Developing Students’ Capacity for Democratic Engagement: Implementing the Integrated Civic Competencies Framework

To successfully prepare students for democratic engagement, civic education involves the interplay of knowledge and skills. The Integrated Civic Competencies Framework (ICCF) is a heuristic tool designed to guide teachers in promoting students’ civic learning that specifies the interplay of these competencies. The Center for Civic Education’s Integrated Civic Competencies (ICC) program provides students with professional development so that they can implement the Project Citizen curriculum in their classes. A pilot study conducted by the Civic Education Research Lab (CERL) at Georgetown University found that students who were taught Project Citizen by teachers participating in the ICC and guided by the ICCF made statistically significant gains in civic knowledge and skills related to taking action on public policies, effective communication, civil discourse, and teamwork. The correspondence between civic skills and civic identity formation, disposition to engage, and current community engagement was notably greater than for civic knowledge.