 Women in Kasai Oriental Province, Democratic Republic of Congo participate in a women-delivered session on civic and voter education as they prepare to take part in historic elections. Photo Credit: USAID/A. Luyoyo
Healthy democracies rely on strong civic education, which is directly linked to higher levels of political engagement. As citizens have more access to opportunities for civic engagement, the country becomes more democratic.
In a changing world, many democracies have become more reflective on ways to build civic education inside and outside of the classroom as a means of ensuring a stable and democratic future. Governance and democratic participation are increasingly both augmented and degraded by the existence of digital technologies. Online forums, news, and social media offer the potential for a wide variety of information sources and democratize participation and information creation. Digital technologies also offer new possibilities for democratic participation, campaigning and voting, and other aspects of civic and political life. However, political actors across the spectrum from democrats to authoritarians may exploit digital technologies as weapons in the fight for power, both domestically and internationally, in ways that may damage democratic institutions.
Digital technologies create opportunities to reimagine many aspects of civic education. Examples include collaborating on the creation and sharing of curricula, enabling distributed and virtual presence for teachers and students, building audio-visual educational collections for self-learning, and creating peer-to-peer networks of grassroots activists.
As digital technologies change the practice of civics, they will also change what needs to be taught in civics education. Civics curricula must examine the impact of technology on the processes of governance, from campaigning and political advertising to voting and e-governance. USAID’s new Civic Education in the Digital Age Primer explores the opportunities and challenges for civic education brought about by new technologies. It contains key research and proven practices in the field of civic education, and highlights critical elements in designing and implementing a range of civic education programming, from classroom-based to adult-focused.
This month’s DRG Learning Digest focuses on how democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) practitioners can strengthen civic education in the digital age:
- What Civic Education Is, and Why It Matters
- Civic Education in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities
- Top Five Recommendations for Strengthening Civic Education Programming
Please make use of DRG Evidence and Learning Team resources! (See text box at the end.)
What Civic Education is, and Why It Matters
The International Encyclopedia of Education defines civic education as, “broadly concerned with the development of citizenship or civic competence by conveying the unique meaning, obligation, and virtue of citizenship in a particular society or the acquisition of values, dispositions, and skills appropriate to that society.”
A number of myths about civic education are dispelled in the box below. Civic education is not limited to the classroom or formal school system, nor is it limited to programs targeted toward young people. In new and transitioning democracies, the urgent need to develop supportive political cultures and resilience against democratic backsliding has led to civic education programs targeted toward adults.
 Excerpt from USAID’s Civic Education in the Digital Age primer
Beginning in the 1990s, researchers such as Richard Niemi and Jane Junn and Torney-Purta et al. began to demonstrate the modest but significant effects of civics instruction primarily on factual political knowledge as well as detectable cross-national impact on indicators of student civic competence and skills. Civics instruction has consistently positive effects on students’ basic knowledge of democratic institutions and processes in the U.S. and other democracies ranging from Western Europe to South Africa, with some studies showing the effects enduring well past the period of exposure. There are weaker but detectable overall impacts on indicators of cognitive and psychological engagement with democratic politics, such as political interest, political efficacy, and the development of civic skills.
 Cover image from the Facebook page of Momavlis Taoba, USAID’s flagship civic education program in Georgia.
Scholars have, therefore, focused their attention on examining whether civic education can have a substantial impact on citizen political participation and engagement. A recent impact evaluation (IE) of the USAID/Georgia Momavlis Taoba civic education program showed positive outcome effects on participation in school-based politics and political discussions. Researchers have also explored how youth who are active and engaged became that way, and in turn “how schools might incorporate that knowledge to provide better quality civic education.” They have examined the more fundamental question of whether or not democracy can be taught and the role civil society can play in meaningfully increasing local-level political participation rates among citizens, and the extent to which democratic political orientations can be “engineered.”
Political scientists have long suggested that the stability and effectiveness of democratic regimes depend in part on the existence of a democratic “political culture.” Building supportive democratic political cultures is an especially urgent task—one that may be addressed through civic education programs that promote political knowledge, engagement, and support for democratic norms and values among ordinary citizens.
Civic Education in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities
Over the past three decades, digital technologies have reframed what civic education is, helping to move it outside of classrooms, beyond formal curricula, and into broader public discourse about the nature of civic participation. Digital technologies affect the design, function, and use of information systems, as well as economics and scale of access. They also shift the scope of participation beyond national boundaries to encompass global, networked societies.
Challenges Posed by Digital Technology: Inequity, Misuse, Unsustainability
While the effects of technological change on democratic practices are undeniable, the nature of those effects remains contested in everyday understanding and in academic and expert literature. Anecdotal evidence suggests that social media platforms increase polarization and populism, and that misinformation has a significant effect on democratic politics. However, systematic research on these topics is complicated by methodological challenges and a lack of access to good data. As with any emerging field, it may take time to gather enough evidence to claim settled knowledge. Nonetheless, it is clear that digital technology presents several challenges. For any technology-based intervention, it is important to match the approach to the level of knowledge, skills, and resources of the community in question.
