TY - JOUR
T1 - Inclusive civic education and school democracy through participatory budgeting
AU - Bartlett, Tara
AU - Schugurensky, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge and appreciate the financial support for this study from the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. We also thank our colleagues at the Center for the Future of Arizona for their continued partnership with School Participatory Budgeting.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Calls for more civic education have risen alongside political polarization, social injustices, and threats to democracy. Although civic learning opportunities are disproportionately accessible and often not inclusive, one model has shown promising results. Through School Participatory Budgeting, students deliberate and decide how to allocate funds to improve their school community using a democratic process and learn democracy by doing. However, like other civic engagement programs, students with disabilities (SWD) are often underrepresented. To address this challenge, a pilot project focused on engaging SWD in every aspect of the process, including overrepresentation on the student steering committee. In a mixed methods case study, we explored the effects of participation in the process and found that the inclusive model increased civic knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices for all students and fostered self-skills, relationships, and school leadership roles for SWD. These findings yield important lessons for future implementation of inclusive civic education practices.
AB - Calls for more civic education have risen alongside political polarization, social injustices, and threats to democracy. Although civic learning opportunities are disproportionately accessible and often not inclusive, one model has shown promising results. Through School Participatory Budgeting, students deliberate and decide how to allocate funds to improve their school community using a democratic process and learn democracy by doing. However, like other civic engagement programs, students with disabilities (SWD) are often underrepresented. To address this challenge, a pilot project focused on engaging SWD in every aspect of the process, including overrepresentation on the student steering committee. In a mixed methods case study, we explored the effects of participation in the process and found that the inclusive model increased civic knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices for all students and fostered self-skills, relationships, and school leadership roles for SWD. These findings yield important lessons for future implementation of inclusive civic education practices.
KW - Civic education
KW - inclusive education
KW - participatory budgeting
KW - school democracy
KW - special education
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U2 - 10.1177/17461979231160701
DO - 10.1177/17461979231160701
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85152404616
SN - 1746-1979
JO - Education, Citizenship and Social Justice
JF - Education, Citizenship and Social Justice
ER -