Closing the Civic Opportunity Gap: The Imperative for Teacher Education

Overview & Synopsis

In teacher education, the key concern must be inequitable civic education, which includes economic education and opportunities available for underserved students. Inequitable civic education opportunities reinforce already-widening disparities between groups of citizens. This bodes ill for democracy and the ability to wrestle with the complex issues of race, class, education, and economic, social, and political opportunity. With this reality, there exists an urgent need for teacher educators to help preservice teachers find ways to bring equitable civic education opportunities for underserved students. This proves an important goal for teacher educators because teachers are the ones charged with enabling young people to participate fully in political, civic, and economic life in a democratic society. To address this gap, teacher educators must emphasize five priorities. First, teacher education programs should prepare preservice teachers in ways that promote civic education in their classrooms. Second, to effectively aid preservice teachers in providing civic education opportunities, teacher educators should have knowledge of how preservice teachers conceptualize citizenship and civic education. Third, building off the second priority, teacher educators must make clear a teacher's vision of citizenship, and civic education reflects a relatively distinct set of theoretical and curricular goals. Fourth, teacher education programs must emphasize economic literacy, a crucial element of civic engagement, which measures whether people understand the forces that affect the quality of their lives. Finally, all teacher education programs should concentrate on aiding preservice teachers in improving student literacy within all K-12 classrooms. (Contains 3 notes.)