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The Role of the Elementary Teacher in Fostering CivicEfficacyStephanie C. Serrierea

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The Role of the Elementary Teacher in FosteringCivic Efficacy

STEPHANIE C. SERRIERE

Curriculum & Instruction, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

Drawing on a three-year multimethod study of civic engagement within “Dewey Elementary,” this article identifies the contextualsupports of civic efficacy. In particular, it works to map the role of the teacher in supporting the civic action and efficacy of sixfifth-grade girls who requested changes to the school’s existing lunch plan. An analysis presents four supports for the development ofcivic efficacy: building curriculum from life, asking questions, working in a diverse group, and practicing skills of civic activism. Theauthor’s conclusions point to particular social spaces and processes that facilitate civic efficacy, which can lead to better practices andpolicies for civic education in the younger years.

Keywords: civic efficacy, civic education, elementary school, elementary teacher, inquiry, student-initiated policy change

Fostering Civic Efficacy: The Case of the “Salad Girls”Impacting School Lunch Policy

According to the National Council for the Social Stud-ies (NCSS), powerful teaching and learning should build astudent’s sense of “civic efficacy,” one of two major goalsof schooling, along with “building social understanding”(NCSS 2008, 277). Although there is not a definition ofcivic efficacy given in that statement or in other NCSSdocuments, scholars such as Pajares (1997) have defined abroad theory of efficacy that involves one’s ability to attainpersonally and collectively, evidenced when one believesthat what they do is effective. Much of the current workon efficacy in children is grounded in cognitive psychologythat seeks to measure types of efficacy in children (cogni-tive, social, and physical, etc; see Harter 1982) generally viasurveys. This study, however, is grounded in the idea thatmeaning should be derived within the context of an expe-rience (Dewey 1938). In particular, this study identifies thecontextual supports that aided in the development of civicefficacy, and in particular the supporting role of a teacher.

In a civic sense, a person who has civic efficacy knowsthat her negotiations within the public sphere can effectchange. In and out of schools, civic efficacy entails youthtaking a stance on issues that matter to them and know-ing that their actions can make a difference. The idea thatelementary aged children can impact political change de-

Address correspondence to Stephanie C. Serriere, Curriculum &Instruction, The Pennsylvania State University, 165 Chambers,University Park, PA 16802, USA. E-mail: scs22@psu.edu

fies much of the rhetoric that marginalizes children’s “au-thentic” participation in the civic sphere especially in theUnited States (i.e., U.S.’s refusal to ratify the U.N. Rightsof a Child; Hart 1992). Reports that show that the majorityof U.S. schools fail to provide an education for engagedcitizenship (Kirshner 2004; Larson 2000), especially at theelementary level (Boyle-Baise, Hsu, Johnson, Serriere, andStewart 2008). By and large, efforts of “accountability” sit-uate reading and math as “the twin engines driving the el-ementary school curriculum” (VanFossen 2005, 377). Thishas focused attention away from both the learning and do-ing of citizenship in schools (Fitchett and Heafner 2010).

Still many teachers persist in attending to the civic ed-ucation of young children because they know that the el-ementary years spark a critical time for youth to beginto learn “civic habits” preparing youth for civic engage-ment throughout their lifetime (Hahn 1998; Ito et al. 2008).In elementary classrooms, this can include service-learning(Serriere, Mitra, and Reed 2011; Wade 2008), deliberationto foster understanding of multiple perspectives (Identi-fying Reference 2008; Paley 1992), classroom meetings inan atmosphere of perceived fairness and collective prob-lem solving (Angell 2004), and opportunities to talk inclass meetings, which help students build positive relation-ships and a sense of identity within the group (Battistichet al. 1995). In our own research of Dewey Elementary,we seek to understand specific structures that support civiclearning (Serriere et al. 2011), the leadership role of thebuilding principal (Mitra, Serriere, and Stoicovy 2012), andthe process and positive youth development outcomes ofthe “Salad Girls” (Mitra and Serriere 2012). There is agap in our larger research project and within the literature

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regarding the role of the teacher in fostering civic efficacyand within the elementary years in general.

Efficacy has been applied broadly across subfields of re-search and used to understand varied academic and socialperformances from mathematics to athletics (Pajares 1997).While foundational studies on children’s efficacy investigatethree domains of children’s perceived competence or effi-cacy (cognitive, social, and physical) (Harter 1982), we havefound no research that seeks to measure or describe efficacyin the domain of civics for children. Hahn’s (1998) seminal,international studies on political efficacy offer evidence ofthe impact of engagement for efficacy in adolescents. Someresearch has measured adults’ self-efficacy toward service(SETS), defined as the belief that one can have an impacton their community, and shows that to have a sense of civicresponsibility, one must feel his or her actions can makea difference (Weber et al. 2004). In-depth and sustainedexperiences (i.e., Americorps) can increase students’ senseof self-efficacy in community and civic duties (Taylor andTrepanier-Street 2007).

