Civic Education Content (Alone) Does Not Improve Ethnic Tolerance

Does civic education improve ethnic tolerance? Existing literature suggests that civic education promotes ethnic tolerance by teaching respect for diversity and fostering a shared national identity among different ethnic groups. I test this claim through an investigation of a reform in Singapore that quasi-randomly assigned students to a new civic education course, and a cross-national analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) data. Both studies reveal no significant improvement in ethnic tolerance among those exposed to civic education. One potential explanation is that the effectiveness of civic education depends on the degree of classroom openness. A reexamination of the Singapore case and ICCS data supports this revised hypothesis: civic education improves ethnic tolerance in open classroom settings, while its effects are negligible in restrictive environments. These results underscore the pivotal role of classroom pedagogy in amplifying the positive impact of civic education on ethnic tolerance.