 Excerpt from USAID’s Civic Education in the Digital Age primer
Opportunities: Access, Engagement, Scale
Accessible technology can support civic education in numerous ways, from exponential scaling of courses on educational platforms to micro-focused discussions at local levels, documentation and feedback processes, safety and security for vulnerable populations, and alternative mediums for non-literate populations and differently-abled individuals.
Key opportunities for civic education when considering digital technologies include reshaping, expanding, and coordinating digitally mediated and augmented approaches with traditional civic education interventions. Cross-sectoral programming, such as integrating online civic activism into educational programs, can support learning about different activist approaches and can have both pedagogical and participatory goals. Although there is limited evidence on the direct incorporation of digitalization elements into classroom-based civic education, a 2020 study conducted by Benjamin Bowyer and Joseph Kahne shows that:
- exposure to digital engagement learning opportunities – opportunities to learn about and practice skills for participation in online politics – is associated with increased engagement in online participatory politics;
- learning to evaluate the credibility of online content decreases online engagement but increases offline engagement; and
- teaching about offline civic engagement is positively related to both offline civic engagement and online political activity.
The digital learning space has expanded considerably over the past decades to include a range of open online educational resources that may be adopted (or adapted) for civic education purposes. These include peer learning projects such as Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), collaborative platforms for sharing knowledge within and across social networks, and structured online courses through massive open online course (MOOC) platforms.
Social media can also be leveraged to expand the reach and delivery of online civic education. Recent academic work outlined ways of recruiting individuals into online civic education interventions via advertising on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. These methods can yield many thousands of participants at a very low cost and in a relatively short period. A recent study from Tunisia found that:
Online civic education can have a considerable effect on democratic citizenship, including a significant reduction in authoritarian nostalgia and increasing intended political behavior such as electoral registration. Effects are strongest among those less engaged in the electoral process. When comparing the treatments across outcomes, we find that loss/gain-framed interventions are most effective in promoting democratic orientations.
Top Five Recommendations for Strengthening Civic Education
The changing landscape of civic engagement, along with the current global challenges facing both new and established democracies, has led to a series of recommendations for donors, implementers, teachers, and civil society organizations designing and implementing civic education programming in the digital age:
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Incorporate new platforms for digital learning. Given the prevalence of digital technology in citizens’ lives, it is essential for civic education to “meet people where they are” to impart messages fostering democratic values. This is especially relevant given forms of online political engagement such as blogging, creating petitions, mobilizing social networks, and establishing new online groups to support political causes. Utilize accessible online civic education, either by itself or as a component of traditional interventions, as a means to further both online and offline political participation. A systematic review in 2019 found 161 MOOCs with content related to civic education and examined trends in these popular platforms related to social and civic competence and sustainability.
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Promote political tolerance and the deliberative aspects of democratic politics. Recent research has renewed an emphasis on interventions designed to promote political tolerance and the deliberative aspects of democratic politics, such as an openness to compromise, “seeing the other side,” and questioning one’s own assumptions and viewpoints in the hopes that these values will serve as a bulwark against populist and other anti-democratic movements. An evaluation of two civic education programs supported by USAID in the Dominican Republic and South Africa found that civic education activities had small but significant effects on tolerance in both countries, but that the effects are largely conditional, dependent on the frequency and nature of the civic education “treatment” as well as individuals' prior political dispositions, values, and store of political information.
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Use active, participatory pedagogical methods in civic education programming. Civic education has the potential to change individual attitudes and behaviors, but often only when active methods are utilized. This means providing opportunities in online (interactive environments, not “click and go”) and offline programming for students to engage in group activities, role-playing exercises, games, and simulations related to democratic learning as well as opportunities to interact with local political officials and institutions via service learning leadership programs, participation on local boards, or community-oriented civic engagement. A study in Mexico found that assigning students randomly to a “participatory learning” community-based project connected to an eighth grade civics class led to positive relationship impacts on several democratic attitudes and positive, though weaker, effects on future behavioral intentions.
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Devote the necessary resources for teacher and facilitator training. Overwhelming evidence supports the importance of high-quality teachers and facilitators for civic education to “work.” This requires considerable investment in teacher and facilitator capacity strengthening, an increasingly important need given online civic education delivery complexities. USAID should utilize new instructional resources for teaching digital citizenship and digital and media literacy provided by organizations such as the International Society for Technology and Education and also ensure program investments for teacher capacity building integrate understanding of the effects of digital technologies on governance more broadly.
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Integrate opportunities for online and offline activism. A key component of civic education is for beneficiaries to better understand the role of activism. Historically, activism relied on the development of strong networks. The advent of new digital technologies brought multiple opportunities for online activism focused more on loose clusters of relationships via social networking and other connections. Redesigning Civic Education for the Digital Age: Participatory Politics and the Pursuit of Democratic Engagement presents approaches to prepare activists in four practices where digital technology has meaningfully altered the form and dynamics of civic and political life: investigation and research, dialogue and feedback, production and circulation, and mobilization.
