Improving Textbooks as a Way to Foster Civic Understanding and Engagement

Efforts to improve civic education, such as the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, face a conundrum. On the one hand, students report that they are more likely to learn about democracy and citizenship through reading textbooks than through any other activity. Indeed, according to the National Education Association, reading is the gateway to learning in all content areas. Estimates
show that textbooks determine 75-90 percent of instructional content and activities in schools across the nation. On the other hand, reviews of textbook materials repeatedly find them to be turgid, poorly organized, and uninteresting. These are features of writing that are unlikely to enhance learning or motivation. Compounding the problem, 69 percent of eighth graders scored below Proficient on the
2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading. They failed to demonstrate a level of literacy necessary to comprehend and learn from reading challenging subject matter. Poorly designed
textbook materials would be particularly ineffective for the many students lacking strong literacy skills. In the ideal world, all students would be reading and learning from textbooks and other text
materials that are comprehensible, concerned with important civic issues, and encourage students to participate in civic activities. In short, improving textbooks might help to solve the conundrum.

In this paper the authors describe a recent study in which tenth graders who had parent permission were randomly assigned to read one of three types of passages about direct and representative democracy. After reading, all students responded to the same tasks to measure their understanding and their motivation to engage in civic-related
activities. Students came from regular classes in two middle class high schools, one from a West Coast state and the other from a state in the Mid-Atlantic region. The authors chose to collect data on two sides of the country, believing that often, research conducted in one location has been generalized too widely. (authors)