Connecting Classrooms to Congress
The Connecting Classrooms to Congress project
will develop and test a social studies curriculum module that enables high school students to study–through a
bipartisan lens–a pressing issue with which policymakers
at the national level are grappling. Students will then
discuss that issue with their sitting member of Congress
in an online deliberative town hall.
This initiative is enabled by a new web-based platform and aims to develop students’ civic knowledge, skills, and commitments while also furthering fundamental academic priorities such as persuasive writing skills and capacities for higher order thinking and analysis. The initiative also aims, in a tangible way, to create direct, healthy, and informed dialog between the nation’s youth and their representatives. In so doing, participants experience what Neblo, Esterling, and Lazer (2018) term a “directly representative democracy” - one more aligned with our ideals.
Deliberative Town Halls have been shown in a decade of research to have highly desirable impacts on adults and this motivates the plan to bring this experience to youth. After engaging in their town hall, students will also have the opportunity to watch a recorded town hall where this issue was discussed with a member of Congress from a different political party than their own. They will also have the opportunity to talk with students from this different community about this issue. Students will then engage in a writing exercise that may take one of several forms: a policy memo, a persuasive essay, a collaborative writing exercise with other students, or an article or post of some sort that raises awareness amongst the broader public.
We will study this intervention in a diverse set of high schools by conducting an evaluation trial in California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin that adheres to best practices of transparency and reproducibility including making the study material public and publishing a pre-analysis plan. Once this approach is tested, we believe it has the potential to be implemented on a national scale.
Watch the video linked here to learn more about the purpose and aims of the project, meet some of the project team members, find out about the project partners, and get a sense of the research aims of the Connecting Classrooms to Congress project.
Project Team
Our team includes leaders in the fields that comprise the core domains of our work - Civic Education, Democratic Deliberation and Political Science, Curriculum Design and Development, and Evaluation Research Methods.
University of California, Riverside
Dr. Joseph Kahne, Dutton Presidential Professor of Policy and Politics and Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group
Dr. Erica Hodgin, Affiliated Researcher, Civic Engagement Research Group
Dr. Agata Soroko, Postdoctoral Scholar, Civic Engagement Research Group
Dr. Abigail Dym, Postdoctoral Scholar, Civic Engagement Research Group
Dr. Allena Berry, Researcher, Civic Engagement Research Group
Avanti Abhyankar, Undergraduate Researcher, Civic Engagement Research Group
Dr. Kevin Esterling, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director, Laboratory for Technology, Communication and Democracy (TeCD-Lab)
Dr. Mariam Salloum, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Laurel Singleton, Curriculum Developer (consultant)
Ohio State University
Dr. Michael Neblo, Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Philosophy, Communication, and Public Policy & Director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA)
Dr. William Minozzi, Professor of Political Science and Director of Research for the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA)
Amy Lee, Associate Director of The Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA)
Adam Duffy, Program Manager of The Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA)
Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Jonathan E. Collins, Assistant Professor, Associate Director, Center for Educational Equity
Dr. Kiki Leis, Senior Research Assistant, Center for Educational Equity
Advisory Committee
Dr. Danielle Allen -- James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
Dr. David Campbell -- Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame and the chairperson of the political science department
Dr. Bárbara Cruz -- Professor of Social Science Education, College of Education, University of South Florida
Dr. Elyse Eidman-Aadahl -- Executive Director of the National Writing Project
Dr. Diana Hess -- Dean, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Jane Mansbridge -- Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, Emerita, Harvard University
Curriculum Working Group
Andy Blackadar -- Director of Curriculum Development, The Choices Program, Brown University
Dr. Bárbara Cruz -- Professor of Social Science Education, College of Education, University of South Florida
Dr. Elyse Eidman-Aadahl -- Executive Director of the National Writing Project
Dr. Diana Hess -- Dean, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Stephen Masyada -- Interim Director, Lou Frey Institute at University of Central Florida
Sonia Mathew & Mary Ellen Daneels -- Democracy Program, McCormick Foundation
Carolyn Power -- History-Social Science Specialist, Riverside Unified School District
Heather Van Benthuysen -- Director, Social Science and Civic Engagement Department, Chicago Public Schools
Partners
History/Social Science Department, Riverside Unified School District
Social Science and Civic Engagement Department, Chicago Public Schools
Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government, University of Central Florida