Dr. Michael T. Rogers, associate professor of political science in the Arkansas Tech University Department of History and Political Science, is among 21 scholars from around the United States who collaborated to study a perceived decline in civic literacy among American citizens.
The outcome of their inquiry is recorded in “Civic Education in the Twenty-First Century: A Multidimensional Inquiry,” published by Lexington Books, a subsidiary of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group.
The book cites a 2006 survey that found Americans knew more about the cartoon members of the television show, “The Simpsons,” than they did about First Amendment rights. It also addresses what it calls a “formal and informal substantial decline” in civic education. The book also points to a “pronounced decline” in civic youth participation and political engagement.
Rogers authored three chapters in the book, including an introduction entitled “A Tocqueville-inspired Assessment of America’s Twenty-First Century Civic Ecology.” He wrote chapter one, entitled “A Meta-history of Formal Civic Education: An Episodic History to be Repeated?” and was co-author of chapter 12, entitled “Dude, Where’s the Civic Engagement? The Paradoxical Effect of Civic Education on the Probability of Civic Education.”
A member of the Arkansas Tech faculty since 2007, Rogers holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wabash College. He earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of Albany-SUNY.
“At a time of weakening civic institutions and heightened political polarization, civic education is of singular importance,” wrote Dr. David E. Campbell, Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Notre Dame University, in a comment published on the back cover of the book. “And yet it too rarely receives the attention it deserves, by both researchers and members of the policy community. This book is a huge step forward in bringing together state-of-the-art research into civic education, broadly construed. For those who are already interested in civic education, you will find much that is new here. But I hope those who have not thought much about the subject will also read this book, and that it will inspire still more scholars and policymakers to take civics seriously.”
Rogers and Donald M. Gooch, assistant professor of political science at Stephen F. Austin University, served as editors for “Civic Education in the Twenty-First Century: A Multidimensional Inquiry.”
Learn more about the Arkansas Tech Department of History and Political Science.
