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138 ANNALS, AAPSS, 705, January 2023
DOI: 10.1177/00027162231178627
Case Studies of
Effective
Learning
Climates for
Civic Reasoning
and Discussion
By
JAMILA LYISCOTT,
CATI V. DE LOS RÍOS,
and
CHRISTOPHER H. CLARK
1178627ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYCASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES
research-article2023
While the national media continues to highlight the
tensions of cultural politics in education, there is a need
for young people and educators to be equipped for the
daunting local, national, and global challenges that
mark their everyday lives. Many educators and young
people alike are interested in engaging youth in civic
reasoning and discourse that prepares them to meet
those many challenges. This article highlights applica-
tions of civic reasoning and discourse in three contexts:
a traditional high school social studies classroom, a
hybrid school-community action project, and an out-of-
school Youth Participatory Action Research program.
We argue that these case studies show a path forward
for developing students’ civic reasoning and discourse
skills because the students turn toward and lean into
what we define as moments of critical dissonance: in
each case, the students and educators work together to
engage, rather than avoid, complex sociopolitical reali-
ties, even while holding a variety of racial, ethnic,
political, and cultural identities.
Keywords: civic education; classroom learning; cur-
riculum; adolescent literacy
Correspondence: jlyiscott@umass.edu
Jamila Lyiscott is an associate professor of social justice
education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
There, she is the founding codirector of the Center of
Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research, and co–
editor-in-chief of the Journal of Equity & Excellence in
Education. Her community-engaged research examines
race, language, and the capacity of African Diasporic
cultures to transgress coloniality.
Cati V. de los Ríos is an associate professor of adolescent
literacy at the University of California, Berkeley’s
School of Education. Her research explores the critical
literacies and civic engagement of Latina/o/x bilingual
youth and has appeared in Harvard Educational
Review, Applied Linguistics, Journal of Literacy
Research, and Race and Social Problems.
Christopher H. Clark is an assistant professor of sec-
ondary education in the department of Teaching,
Leadership, and Professional Practice at the University
of North Dakota. His research blends approaches from
political science, psychology, and communications to
focus on how students and teachers think about politics,
news media, and civic life.
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 139
In the U.S., public schools have become primary sites for volatile discursive
battles about how communities understand their complex shared histories and
the ongoing effects of colonialism, oppression, and struggles for racial and social
justice. With these battles comes a refusal to contend with the polarizing tensions
that arise from our long history as a nation. Instead, about half of all U.S. states
have moved to pass legislation or executive action to ban or otherwise limit teach-
ing and learning about racism, gender, and sexuality (Schwartz 2021), and politi-
cians, like those in the high-profile 2022 governor race in Virginia, have been
successful in leveraging said hysteria for political gains (Stein and Meckler 2022).
School boards have been rife with tension as they have been tasked with deci-
sions that require complicated trade-offs in public health, student social and
emotional well-being, and various stakeholders’ desires.
As the national media continues its commentary on the shifting cultural poli-
tics of education, calls have emerged for tangible examples of how youth engage,
inside and out of classrooms, in civic reasoning and discourses that respond to the
daunting local, national, and global challenges on the horizon. Civic reasoning,
according to the National Academy of Education (2021), is the ability to think
through public issues by using rigorous inquiry skills to weigh varying points of
view and available evidence. Civic discourse is an intentional communication
about challenging public issues in order to promote both individual and group
understanding. Moreover, “It also involves enabling effective decision-making
aimed at finding consensus, compromise, or in some cases, confronting social
injustices through dissent” (2021, 1).
The National Academy of Education’s (NAED) recently released report,
Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse (2021), highlights both formal and
informal educational environments as sites that educate students to engage with
civic and political issues and simultaneously interrogate them. The report
addresses the myriad ways both formal and informal settings—for example, K–12
classrooms versus digital platforms—can contribute to the development of stu-
dents’ civic reasoning and discourse as they confront the complexities of current
politics and civic life (Barber, Clark, and Torney-Purta 2021; Garcia et al. 2021).
In this article, we highlight applications of civic reasoning and discourse in
three varied contexts: traditional high school social studies classrooms, a hybrid
school-community project, and an out-of-school Youth Participatory Action
Research (YPAR) program. These three case studies serve as exemplars of what
we call critical dissonance in civic reasoning and discourse. The concept of critical
dissonance emerges out of our understanding of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive
dissonance is the mental discomfort that can emerge from conflicting/dissonant
beliefs that arise when our varying racial, ethnic, political, and cultural identities
engage with complex sociopolitical realities (Harmon-Jones and Mills 2019).
