Abstract

This research is about the living civic curriculum that was implemented by Future Voters of America (FVA) in the James Baldwin High School (JBHS) in New York City (NYC). FVA is a non-profit organization based in NYC working on building youth political awareness through a variety of programs. The curriculum, one of FVA’s programs is an integral part of the Civic Class at the school. Starting November 2006 until January 2007, the curriculum was taught and along with it, this research was carried out. The framework of the research that was used is Experimental Group and Control Group. EG is a group that participated in the curriculum that is the students of Civic Class in the JBHS. CG is a group of volunteers that did not participate in the curriculum. The research methodology employed class observation and questionnaires. The curriculum consisted of four contact meetings plus an educational forum done at the end of the curriculum implementation. The questionnaire contained a variety of question consisting of independent variables such as demographic, basic understanding of civic engagement/education, basic information of political news and activities, making youth voices heard and a citizen to be in the future. The result of the curriculum is that EG which consisted of 12th grade students has more aware of their political awareness than CG. It is also surprising that the CG average age is 15 while EG average age is 17. Looking at their age, they are developmentally different. Therefore, students in the grade of 12 at the high school level may be the better target of the living civic curriculum because their age is very close to 18 which is the age of young Americans to start exercising their right to vote.

Disciplines

Educational Administration and Supervision

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