 Youth from Mombasa County, Kenya, participate in a “Gumzo Mtaani” (Kiswahili for “neighborhood chat”), an informal meeting where community members — mostly youth — discuss civic issues. Created and led by Mombasa-based civil society organizations, Gumzo Mtaani discussions have largely focused on the role youth can play in elections and peace-building. (Photo: Alex Kamweru / USAID)
Further Assistance
You can learn more in USAID’s Civic Education in the Digital Age primer, and by contacting Neetha Tangirala, Senior Advisor for Youth, Civic Education and Activism, (ntangirala@usaid.gov) or the DRG Center’s Civil Society and Media Team (ddi.drg.csm@usaid.gov).
Recent DRG Learning Events
Tuesday Group: Non-violent Communication
- Robust political dialogue is crucial to supporting a diverse, inclusive democracy. On September 27, the DRG Center welcomed Eze Sanchez, an expert in empathetic communication, to learn how to apply non-violent communication to political dialogue to promote political tolerance and the deliberative aspects of democratic politics, such as an openness to compromise.
Evidence and Learning Talk Series: Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies Against the Erosion of Democracy
- Laura Gamboa, Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, spoke to the DRG Center on September 28 and shared her research into opposition strategies that protect against democratic erosion. Focusing on the cases of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, her research shows that the strategies the opposition uses and the goals it uses them for are key to understanding why some executives successfully erode democracy and others do not. Oppositions that use existing democratic institutions to contest autocratizing leaders maintain their legitimacy and the legitimacy of democratic institutions, increasing the likelihood of preventing the erosion of democracy. In other words, under certain conditions weak oppositions can defeat strong potential autocrats. Learn more here.
DRG Learning Community of Practice: The Perils and Potentials of Using Indices to Measure Complex DRG Outcomes
- The DRG sector has struggled to operationalize and measure more complex concepts. Evaluators have risen to the challenge by using indices – weighted measures of multiple indicators – to represent a complex concept, and then using those indices to track intervention outcomes. Conectando Caminos por los Derechos (CCD), a USAID/Colombia-supported activity implemented by Pact as part of the Human Rights Strengthening Mechanism (HRSM) consortium, has developed an index that includes concepts of social cohesion and integration to measure citizen security for Venezuelan migrants and Colombian host communities. On October 14, CCD Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager, Lina Maria Jaramillo Rojas shared with the DRG Center how CCD conceptualized and operationalized the governance outcome in practical ways.
Tuesday Group: Demystifying Electoral Cybersecurity
- As digital technologies are increasingly used in elections around the world, the threat of cyber attacks against election infrastructure is growing. Failing to address cybersecurity risks can pose a critical threat to electoral integrity. On October 25, Dr. Tarun Chaudhary and Matt Bailey from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) joined the DRG Center to define cybersecurity and summarize the cyber challenge for elections, touching on threat actors, their motivations, and approaches for addressing cyber threats.
Evidence and Learning Talk Series: New Insights on Autocratic Legacies in Africa
While much of Africa has left the age of autocracy behind, many countries in the region still display autocratic legacies. On October 27, Mai Hassan, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Faculty Co-Director of MIT-Africa, shared her research on autocratic legacies within African elite politics, focusing primarily on the evolving role of political elites given the continent’s rapid urbanization, changing international linkages, and the growing penetration of digital and social media.
Use Our Resources!
Welcome to the DRG Learning Digest, a newsletter to keep you informed of the latest learning, evaluation, and research in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) sector. Views expressed in the external (non-USAID) publications linked in this Digest do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
Don't forget to check out our DRG Learning Menu of Services! (Link only accessible to USAID personnel.) The Menu provides information on the learning products and services the Evidence and Learning Team offers to help you fulfill your DRG learning needs. We want to help you adopt learning approaches that emphasize best fit and quality.
The Evidence and Learning Team is also excited to share our DRG Learning, Evidence, and Analysis Platform (LEAP) with you. This Platform contains an inventory of programmatic approaches, evidence gap maps, the DRG Learning Harvest, and inventories of indicators and country data portraits - all of which can be very useful in DRG activity design, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation. Some of these resources are still being built, so check back frequently to see what has been newly added.
The DRG Learning Harvest on LEAP is a searchable database of DRG learning products, including summaries of key findings and recommendations, drop-down menus to easily find documents related to a particular country or program area, and links to the full reports on the DEC.
Our friends at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute are also seeking to expand their research partnership with USAID on the complex nature of democracy by inviting research questions from you for V-Dem to work on. If there's a DRG technical question you've been wondering about, please email the Evidence and Learning Team at ddi.drg.elmaillist@usaid.gov.
We welcome your feedback on this newsletter and on our efforts to promote the accessibility, dissemination, and utilization of DRG evidence and research. Please visit the DRG Center's website for additional information or contact us at ddi.drg.elmaillist@usaid.gov.
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