Critical dissonance means turning toward moments of cognitive dissonance, and
employing a critical lens that can illuminate, critique, and challenge the structural
and ideological forces that lead to discrimination and inequalities.
140 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
A Review of Relevant Literature
Classroom climate plays a vital role as a determining factor in how equipped and
comfortable students feel about sharing ideas and opinions around challenging
social issues. As we consider each of the three case studies, we draw on studies
of classroom climate to highlight factors that impact students in the learning
environment. Further, we examine research on civic engagement as one of the
more commonly cited goals of civic reasoning and discourse in educational
spaces. We also explore the notion of school culture, as distinct from classroom
climate, to underscore how the ethos of schooling can shape how civic reasoning
and discourse takes place in educational spaces. Finally, in our analyses of the
case studies, we look closely at curriculum, epistemologies, and literacy across
each context as windows into the climate and culture of each space.
Defining classroom climate
Classroom climate has been a prominent concept in educational research for
several decades (Ehman 1980; Knowles, Torney-Purta, and Barber 2018; Torney-
Purta et al. 2001). Although it is broadly understood that effective climates pro-
mote student engagement, feelings of safety, and learning, there is no specific,
foolproof formula for creating a positive classroom climate. Barber, Clark, and
Torney-Purta (2021), for example, note that educational climates are, at mini-
mum, influenced by the pedagogies, people, and social structures present in a
given space and that the interactions of these elements may be perceived differ-
ently by each individual. With that in mind, educators striving to create climates
that promote civic reasoning and discourse must reflect on how these factors are
working towards or against the goal of students feeling safe, supported, and intel-
lectually challenged. When they perceive such a positive civic climate, students
are more likely to be civically knowledgeable and engaged later in life (Campbell
2005, 2008).
As the term implies, classroom climate has typically been measured and
applied within K–12 classrooms. But, of course, learning environments that
develop students’ civic voices span both formal and informal settings. Thus,
“classroom climate” is something of a misnomer. As a product of the interactions
among the people, structures, and activities involved, it applies to settings both
inside and outside school walls.
Civic engagement
What constitutes civic engagement has been open for debate for some time
but, within traditional literature on the subject, is often understood as including
knowledge of government structure and functions, attitudes toward sanctioned
political behavior like voting, and a commitment to society and actions that com-
prise service and participation in the public and civic realm (Westheimer and
Kahne 2004; Youniss et al. 2002). Knowledge of political institutions, electoral
politics, U.S. history, and one’s individual rights and responsibilities are also
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 141
widely understood as central to civic awareness and engagement (Cohen and
Luttig 2020; Hart and Youniss 2018). Dominant understandings of youth civic
engagement often champion and elevate a particular yet limited set of cultural
practices (Mirra and Garcia 2017). For example, in their critique of traditional
conceptualizations of youth civic participation, Garcia et al. (2021) contend,
“From reading news articles and publications about current events to voting and
participating in local community groups from churches to volunteer organiza-
tions, civic participation has traditionally funneled individual agency toward
participating in existing organizations” (643). As they argue, youth are expected
to conform to sanctioned forms of civic expression that often overlook their own
understandings of what it means to participate politically (Anderson et al. 2021;
Cohen, Kahne, and Marshall 2018; de los Ríos and Molina 2020; de los Ríos,
Portillo, and Cantero 2022; Ginwright 2008; Ginwright and Cammarota 2009;
Mirra and Garcia 2017).
Too often, youth civic participation is too narrowly defined in ways that do not
necessarily reflect the sensibilities of working-class and racially and linguistically
minoritized youth or their nuanced forms of political engagement with the public
sphere. Consequently, research on traditional civic education has emphasized
civic knowledge “gaps” in racially and linguistically minoritized youth communi-
ties (Kahne and Middaugh 2008; Levinson 2010; Niemi 2012) that position youth
of color as lacking the knowledge or skills necessary to contribute to democratic
society compared to their white counterparts (Cohen and Luttig 2020). In their
critique of dominant definitions of civic education and youth civic engagement,
Cohen, Kahne, and Marshall (2018) coined lived civics to argue that civic knowl-
edge and participation is not something that one learns solely via textbooks or
curricula, but rather—particularly for minoritized youth—it is lived and embod-
ied through experiencing and resisting institutional inequities. Many students of
color and youth from immigrant backgrounds experience participation in democ-
racy as navigating systemic inequities across multiple areas of civic life, including
criminal justice, law enforcement, and immigration and customs enforcement
(Winn 2018). Mirra and Garcia’s (2020) speculative civic literacies—which draws
from and builds on the work of artists, intellectuals, and education scholars
within the Afrofuturist movement1 (Otieno Sumba 2018; Toliver 2021)—
advocates for taking a collaborative approach toward democratic interrogation
and innovation across digital and web-based contexts rather than simply con-
forming to existing civic and political structures.
