Political dissent and citizenship education during times of populism and youth activism

Abstract

To maintain and improve our democracy, we must better prepare students for understanding, valuing, participating in, and responding to political dissent. This is especially the case in light of recent developments in political life that have made displays of public outcry more widespread, though not always well-done. This article reflects on recent growth in populism and youth activism to make a case for improved ways of understanding and teaching for good political dissent.

Keywords

Citizenship education civics political dissent populism protest youth activism

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allen

(2004) Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown V. Board of Education. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Anderson

(2021) Some say occupy wall street did nothing. It changed us more than we think. Time, 15 November. Available at: https://time.com/6117696/occupy-wall-street-10-years-later/

Austin

SDW

(2021) Contemporary Black populism and the development of multiracial electoral coalitions: The 2018 Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum gubernatorial campaigns. Political Science Quarterly 136(3): 417–438.

BBC News (2017) ‘Youthquake’ declared word of the year by Oxford dictionaries. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42361859 (accessed 3 August 2022).

Ben-Porath

(2006) Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bessant

Lohmeyer

(2021) Politics of recognition when students protest. In: Bessant

Mesinas

Pickard

(eds) When Students Protest, p. 6. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bessant

Mesinas

(eds) (2021) When Students Protest. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Boler

Davis

(2018) The affective politics of the ‘post-truth’ era: Feeling rules and networked subjectivity. Emotion, Space and Society 27: 75–85.

Brady

(2020) Introduction: Visions of new student activism. Radical Teacher 118: 1–7.

10.

Cambridge Words (2017) Cambridge dictionary’s word of the year 2017. About words: A blog from Cambridge Dictionary. Available at: https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2017/11/29/cambridge-dictionarys-word-of-the-year-2017/ (accessed 3 August 2022).

11.

Carlson

(2021) In-school discussion about activism not consistent, research shows. Available at: https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/school-discussion-about-activism-not-consistent-research-shows-0/ (accessed 7 August 2022).

12.

Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (2018) So much for ‘slacktivism’: Youth translate online engagement to offline political action. Available at: https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/so-much-slacktivism-youth-translate-online-engagement-offline-political-action (accessed 7 August 2022).

13.

Cho

Byrne

Pelter

(2020) Digital civic engagement by young people. Report, UNICEF Office of Global Insight and Policy, New York, February.

14.

Curato

Dryzek

Ercan

, et al. (2017) Twelve key findings in deliberative democracy research. Daedalus 146(3): 28–38.

15.

Democratic Knowledge Project (2022) Daniel Allen on civic agency in a digital age. Available at: https://yppactionframe.fas.harvard.edu/danielle-allens-talk-10-questions-changemakers (accessed 7 August 2022).

16.

Dēmos (n.d.) Our story: A populist meta-narrative for this moment. Available at: https://www.demos.org/our-story-populist-meta-narrative-moment (accessed 7 August 2022).

17.

Dreisbach

(2021) UCLA student charged in capitol riot took inspiration from online extremist. NPR, 15 March. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/15/971931742/ucla-student-charged-in-capitol-riot-took-inspiration-from-online-extremist

18.

Generation Citizen (n.d.-a) Democracy doesn’t pause. Available at: https://generationcitizen.org/democracy-doesnt-pause/ (accessed 7 August 2022).

19.

Generation Citizen (n.d.-b) Our curriculum. Available at: https://generationcitizen.org/our-programs/our-curriculum/ (access 7 August 2022).

20.

Geurkink

Zaslov

Sluiter

, et al. (2019) Populist attitudes, political trust, and external political efficacy: Old wine in new bottles? Political Studies 68(1): 247–267.

21.

Hanson

(2021) Illinois high school students will learn media literacy skills next school year. Available at: https://www.kfvs12.com/2021/10/25/illinois-high-school-students-will-learn-media-literacy-skills-next-school-year/ (accessed 3 August 2022).

22.

Harris

(2018) Conservative high schoolers want to ‘own the libs’. The Atlantic, 26 July. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/07/conservative-high-schoolers-are-ready-to-own-the-libs/566177/

23.

Ivie

(2005) Democratic dissent and the trick of rhetorical critique. Critical Methodologies 5(3): 276–293.

24.

Ivie

(2015) Enabling democratic dissent. Quarterly Journal of Speech 101(1): 46–59.

25.

Ivie

(2017) A democratic people’s dissent from war. Javnost: The Public 24(3): 199–217.

26.

Journell

Clark

(2019) Political memes and the limits of media literacy. In: Journell

(ed) Unpacking Fake News: An Educator’s Guide to Navigating the Media with Students, pp. 109–125. New York: Teachers College Press.

27.

Kashdan

(2022) The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. New York: Avery.

28.

Kingsberry

(2022) Gen Z is influencing the abortion debate – From TikTok. The Washington Post, 28 June. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2022/gen-z-tiktok-abortion-debate/

29.

Laclau

(2005) On Populist Reason. New York: Verso.

30.

Laclau

(2014) The Rhetorical Foundations of Society. London: Verso.

31.

Laden

(2019) Two concepts of civility. In: Boatright

Shaffer

Sobieraj

, et al. (eds) A Crisis of Civility? Political Discourse and Its Discontents, pp. 2–6. New York: Routledge.

32.

Lin

Jackson

(2019) From shared fate to shared fates: An approach for civic education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 38(5): 537–547.

