Civics without Civics: How Education Models Shape Citizens (Book Manuscript in Progress)
Political scientists have long argued that schools teach students to be engaged citizens and more education means more vocal citizens. But the evidence for this is mixed. As opposed to prior research that view schools as a place that nurtures active citizens by teaching civics, my project views schools as a formative social experience: education happens in social settings among teachers and peers, and individuals learn politically relevant self-conceptions from the nature of social interactions in school. I argue that by making students constructors of class content, student-centered horizontal education models incentivize individuals to take ownership of collective matters and become active participants in their community beyond school. I test my theory in multiple angles – looking at global patterns in education models and civic engagement, comparing classrooms within the same school, comparing individuals who were randomly assigned different schools within their district, and tracking a cohort of individuals from middle school to adulthood. I find consistent evidence that overall, student-centered models create more active citizens. I also show, however, that the civic benefits of student-centered education rely heavily on the individual’s school and family environment. I argue that this adds to civic inequalities within countries even as global rhetoric appears uniformly in support of more student-centered education.
My job market paper below showcases some core empirical tests of my argument. Although I find from existing survey data that those who learn in student-centered education models are more likely to be active citizens, this correlation may simply be an artifact of certain types of people choosing to attend certain types of schools rather than evidence of student-centered education making active citizens. In 2023, I conducted a survey with South Korean middle school students who were chosen by lottery to attend different education models. I worked with a team of Research Assistants to recruit middle school students and their parents to participate in my original survey. I find that in this natural experiment setting as well, individuals who learn in student-centered models are more engaged citizens who are more likely to sign petitions and support social issues online.
Job Market Paper: Civic Effects of Education Models
Is Student-Centered Learning Actually on the Rise? A Cross-Time Analysis (Work-in-progress)
Are student-centered models truly on the rise, or is this merely a prevailing perception? Despite widespread discourse and policy support for learner-centered approaches, there is no direct quantitative, cross-time evidence to confirm this shift in classroom practices. I find that since 2008, student-centered learning has, in fact, declined on average around the world. I replicate this finding whether using student or teacher reports about classroom practices. This contrasts with other aspects of progressive education such as project-based learning which have nearly universally increased. I further find that public schools drive shifts in education models, suggesting that governments shape not only what schools teach but also how they teach.
The American Exception in Public Opinion: Education and Choosing a Stance (Work-in-progress)
This study challenges conventional wisdom in American politics by revealing that the strong link between educational attainment and public opinion expression is a unique feature of the U.S. Using data from the World Values Survey across 42 countries, I find that education consistently and strongly predicts more opinion expression in the American public—an effect size that is at least twofold greater than in any other country. In most nations, this relationship is not statistically significant, and in a handful, negative. Methodologically, I validate a novel behavioral measure of opinion expression—the count of middle responses—demonstrating its significant correlation with the Need to Evaluate using American National Election Studies 2008-2009 data. Substantively, these findings reframe the “education gap” in U.S. politics as an outlier on the global stage, prompting new questions about why certain political systems cultivate a stronger link between formal education and the capacity for public opinion.
When Knowing More Doesn’t Help: The Counterintuitive Role of Social Information on Vote Buying Norms (With Mollie J. Cohen, Work-in-progress)
Many citizens in developing contexts tolerate or approve of vote buying. What shapes these norms? We investigate whether perceptions of vote buying’s prevalence matter. In a survey experiment in Peru, we randomly assigned participants to either a “positive information” group that saw Peru’s low incidence of vote buying compared to other Latin American countries, or a “negative information” group that saw Peru’s rising incidence over time. We find that both treatments, when compared to a no-information control condition, increase approval of vote buying. This was not the case for the neutral information group. We consider several explanations for this counterintuitive result, including the possibility that respondents interpreted the “positive” information as an indicator that vote buying is common throughout the region.