The latest wave of expansive understandings of youth civic engagement aligns
with Flanagan and Faison’s (2001) broader framing of civic engagement, which
incorporates various actions pertaining to civic society. They situate civic activi-
ties as the aspect of daily life in which people freely associate themselves in
groups to pursue their interests and protect their beliefs. Increasingly, these
more inclusive definitions uplift “individual or collective actions in which people
participate to improve the wellbeing of communities or society in general, and
which provide opportunities for reflection” (Innovations in Civic Participation
2010, vi).
142 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
Defining school culture
We define school culture as the values, ethos, and beliefs of a school, evi-
denced by school norms, expected behaviors, and its everyday practices. In the
nineteenth century, Horace Mann (Growe and Montgomery 2003) famously
referred to education in America as “the great equalizer.” This message of
meritocracy—the idea that school is a mechanism for social and economic mobility—
permeates widespread beliefs that the organization of American schooling offers
equal opportunities for all to learn deeply and become equipped for the
“American Dream.” In reality, following Brown v. Board of Education, school
culture, especially across schools serving communities of color, have been
increasingly marked by carcerality and control, practices that did not characterize
segregated schools run by Black people under Jim Crow (Siddle Walker 1996).
However, we find stark differences in school culture across lines of race and class
in America (Bourdieu 1977; Dumas 2014; Irizarry and Brown 2014). These dif-
ferences in experiences and opportunities appear not only in segregated schools
serving predominantly students of color and students living in poverty but also in
schools serving white students living in poverty. While many affluent, predomi-
nantly white schools are marked by a climate where high-stakes testing and dress
codes prevail, school culture in these spaces is not steeped in heavy policing, high
suspension rates, and underresourced classrooms.
Those who have illuminated the role of school as an apparatus of the state
(Vaught 2017) have identified just some facets of present-day school culture that
are increasingly concerning in minoritized communities and communities of
deep poverty—for example, silent lunches, limited bathroom breaks, metal
detectors, rigid dress code policies, and increasing constraints on curricular con-
tent. These restrictive practices reflect public institutional decision-making. For
example, coinciding with the sentencing of the “Central Park Five”—now the
“Exonerated Five”—in the early 1990s was the emergence of zero tolerance poli-
cies in inner-city schools that shaped a deeply punitive culture and increased
police presence. With the passage of English-only laws in states like Arizona
(Arizona Secretary of State 2000), an increasingly diverse student body must
negotiate which elements of their linguistic, cultural, and ethnic identities are
valid and valued in school. Dumas (2014, 2) refers to “school as a site of Black
suffering.” Freire’s (1970) work outlining the top-down nature of schooling as a
cultural context where subjectivity and critical consciousness are stifled in favor
of rote memorization is still relevant today as the pressures of high-stakes testing
and prepackaged curricula foster a teach-to-the-test school culture. In the face of
this, decades of educational advocacy and scholarship have sought to shift the
institutional and pedagogical dimensions that limit true learning when the cli-
mate of school is not responsive to the cultures, realities, and differentiated needs
of students (Ladson-Billings 2021; Lyiscott 2019; Lyiscott, Caraballo, and Morrell
2018; Patel 2016; Yosso 2005).
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 143
Sites of Reasoning with Youth: Three Case Studies
Through a multiple case study approach (Stake 1995), we examine three youth
civic reasoning contexts: a rural high school social studies classroom, an urban
high school grassroots day labor community project, and an out-of-school youth
participatory research project. These three cases serve as examples of meaningful
and effective educational practices that align with recommendations from the
Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse report (National Academy of
Education 2021) and its insights into how to best prepare young people as agentic
actors to meet the challenges of the future. Furthermore, we aim to “[place]
culture, context, comparison and a critical understanding of power” (Bartlett and
Vavrus 2016, 24) at the core of civic reasoning.
In what follows, we briefly contextualize the curricula, literacy practices, and
epistemologies across these three sites, where adolescents ranging from 13 to 18
years old engaged in forms of civic reasoning and discourse. We believe that curricu-
lum, literacy practices, and epistemologies offer a window into the climate (the
degree to which students feel safe, supported, and intellectually challenged) and
culture (the evidenced values, ethos, and beliefs of a learning environment) of each
site. Attention to curricula offers insight into how facilitators engaged students
around civic social issues; attention to literacy practices offers a window into the
politicized linguistic choices of each respective community; and attention to episte-
mologies offers insight into culturally grounded ways of knowing. Across the three
cases, contemporary social and political issues—all pertinent to the youth involved—
were discussed and engaged through rigorous forms of inquiry. Across the three
cases, we address the culture of the school, the hybrid collaboration between the
school and community organizations, as well as out-of-school settings. The sites not
only represent various kinds of learning environments (i.e., in school, out of school,
and hybrid) but also offer a window into a broad scope of what civic reasoning and
discourse can look like within and beyond what is typically valued by schools.