The related concept of political efficacy, the belief thatone can influence governmental processes, is positively cor-related with opportunities to discuss controversial issuesin an open classroom environment, mostly in high schoolsettings, (Hahn 1998, 2010; Levy 2011; Torney-Purta et al.2001). Civic efficacy can also be described as a sense ofagency, which can be both an antecedent and an outcomeof civic involvement (Watts and Flanagan 2007). Similarbut larger in scope, civic empowerment (Levinson 2012)suggests a larger sphere in ability and skills to impact socialchange. A common and important aspect of these relatedterms (civic and political efficacy, agency, civic empower-ment) is that a sense that one’s actions make a differencepositively correlates with the likelihood of various politi-cal behaviors such as voting (Cohen, Vigoda, and Samorly2001), becoming politically active (Abrams and DeMoura2002), and using informational news media (Newhagen1994). More research is needed to understand the contex-tual supports, especially the role of the teacher, in support-ing elementary students’ civic efficacy.

Site and Methods

At the time of this study, Mrs. C.1 was in her fourth year ofteaching in the Mid-Atlantic region. She engages in infor-mal and formal teacher inquiry of her teaching practices.She collaborates with other professional educators (fromthe intern in her classroom, her partner teacher, her princi-pal, and university faculty from two different universities).She often attends and presents at national teaching confer-ences.

For Mrs. C.’s entire teaching career, she has taught ina public elementary in the Mid-Atlantic, Dewey Elemen-tary, a school that is an active member in the Democratic

League of Schools. With around 40 percent of studentsreceiving free or reduced lunch, Dewey Elementary is notseen as an advantaged school, serving most of the low-income neighborhoods in a university town. The principalof Dewey Elementary, Principal Shannon, hired Mrs. C. af-ter she graduated from an inquiry-based teacher-educationinternship. Principal Shannon is a 20-year veteran who hasa clear vision for inquiry-driven, democratic, and ecologi-cal practice, a visual that she regularly shares with teachersand visitors to the school.

As a professional development school (PDS) instructorand researcher at Dewey Elementary for over three years,I learned of the fifth-grade girls who were taking actionagainst the school salad early in their process. With humansubjects’ approval in place for our larger project of inves-tigating civic engagement at this site, the girls and I metfour times for “focus group” lunches during the spring of2010 (see interview protocol in Appendix A). I attendedtheir meetings and presentations throughout their processto capture and make sense of their experience as it wasunfolding. In addition to approximately 120 hours of ob-servations of Mrs. C.’s teaching, four previous interviews,and five on-the-spot conversations, I interviewed Mrs. C.once during the course of this project and once afterwardwith specific focus on the Salad Girls’ process (see inter-view protocol in Appendix B). These data are in the contextof a larger multiyear research project in which a team oftwelve researchers (two faculty and ten graduate researchstudents) investigate the processes and products of civic en-gagement at Dewey Elementary (Mitra and Serriere 2012;Serriere, McGarry, Fuentes, and Mitra 2012; Serriere, Mi-tra, and Cody 2010; Serriere, Mitra, and Reed 2011). Thisarticle is a strategic case (Yin 1994) of the teacher supportsfor civic efficacy. Using Nvivo qualitative data analysis soft-ware, these data were coded inductively to locate recurrentand common patterns that reflected the supports of efficacy.In particular, the analysis performed yielded an overlap ofthe teacher’s philosophy and practice with the girls’ experi-ences of being civically efficacious to arrive at the supportsfor civic efficacy (Figure 1).

The methodology is grounded in John Dewey’s (1938)conceptualization of the locus of an educative experienceand its transferability. According to Dewey, for knowledgeto be usable, it has to be within a situation, or a genuine andbuilding set of experiences. Otherwise, it is separate fromexperience and difficult to transfer (i.e., measuring efficacywith children via surveys). It is for this reason that thegroup’s experience was captured in a situation, inexorablytied to relationships and structures in their school commu-nity and analyzed for meaning alongside their contact withtheir teacher, Mrs. C.

