework for a new course that supplements already existing civics classes in North Carolina public schools. It takes the form of a required elective that emphasizes learning concrete skills. I drew on existing civics curriculums and studies on the effectiveness of civics teaching methods, with a special focus on curriculums that emphasize involving community members.