Discussing current and controversial issues: Civic reasoning
with youth in school contexts
Much of the research on contexts that develop civic reasoning and discourse
focuses on schools and classrooms as spaces where young people hone the skills
needed to talk productively about current or controversial issues (Conklin et al.
2021; Hess 2009; Journell 2017; Kuhn, Hemberger, and Kahit 2016).
Our first case study of learning contexts that have the capacity to develop civic
reasoning and discourse explores two rural, midwestern high school classrooms
with students from grades ten to twelve. With the conviction that classroom
spaces are important environments in which to scaffold rigorous inquiry and
thinking, the consideration of alternative perspectives and evidence, and engage-
ment with relevant social and political issues needed for students to practice civic
reasoning and discourse (National Academy of Education 2021), educators and
students in these classrooms used online discussion posts (both during class time
and for homework) to facilitate dialogue around polarizing political issues arising
144 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
during the 2016 presidential campaign. Especially in the wake of a global pan-
demic that has disrupted the boundaries between in-class and online learning,
the use of digital environments enabled students to build digital discursive skills
(Garcia et al. 2021) in a relatively safe and controlled environment.
Students in these schools were overwhelmingly white, with varying levels of
socioeconomic status. The researcher (Clark 2018) collaborated with the teacher
at each site to choose topics that were both related to each school’s curriculum
and connected to issues that had been raised in the 2016 presidential election
(“stop and frisk” policies in a unit about individual rights for the first research site
and, at the second site, taxation in a unit about the powers of the federal govern-
ment). For each discussion, the teacher directed students toward relevant
resources and, as they engaged in their online forum, encouraged them to con-
duct additional research. The focus of the original study was the impact of stu-
dents’ partisan political identities on their participation in and takeaways from the
discussion exercises. Groups were either mixed identity (i.e., participants had a
wide range of attitudes) or uniform identity (i.e., participants had a shared ideol-
ogy). Students were assigned to groups based on self-reported partisan identity
(mixed identity and uniform identity) and given three questionnaires (prediscus-
sion, postdiscussion, and a follow-up two weeks later) that measured their knowl-
edge and attitudes about the issues and asked them to self-report information
about their political identity.
This particular case study surfaced several important issues that can help us
understand the development of civic reasoning in traditional learning environ-
ments. First, attention to the students’ partisan political identities as a unit of
study acknowledges that learning environments are always populated with indi-
viduals with their own perspectives and developing political identities that influ-
ence how civic reasoning and discourse will occur (see Table 1 for a summary).
Based on responses to a presurvey and postsurvey argument repertoire2 question
asking students to recall as many arguments as they could both for and against
their preferred position, we found that students with strong partisan political
identities generally participated more in the online forums, reinforced their own
point of view during discussions, and learned more arguments that favored their
preferred position (see Clark [2018] for detailed results). Although partisan
TABLE 1
Summary of Findings Related to Student Partisan Identity
in the Online Discussion Forums
Strong partisans. . .
- Participated more.
- Learned more arguments to support
their own perspective.
Weak partisans. . .
- Learned more arguments about opposing
perspectives when discussing with diverse
opinion groups.
- Learned more arguments about their own
perspective when discussing in uniform
opinion groups.
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 145
identities are perhaps still developing in adolescents (Jennings and Markus
1984), this study found that such identities are nevertheless consequential for
young people’s understanding of issues and the way they participate in and learn
from discussions with their peers.
This study also reinforces the value of facilitating rich discussions where stu-
dents hear disagreeing points of view—a central feature of the common meas-
ures of classroom climates (Torney-Purta et al. 2001) and an important practice
for cultivating of civic reasoning and discourse skills (National Academy of
Education 2021). Particularly, students who had heard more divergent points of
view (as measured by a self-report of how often their discussion group disagreed
with them) correlated with their being able to recall a better balance of argu-
ments at the end of the exercise. In other words, even if their opinions did not
change, students who had heard a lot of opposing points of view were able to
recall those arguments, and the gap between their knowledge of both sides of the
issue was smaller at the end of the discussion.
