Every other week, GC picks out a selection of articles that are relevant to our work and to the civic education space as a whole. We at GC love to expand our learning in every aspect of what we do, and we hope you enjoy our selections!
25 ways to be politically active (whether you lean left or right), CNN.
Possibly inspired by Generation Citizen’s Beyond the Ballot campaign, CNN suggests 25 ways to engage with politics and government as an active citizen.
Overhauling one high-school subject is our best hope for the future of democracy, Quartz.
This article makes a case for the value of civic education, with particular emphasis on the importance of teaching media literacy and digital literacy skills to prepare students to confront today’s media environment: “The goal of such education should not be merely to instill understanding of our online civic landscape, but how to navigate and participate in it in constructive and meaningful ways: Not what to think, but how to think.”
Millennials prone to skip local elections, The Daily Citizen.
This piece reports on voter turnout and youth civic engagement in Texas, with data from the Who Votes for Mayor project. There is a wide gap in voter participation between younger and older citizens, especially in local elections. The article features Generation Citizen’s new Central Texas programming as an exciting solution.
The U.S. is no longer a ‘full democracy,’ a new study warns. Washington Post.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index now rates the United States a “flawed democracy” for the first time. The downgrade is not just due to the recent election – it is based on a steady decades-long erosion of public trust in political institutions. Several other western democracies are seeing similar shifts in public sentiment.