Viewpoint: Lessons from Latin America on Hoosier civic education
“Oh he’s involved in politics now? Watch his Honda become a Porsche in three months." I can’t recall how many times I heard my tias say this after finding out about a new public figure in Dominican politics. Growing up on the island, politics has long been a synonym for corruption.
With the political atmosphere being dominated by the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PLD) for decades and figures such as dictator Rafael Trujillo characterizing much of our political history, this is not very surprising. Although my small country of the Dominican Republic has gradually increased in political stability in recent years with a change in the ruling political party, cases of deception continue to come to light. As the fight for a fair government continues, the area with the largest federal budget in the country might hold the answer to a politically informed Dominican population.
Research on the topic consistently shows that education, specifically civic education, has positive and significant effects on developing well-informed citizens who can better understand the political atmosphere and issues affecting their country. What is more, these students become more involved in their communities and more likely to act against political injustices.
Civic education consists of teaching and developing citizenship's value, meaning, and obligation within a particular society. This civic competence that students develop also includes the development of values and skills needed to actively form part of society. This is currently a mandatory subject in the Dominican education curriculum. Its effects on improving knowledge and understanding of civics have decreased tolerance of corruption and authoritarianism and increased students' future political participation.
Effective this coming school year, all sixth graders in the state of Indiana are required to complete a semester-long course on civic education. As one of the states with the lowest voter turnout rates, this introduction into the curriculum could be a major game changer for political involvement in Indiana. One need only look at recent trends in Latin America and my home country of the Dominican Republic to see how impactful this legislation could be.The political history of the Dominican Republic is comparable to that of Paraguay, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Chile. All of these countries include civic education in their national education curriculum.
When examining the content of these curricula and the civic attitudes of more than 29,000 eighth-grade students in these Latin American countries, intriguing correlations were observed. Chile had the lowest emphasis on community and political participation in its curricula, and its students demonstrated the lowest level of attitudes toward future political and community involvement. Conversely, the Dominican Republic had the highest level of curricular focus on community and political participation. Correspondingly, its students exhibited the highest future political engagement and community involvement levels.
Furthermore, the lack of curricula covering authoritarianism corresponded with students being more receptive towards it and using violence to solve problems. Civic knowledge and open class room discussions were negatively correlated with the tolerance of corruption in these five Latin American countries. This means that what students are learning in school is directly shaping their citizenship attitudes and beliefs.
When measuring the effects of teaching political issues such as police brutality, discrimination, child labor and gender violence in the Dominican Republic, it was found that students significantly increased their knowledge of human rights, non-violent conflict resolution and perception of personal ability when compared to their initial stages and other control groups. Student completion of civic education programs in the DR point toward an initiative to act on behalf of others and result in higher participation in human rights activities, which arelinked to economic and community development.
Through these programs, understanding of complex political matters and critical thinking is expanded, engagement in civil movements increases, and attention is brought to discrepancies in political practice. It might not be the only solution to political injustices and participation, but civic education has proven to be a step in the right direction, and now the children of Indiana will be walking that way too.
Ana López Almánzar is a member of the University of Notre Dame Class of 2025 and an undergraduate research fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Civic education lessons from Latin America