In a finding that highlights the importance of the interaction between indi-
viduals in each group, student learning differed depending on who their group
mates were. If the goal was a greater understanding of different points of view,
weakly partisan students benefited most from discussing in mixed-identity
groups, as they were more likely to recall arguments from multiple perspectives
than similar students in like-minded groups. On the other hand, strongly partisan
students reinforced their opinions after discussing their issue in a mixed-opinion
group. In other words, group context impacted how receptive students were to
disagreeing perspectives. Although the researcher was able to assign student
groups by partisan identity, micromanaging to such a degree is unrealistic in most
classrooms. Teachers could, however, vary group composition to ensure that stu-
dents are occasionally paired with others who might expand their perspectives.
Teachers have an important role to play as guides in the development of stu-
dents’ civic reasoning in discourse, both in choosing topics and encouraging stu-
dents to participate in more meaningful ways (Hess 2009; Journell 2017). At one
of the school sites in this study, the mostly white, rural midwestern student popu-
lation was prompted to consider “stop and frisk,” an issue that disproportionately
impacts Black and Brown people in economically and racially diverse cities.
Addressing this as a political issue from the 2016 presidential campaign, the stu-
dents were forced to consider racial inequality and power relations in policing
(e.g., people of color being disproportionately targeted)—an issue not typically
part of their lived experiences. As Washington and Humphries (2011) note,
although issues of racial justice might not seem to pertain to students with little
exposure to racial or ethnic diversity, it is vital that their schools address them.
Moreover, differing perspectives do not need to come solely from the other par-
ticipants but may also come from materials the teacher provides or guides stu-
dents to for research projects.
Lastly, while this case study reinforces the promise of school-based exercises
in civic discourse and reasoning, it also highlights the degree to which the class-
room is an imperfect facsimile of the real world. In other words, the discussions
of political issues that took place in these forums are substantially different in
146 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
form (planned vs. spontaneous; teacher-moderated forums vs. relatively unregu-
lated digital spaces) and purpose (educative vs. persuasive) than discussion of the
same issues in the real world. Because students in this study (Clark 2018) took
part in the discussion as part of class assignments and were given course credit
for their participation, their engagement with the topic may or may not have
reflected genuine interest. Yet a constructed environment for civic discourse and
reasoning need not be inauthentic and, one hopes, will provide students with a
safe space in which to practice civic discourse. Moreover, we would note that
discourse in the world outside of school may have influenced students’ contribu-
tions in discussion exercises (e.g., Geller 2020). In this study, as in many class-
room discussions of controversial issues, many students tended to rely on
superficial “talking points” rather than actual evidence or research. Those who
expressed strong partisan identities were significantly more likely to draw on
these discursive moves than were their peers with weaker partisan identities (see
Clark 2018). In short, the discourse modeled in society at large, especially in the
political realm, may vary from what schools may want to promote. With that in
mind, teachers would do well to ensure that their lessons and discussions are
designed with an awareness of superficialities and outside influences that impact
student participation.
In our first case study, the learning environment was situated in the classroom
and in the school curriculum—that is, for most students, removed from their
lived experiences. In our next two cases, the settings arise out of student encoun-
ters with political and social discourse more closely tethered to their lives.
The Social Justice Posadas Project: Civic reasoning in hybrid
school-community context
Las Posadas are Catholic rituals celebrated in the season of Advent, which
honors Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter and the birth of the baby Jesus.
During the week before Christmas, traditional posadas perform the biblical reen-
actment of Joseph and Mary traveling door to door seeking refuge. Inspired by
this ritual—where la posada (singular) translates into lodging or shelter in
English—the Social Justice Posadas Project was founded in the working-class
immigrant community of Pomona, California, in 2008 as an intergenerational
participatory community event (de los Ríos et al. 2022). Our second case study
looks at this hybrid school-community learning environment as a powerful site
for civic reasoning and discourse.
Leveraging Latinx immigrant families’ cultural practices rooted in a spiritual
tradition, the Social Justice Posadas engage in candlelit processions for immi-
grant rights (de los Ríos and Molina 2020). These community-based posadas
foster social action and promote sanctuary for jornaleros (day laborers) and staff
of the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC). A day-laborer center,
PEOC provides a safe place for workers and potential employers to negotiate a
day’s work and positions day laborers as active leaders in their communities (de
los Ríos, Lopez, and Morrell 2015, 2016). While not religious, these posadas are
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 147
anchored in Latinx families’ funds of knowledge (Moll et al. 1992) and honor
long-standing cultural practices. Rather than centering the biblical narrative of
the Holy Family’s experience of rejection when seeking acceptance, the Posadas
focus on undocumented students and immigrant families seeking amnesty, jus-
tice, and opportunity. Instead of singing traditional Catholic songs, participants
sing historical social justice songs like “De Colores”3 and read poetry and repeat
chants that advocate for human rights.
