The purpose of civics education is to inculcate patriotic values in citizens, especially young ones. Encouraging voting and volunteering is its core. However, it appears that civics education is doing just the opposite, failing to boost youth voting or volunteering. This article is from Iowa State News:

After the insurrection, the impeachment, the trial and ongoing partisanship in 2021, many Americans are looking to civics education as a source of hope, according to George Washington University’s Center on Education Policy, which reports that “Nearly all Americans (97%) agree that public schools should be teaching civics.”

According to the Center for American Progress, civics classes teach students about how the U.S. government works, history about how it was designed and information about how to participate, including voting. After those sorts of courses, it seems reasonable to expect that students should be voting more and engaging in community service.

But my research shows that states that require civics courses do not necessarily have better test scores, more youth voting or young people volunteering at higher rates than other states. And there may be a connection to QAnon support as well.

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