The remainder of this article describes and analyzes theSalad Girls’ efforts. In the immediate next section, I de-scribe the sequential process of their work using a narrativestyle. In the subsequent section, I present the four analyt-ical themes that indicate the conditions that supported the

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Fostering Civic Efficacy 47

Fig. 1. Promoting Civic Efficacy. (Color figure available online.)

development of civic efficacy. I conclude with implicationsfor practice and future research, with specific discussionof privilege, advocacy, and sustained efforts in civiceducation.

Salad Girls Take Action

In January of their fifth-grade year, three girls sat at thelunch table with a dilemma. One girl, Tameka, took theschool’s lunch salad for her meal but when she sat downto eat it, she discovered it had cheese sprinkled on it. Shecould not eat it because she was lactose-intolerant. Tamekaasked the two other girls to swap lunches with her. Ayeshaexplained that she could not eat it because the salad hadbacon on it and she was a vegetarian due to her religion, Is-lam. Another girl, Lauryn, also explained that she could noteat it because of her religion, Orthodox Christian, whichdisallows eating meat on Wednesdays and Fridays duringLent (as was the season). Indeed, the salad was offered withbacon and cheese on top everyday of the year (and it waspremade at a district-level food preparation site). They wereleft with no alternative salad option. They felt frustratedat what they thought was “not fair” to them: The dietarychoices offered at lunch did not reflect their own (dietaryand religious) diversity.

The girls approached their teacher, Mrs. C., about theirissue, who responded with encouragement and told themthat she was “proud of them” for speaking up. Mrs. C.encouraged the girls to request a meeting with PrincipalShannon to discuss ways to take action. From that meet-

ing, Principal Shannon helped the girls prepare a shortspeech and PowerPoint presentation at their weekly All-School Gathering (ASG) to tell the entire school popula-tion (450 students and 42 teachers and staff) about theirissue. With the interest spurred from their presentation, thegroup welcomed three more fifth-grade girls on their actionteam. As a follow-up to their ASG, the girls visited eachkindergarten-fifth-grade classroom to take student opinionpolls (agree or disagree) on the one current salad offered.The girls counted raised hands, made tallies by 5s with pen-cil and paper, and calculated the totals for and against achange of salads. After these data were collected, they an-alyzed and prepared a presentation of the data to multipleaudiences. Their data showed that about 90 percent of thestudent body agreed that other salad options should be of-fered. In meetings among themselves, the girls revealed thattheir ideal goal would be for the school to have a salad bar,full with various toppings.

The girls next set up a meeting with their school’s headcafeteria coordinator, Mrs. M., in Principal Shannon’s of-fice. In this meeting, the girls asked several questions tofind out how things work in the cafeteria. From here, theylearned about the United States Department of Agricul-ture (USDA) protein and calcium requirements that impactsalad content decisions. As they began to reveal their hopesfor more salad options, the girls met an impasse in theirhope for change: Mrs. M. explained that although she’d liketo help them, her “hands are tied” and she couldn’t breakfrom the USDA requirements or do “something special”that children in other district schools would not receive.The girls did not have a chance to present their data toMrs. M.

Despite this setback, Principal Shannon encouraged theSalad Girls to meet next at a level higher—the district-widecafeteria manager, Mrs. Y. The girls agreed and set forthto improve their PowerPoint presentation (with new infor-mation on USDA requirements in particular) and tailortheir data for Mrs. Y. The meeting was held in PrincipalShannon’s large office with a projection screen for theirpresentation. Referencing the data in the PowerPoint, thegirls explained their dietary needs and showed a graph ofhow much of the student body agreed with them. Initially,Mrs. Y. cited the same roadblocks (efficiency, equity amongschools, USDA requirements) but eventually agreed thatDewey could be a “trial school” for having two more saladoptions for children: one without meat and one withoutcheese.

The girls considered the decision a victory, althoughthey “really were hoping for a full salad bar.” They an-nounced their process’s outcome at the next All-SchoolGathering. The Salad Girls concluded by telling the school,“We also want you to know that by working together, youcan make a difference at [‘Dewey Elementary’]!” The girlswanted to share with the other students that they are ca-pable of making a difference if they want, one of overtwenty of data points that served as evidence of their sense

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of civic efficacy (Serriere, McGarry, Fuentes, and Mitra2012).