Prior to the Posada, high school students engaged in a classroom unit with
their ethnic studies teacher, Mr. Molina, that explored some of the important
concepts and theories about immigration and immigrant rights (de los Ríos and
Molina 2020). For example, Mr. Molina had his students read multimodal and
multilingual texts, including peer-reviewed sociology research on undocumented
immigrants and immigration, translingual poetry by Latinx authors, popular
musical genres like corridos,4 and local news articles (de los Ríos and Molina
2020). These texts served as a foundation for future investigations in which stu-
dents conducted research that contested many of the dominant myths about
immigrants spread in mainstream media. Students examined websites of advo-
cacy think-tanks (e.g., American Immigration Council) and websites for teachers
that collect scholarly sources with ample data refuting harmful stereotypes and
statements. Students were then apprenticed—by both their peers and Mr.
Molina—into the social practice of multimodal text production—that is, they
were charged with creating “fact posters” for the Posada’s culminating proces-
sion. Their posters blended memes, regular posters, and information informed by
their research.
For the poster in Figure 1, a student named Elva repurposed the facial expres-
sion of Lisa Simpson to demonstrate her indignation with the false but dominant
talking point, “immigrants don’t pay taxes.” Through this assignment, students
were invited to engage in social and political critique by producing posters that
blended humor, the results of their research, and elements from popular media.
With these projects, students proposed alternative avenues for agency, performa-
tivity, and civic literacies and made use of public circulation practices to dissemi-
nate their innovative displays of everyday knowledge and their civic dialogue with
institutions (de los Ríos and Molina 2020).
Building on his students’ competencies, Mr. Molina provided students with
information about immigration and scaffolded their creation of multimodal texts
for Las Posadas. Students then self-selected into committees (e.g., decorations,
route, food, chants/music, security, liaisons to the day-labor center) to organize
the actual procession (the end product of this unit) and began to share their fact
posters with the public. In this phase, students wrote to local businesses—using
the English Language Acquisition standard for business letters—notifying them
about Las Posadas and asking them to participate in the event and/or serve as one
of the “sanctuary points” along the route. (At each sanctuary point, Posada par-
ticipants would stop, speak, and sing, and students would share their classroom
research on immigration.) As noted, over the course of the unit, students engaged
in numerous literacy activities that explored nuanced understandings of refuge
and sanctuary and the critical role that discourses and legislation on immigration
play in their and their families’ lives.
148 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
This case described moments of civic reasoning and discourse deeply anchored
in the lived cultural, spiritual, and political experiences of Latinx bi/multilingual
immigrant families and communities in Southern California. The Las Posadas
curriculum nurtured students’ abilities and capacities to wrestle with complex
civic issues that directly impact the lives of their families. The annual posadas
bridge a high school classroom with the local day-labor community in consequen-
tial ways that promote the political integration of Latinx young people.
Cyphers for Justice
Next, we turn to Cyphers for Justice (CFJ), an out-of-school project that
brings together community artists, youth, and university researchers for partici-
patory action research. As a site of youth-led political engagement, CFJ serves as
an example of the ways that learning environments outside of school can be cru-
cial to the cultivation of civic reasoning and discourse for youth of color whose
civic participation is too often (mis)read as disruption or completely ignored in
schools.
FIGURE 1
Drawing of Lisa Simpson
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 149
In hip-hop culture, “cyphers” have their roots in West African cultural prac-
tices (Lyiscott 2019). The cypher within hip-hop is a rhythmic exchange of extem-
poraneous knowledge and/or movement. Usually, this exchange occurs in a circle
of people who either enter the circle to perform through lyrics or dance or
remain a part of the circle of encouragement to “hype” the performers up. It is a
space of collective creativity, knowledge exchange, social critique, style, and,
often, one-upping for praise. Guided by the conviction that local knowledges
have the power to transform school culture for Black and Brown students, the
ethos of the hip-hop cypher, and hip-hop culture broadly, deeply undergirds the
CFJ youth research, arts, and activism program in Harlem, New York, where the
third case study took place. Set against the backdrop of Harlem’s rich civic lead-
ership during the Civil Rights era, CFJ was made up of predominantly Black and
Brown youth and adult allies. The study (Caraballo and Lyiscott 2020) utilized
critical ethnographic and participatory action research (PAR) methods to articu-
late the power of collaborative inquiry to position youth as civically engaged
social actors and decision makers equipped to shape research, policy, and social
injustice broadly.