33.

Luckey

(2022) Refining dissent: Response to Sarah M. Stitzlein’s ‘democratic education in an era of town hall protests’. Theory and Research in Education 20(1): 119–124.

34.

McAvoy

Hess

(2013) Classroom deliberation in an era of political polarization. Curriculum Inquiry 43(1): 14–47.

35.

McCullough

Felton

Jr Bernard

III , et al. (2020) The EVAC movement story: Why youth storytelling is powerful. . .and why it’s dangerous. Harvard Educational Review 90(2): 195–228.

36.

McGrew

Byrne

(2020) Who is behind this? Preparing high school students to evaluate online content. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 53(4): 457–475.

37.

McNeill

(2022) U.S. media literacy policy update 2021. Report, Media Literacy Now, Watertown, MA, January.

38.

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 594 US (2021).

39.

Mårdh

Tryggvason

(2017) Democratic education in the mode of populism. Studies in Philosophy and Education 36: 601–613.

40.

Mirra

Garcia

(2017) Civic participation reimagined: Youth interrogation and innovation in the multimodal public sphere. Review of Research in Education 41(1): 136–158.

41.

Moore

(2022) The first Gen Z candidates are running for congress – and running against compromise. NPR, 6 July. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/06/1109193929/the-first-gen-z-candidates-are-running-for-congress-and-running-against-compromi

42.

Mouffe

(2005) On the Political. New York: Routledge.

43.

Mouffe

(2018) For a Left Populism. London: Verso.

44.

Mudde

Kaltwasser

(2017) Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

45.

Nishiyama

(2021) Democratic education in the fourth generation of deliberative democracy. Theory and Research in Education 19(2): 109–126.

46.

O’Brien

Elin

Bronwyn

(2018) Exploring youth activism on climate change: Dutiful, disruptive, and dangerous dissent. Ecology and Society 23(3): 42–55.

47.

Pelter

(2020) Pandemic participation: Youth activism online in the COVID-19 crisis. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/globalinsight/stories/pandemic-participation-youth-activism-online-covid-19-crisis (accessed 3 August 2022).

48.

Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (2019) Civic language perceptions project. Report, PACE, Washington, DC, April.

49.

Project Zero (2018) Digital civics toolkit. Available at: https://pz.harvard.edu/resources/digital-civics-toolkit (accessed 7 August 2022).

50.

Rahn

(2018) Populism in the US: The Evolution of the Trump Constituency. New York: Routledge.

51.

Ruitenberg

(2009) Educating political adversaries: Chantal Mouffe and radical democratic citizenship education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 28(3): 269–281.

52.

Sant

(2021) Political Education in Times of Populism: Towards a Radical Democratic Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

53.

Sawchuk

(2021) Student school board members flex their civic muscle in Supreme Court free-speech case. Education Week, 7 April. Available at: https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/student-school-board-members-flex-their-civic-muscle-in-supreme-court-free-speech-case/2021/04

54.

Schwörer

(2021) The Growth of Populism in the Political Mainstream: The Contagion Effect of Populist Messages on Mainstream Parties’ Communication. Cham: Springer.

55.

Seemiller

Grace

(2019) Generation Z: A Century in the Making. New York: Routledge.

56.

Sim

(2022) A Call to Dissent: Defending Democracy against Extremism and Populism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

57.

Stitzlein

(2011) Democratic education in an era of town hall protests. Theory and Research in Education 9(4): 73–86.

58.

Stitzlein

(2014) Teaching for Dissent: Citizenship Education and Political Activism. New York: Routledge.

59.

Stitzlein

(2021) Defining and implementing civic reasoning and discourse: Philosophical and moral foundations for research and practice. In: Lee

White

Dong

(eds) Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse, pp. 23–52. Washington, DC: National Academy of Education.

60.

Stitzlein

(in press) Children as citizens: Response to Tony DeCesare’s ‘The future is Now: Rethinking the role for children in democracy’. Philosophy of Education Society Conference, March 2022, San Jose, CA.

61.

Stitzlein

Abowitz

Sellers

(in press) Truth, populism, and democratic education. Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society Conference, September 2022, Nashville, IN.

62.

Temple-Raston

(2021) A tale of 2 radicalizations. NPR, 15 March. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/15/972498203/a-tale-of-2-radicalizations

63.

Warnick

Tacek

Robinson

(2018) Learning to be moved: The modes of democratic responsiveness. Philosophical Inquiry in Education 25(1): 31–46.

64.

Woodley

(2022) Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

65.

Yang

(2020) I arranged a protest at my high school: The reactionary racist attacks changed me. Daily Kos, 17 August. Available at: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/17/1969290/-I-arranged-a-protest-at-my-high-school-The-reactionary-racist-attacks-changed-me

66.

Young

(1991) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

67.

Young

(2001) Activist challenges to deliberative democracy. Political Theory 29(5): 670–690.

68.

Youth in Front (2021) Understanding and supporting student-led activism. Available at: https://www.youthinfront.org/student/collection/744064-understanding-and-supporting-student-led-activism (accessed 7 August 2022).

69.

Ya-Ya Network (2021) What we do. Available at: https://www.yayanetwork.org/mission (accessed 7 August 2022).

70.

Zembylas

(2021) Dewey’s account of habit through the lens of affect theory. Educational Theory 71(6): 767–786.