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3 - Critical Consciousness Development in Place-Based Action Civics

from Part I - Pedagogical, Curricular, and School-Based Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2023

By
Kathryn Y. Morgan  and
Brian D. Christens
Edited by
Erin B. Godfrey  and
Luke J. Rapa
Erin B. Godfrey
Affiliation:
New York University
Luke J. Rapa
Affiliation:
Clemson University, South Carolina
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Summary

Design Your Neighborhood (DYN) is a place-based action civics curriculum that teaches urban design as a tool for increasing civic participation among youth. The DYN curriculum consists of six-week cross-curricular units for seventh and eighth grade that address local urban design issues that have exacerbated inequality in a rapidly growing southeastern US city. This chapter presents findings related to critical consciousness collected from an ongoing longitudinal, quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study of DYN. Quantitative data includes two measures of critical consciousness collected from treatment and control groups at two timepoints. Qualitative data comes from focus groups with students who completed the curriculum. Although qualitative findings suggest students’ critical consciousness increased after engaging with DYN, descriptive and inferential analysis of quantitative data indicate variation in student outcomes related to critical consciousness. These findings suggest pathways for place-based action civics to better support students’ development of critical motivation and critical action in and out of the classroom.

Keywords

critical consciousnessaction civics educationplace-based educationschool interventions
Type
Chapter
Information
Developing Critical Consciousness in Youth
Contexts and Settings
 , pp. 60 - 82
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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