The study highlights salient moments in the adult allies’ praxis where we co-
created contexts for critical participation with youth. Within this out-of-school
space, Black and Brown high-school-aged youth engaged in civic reasoning
through the bridging of their own cultural practices, literacy practices, and
YPAR—an intergenerational collaboration through which youth leaders and edu-
cators work together to address salient social issues affecting youth through the
development of youth-led research skills and social activism (Cammarota and
Fine 2008; Lyiscott, Caraballo, and Morrell 2018). The epistemologies of YPAR
are grounded in critical theories that place inquiry and knowledge production in
the hands of youth and educators through critical social research designed to
examine and question systems of power (Caraballo et al. 2017; Ginwright 2008).
Youth and educators identified local social issues they deemed relevant to their
lives and, alongside adult allies, engaged in rigorous qualitative inquiry within the
CFJ program. Because the CFJ work took place in an out-of-school context
unconstrained by the curricular and pedagogical limitations of typical school
cultures, civic reasoning could be facilitated through YPAR alongside hip-hop,
spoken word, and critical multiple literacies. To ensure an affirming environment
where students can engage in deep learning and inquiry, CFJ is committed to the
foundational importance of sustaining their literacies and cultural identities.
Youth in CFJ worked in small groups to select a social issue that they wished
to understand more deeply and to transform within their schools or communities.
The process of inquiry to action took place in the form of weekly after-school
sessions led both by adult allies and by other youth who had previously been
through the program. Throughout the inquiry process, local teaching artists were
also facilitators in the space to sustain multiple literacies (i.e., hip-hop writing,
film, visual arts, and spoken word). Focusing on their chosen social issue, youth
worked collaboratively, using deep examination, research design, data collection,
and data analysis to design their social action. At the same time, they were
exposed to a range of literacy practices that they incorporated into the processes
150 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
and the products of their research study. Social action took shape in the form of
youth-led community forums, guerilla poetry (i.e., impromptu poetry perfor-
mances in unconventional public settings) on the streets of Harlem, and youth-
led teach-ins held at a local professional development conference for educators.
In sharing the findings from their research project, they outlined the implications
for curriculum development, policy changes, and pedagogical innovations aligned
with equity and justice in schools.
This study of CFJ as a site of civic reasoning and discourse with youth revealed
the political dimensions of language and literacies (Lyiscott 2020) as important
elements of critical participatory engagement around deep social issues. During
the course of this work, students shared that school is not a space where they feel
their voices matter, and the opportunity to express themselves in their most
authentic voice created a culture where they desired to speak up and contribute
in meaningful ways (Caraballo and Lyiscott 2020). The study also revealed that,
when the traditional youth-adult power dynamic is challenged, youth agency is
fostered. That is to say, YPAR epistemologies place youth at the helm of the
inquiry process.
What These Cases Teach Us about Civic
Reasoning and Discourse
Across these three contexts, several throughlines and connections offer insight
into the nature of effective classroom climates for civic reasoning and discussion
that push beyond dominant definitions of civic education. First, all three studies
demonstrate the possibilities for creating safe and brave opportunities for what
we term critical dissonance—that is, the cognitive dissonance students may expe-
rience as they grapple critically with polarizing social issues. Consider the Social
Justice Posadas Project, for example. When students from immigrant Latinx
families undertook research about sociopolitical threats to their very identity,
those threats—the ever-increasing mainstream stereotyping and hateful views
against immigration—were a source of cognitive dissonance as students grappled
with social versus internal perspectives about who they are in society. As students
encountered with the work of Latinx authors and scholars that opposed these
messages and engaged in apprenticeships, they were afforded the opportunity for
critical dissonance to question, demystify, and critique these tensions. Building
competencies for critical dissonance positions students to navigate polarizing
social issues in complex and necessary ways. For the mostly white rural students
in Clark’s (2018) study, participating in rich discussions where they heard diver-
gent points of view challenged them to weigh alternative perspectives and evi-
dence. That hearing opposing arguments correlated with their ability to recall
those arguments speaks to the impact of critical dissonance. Much of the urgency
around equipping students for civic discourse and reasoning rests on the increas-
ing difficulty for those with opposing views to even hear—much less listen to—
each other. A learning environment that encourages critical dissonance both
CASE STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING CLIMATES 151
enables students to sit with the complexities of their own (and others’) experience
and also fosters safe, sacred, brave spaces where students’ expertise can thrive
and be critically explored. In such spaces, classroom discourse moves beyond
simply expressing poorly considered ideas or polarized talking points to some-
thing deeper—something from which young people may develop a sense of civic
agency, including critical self-reflection.
