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The youngest voters in the U.S. have historically turned out in lower numbers than any other age group. Unfortunately, analyses of the November 5 elections suggest they turned out in lower numbers than in the 2020 elections.

One reason many educators point to is that traditional civics and American government classes typically fail to engage young people in the democratic process. That is especially the case for students of color and low-income students.

However, exciting new approaches to civics education are emerging. One of them is "action civics," where students take the lead in organizing and implementing projects in their own communities as part of a civics curriculum.

In this episode our host Pedro Noguera, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, with Louis Freedberg, Interim CEO of EdSource, interview Rob Filback and Jen Crawford, founders of USC's Democracy Project, about these and other promising approaches. Also on the podcast is Robert Medrano, a project director at Teach Democracy who has taught social studies for years.

This episode of“Sparking Equity” was produced before the podcast was rebranded “Education on the Line,” with host Pedro Noguera and Louis Freedberg.

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Guests:

Rob Filback is a Professor of Clinical Education and currently serves as co-chair of the Higher Education Concentration and chair of the Master of Arts in TESOL program.
Jenifer Crawford is Professor of Clinical Education in the teacher education concentration. Crawford’s long-term research agenda centers on Equity, Racial and Social Justice in Language Education Racial Discourses Multilingual & Multiracial Parent Engagement Technology for Equity in Language Education Critical & Culturally Sustaining Multilingual Pedagogies.