Cultivating such safe and brave environments will necessarily vary depending
on the identities of students in the learning environment, and the experience of
cognitive dissonance will likewise differ. Where the rural white students in the
first case study, for example, were challenged to grapple with polarizing issues
that did not directly address their individual experiences, the Latinx students in
the second case study explored issues deeply tied to their lived realities. Thus,
although navigating critical dissonance is important regardless of the racial, eco-
nomic, immigrant, and linguistic makeup of the student population, it is crucial
to account for the very different stakes that each group faces.
The second throughline across these studies is the affordances of grounding
student experiences in local knowledges, heritages, and linguistic identities—par-
ticularly if we truly mean to witness their lived civics beyond what schools typi-
cally value (Lyiscott 2017). Here, we look to CFJ’s insistence on a curriculum that
both uplifts and develops the linguistic and cultural practices of youth as central
to their learning of qualitative research. When youth present their research stud-
ies using spoken word and media and referencing colloquial language and knowl-
edge, they remain tethered to a sense of self that is typically not invited into
“sophisticated” traditional civic discourse. As another example, the students of
the Social Justice Posadas Project not only engaged multilingually but also
grounded the development of their civic identities in a local heritage and reli-
gious practice firmly within their funds of knowledge. To that end, they worked
within their communities alongside day laborers and were thus steeped in a
knowledge environment that is rarely valued by American schools.
The last throughline we have identified in these studies is that we must attend
to the youth-adult power dynamic within spaces where we hope to deepen stu-
dent agency. In Clark (2018), digital deliberative spaces used in the classroom
offered students the opportunity to engage in civic discourse and reasoning with
a degree of detachment from the teacher. Although the teacher ultimately could
view student contributions to each forum, students had control over the direction
of the conversation and could search for their own solutions to the political and
social issues under discussion. The role of peer mentorship, self-selecting com-
mittees, and directing the procession in the Social Justice Posadas Project serves
as another example of student agency that resisted the typical top-down dynamic
of learning environments. Rather than conform to sanctioned forms of civic
expression, students’ interests and innovation were the driving force, and their
political participation thus challenged the youth-adult hierarchy as the students
made choices and gathered their own civic narratives alongside adults. Another
example of this reimagined power dynamic is CFJ, which is grounded in YPAR
and hip-hop cultural practices. The former necessitates a youth-driven curricu-
lum that begins with inquiry and relies on the indigenous knowledges of youth.
152 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
The latter inform CFJ’s model of democratic participation based on the demo-
cratic nature of hip-hop cyphers, which disrupt the notion of one authority figure
at the front of the room giving knowledge to passive recipients.
To rise to the challenges of the world today and to face confidently our press-
ing political and social issues, young people must develop civic discourse tools to
inform, motivate, and build connections (National Academy of Education 2021).
As our three case studies illustrate, environments that foster these discourses are
found in a multitude of settings. Political scientists who seek to broaden and
deepen such engagement must broaden their understanding of what civic rea-
soning and discourse look like and where they occur. Whether in classrooms or
cultural communities, young people leverage their own knowledge, experiences,
and identities to learn and engage in ways that transcend the rigid bounds of
traditional schooling. Across these contexts, opportunities for critical dissonance
equip young people to cognitively contemplate a complex world. Being grounded
in their own local knowledges and expertise not only validates their identities but
disrupts what even counts as knowledge and expertise. And by centering the
expertise and local knowledges of students, the disruption of youth-adult hierar-
chies enables political scientists to expand our understanding of what is possible,
both in theory and in practice, to cultivate the agency necessary for any learning
environment to thrive.
Notes
1. “Afrofuturism is a way of looking at the future and alternate realities through a Black cultural lens.
. . . As a mode of self-healing and self-liberation, it’s the use of imagination that is most significant because
it helps people to transform their circumstances. Imagining oneself in the future creates agency and it’s
significant because historically people of African descent were not always incorporated into many of the
storylines about the future” (Womack 2017).
2. Argument Repertoire (Cappella, Price, and Nir 2002) is calculated by subtracting the number of
arguments a student can recall against their preferred position on an issue from the number of arguments
they can recall for it. A high argument repertoire score would indicate that students have lopsided knowl-
edge of an issue favoring their own position. A score close to zero indicates students have roughly equal
knowledge of different perspectives on an issue (described here as a balanced understanding of the issue).
3. “De Colores” is a widely known Spanish language folk song that was popularized during the United
Farm Worker rallies, protests, and strikes during the mid-twentieth century.
4. Corridos are Mexican ballads that often depict border conflicts and resistance to Anglo dominance
(Paredes 1958). As a form of historical literacy, the songs narrate stories of social struggle, resilience, and
heroic acts (de los Ríos 2018).
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