In September of the following school year, the SaladGirls’ efforts were further recognized during a school visitfrom their state’s Secretary of Health, various university-level nutritional researchers, and the then-president of thelocal university. This forum stemmed from a statewide se-ries of events around nutrition in schools for healthierlunches. The Salad Girls, now in middle school, took the mi-crophone once more at their former elementary school andtold their story to this forum of school parents, teachers,students, and visitors. The Secretary of Health responded,“What’s really fascinating is you used democracy. . .youused the democratic process. I congratulate you for thateffort. We’ll make sure to take this story and share it with alot of other people in [our state].” The girls also learned thatday that the entire district had changed their salads becauseof their efforts (unfortunately not a lasting change as notmany children would choose the alternative salads). WithMrs. C. standing in the wings, the girls were interviewed bya local television station and featured in their local news-paper. It was a clear “visible victory” (Mitra 2009, 1860)that confirmed the success of their efforts.

Fostering Civic Efficacy

In a final interview, the Salad Girls were asked how theywould fill in the following blank: “If it weren’t for—, I couldhave never done this.” The girls resoundingly exclaimed,“Mrs. C.!” Although the narrative above does not describefully Mrs. C.’s role in their process, she continually, evendaily, made time to meet with the Salad Girls to supporttheir process. In addition to her support in the logistics, itwas clear that Mrs. C.’s educational philosophy in the wayshe set up her curriculum, school day, and in less obviousways, her life outside of school mattered in her propensity tofoster their sense of civic efficacy. The following four themesrepresent the analysis of Mrs. C.’s enacted philosophy andthe meaningful supports of the girls’ sense of civic efficacy:Building Curriculum from life, Asking Questions, Workingin a Diverse Group, and Practicing Skills of Civic Activism(Figure 2).

Building Curriculum from Life

The Salad Girls’ story always included the pivotal momentin which they approached their teacher (Mrs. C.) to tellher about how the salad “wasn’t fair.” They reported being“very happy” because she “actually agreed with them.”Moreover, she not only let them have the time to work onthe project, the girls recounted the ways in which Mrs. C.supported their project logistically and academically. Forinstance, Lauryn, a Salad Girl, explained how, once theyhad collected data from all of the K–5 classrooms, Mrs.

Fig. 2. Promoting Civic Efficacy: A case study of the Salad Girlsand their teacher. (Color figure available online.)

C. then helped them think about how to effectively presenttheir data to cafeteria personnel:

Mrs. C. met with us one day at lunch, we went over the num-bers (from the opinion poll), and what we should talk withMrs. Y. about (lead cafeteria personnel). We brought ourlunches up from the cafeteria, Ms. C. asked some questionsabout our data collecting and she also told us things thatMs. Y. might want to know. . ..like she might want to knowhow many kids were there that day, how many kids wereabsent, and what happened that one day in the classroom.

In addition to working over GoogleDocs in the evenings,the girls reported that it helped that Mrs. C. carved outlarge time blocks (sixty to ninety minutes) in their schoolday so they could work on their salad project. When askedabout so much time that could be seen as “off task,” Mrs.C. explained her rationale, “I don’t want them to just getthrough school. I want school to be something that’s help-ing them. . ..” She then cited research that, “universities arefeeling like the students that are coming to them now don’tknow how to think. . ..They know how to take a test, butthey don’t know how to process the information. If you haveprofessors from Harvard saying these kids have 4.3 GPAs,how? We don’t even understand how they’ve achieved that.I don’t want that for my students. . .” Mrs. C explained thatit was not just about making time in the school day forstudents to do “what they want,” she clarified her commit-ment to making that time “personally meaningful” to herstudents.

Many classroom observations yielded confirming datathat Mrs. C. practiced her belief that life rather than

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abstract facts should be the groundwork for curriculum.For instance, she regularly used a whiteboard to elicit herstudents’ personal experiences on a variety of topics, suchas ideas for a service-learning project or making opportu-nities for a student-led curriculum. Citing the film Race toNowhere (Abeles 2009), Mrs. C. explained in an interviewhow she was deliberate about giving as little homework aspossible while instead creating scenarios that might spurmeaningful and engaged learning within and outside of herclassroom. This philosophy of classroom practice framedthe opportunities for pursuing a personally relevant cur-riculum.

When students entered her room, she connected withnearly each child in a unique way, remembering somethingabout their interests or life. Once the school day had be-gun, Mrs. C. spent time daily talking in a circle, makingpersonal connections to curricular topics. This commit-ment to making the curriculum personal was reflected inthe way in which she encouraged the Salad Girls’ process.This example highlights the important connection betweenpersonalizing the curriculum and civic efficacy. Fosteringcivic efficacy involves the allowance for students to makelife the object of a curriculum and utilizing that learning toenvision and impact change.

A focus on personal relevance within the curriculum,rather than grades or test scores, sets up a relationshipwith knowledge (epistemology) and learning that insistson it being meaningful to students. Related concepts in-clude student voice (Mitra 2004) and socially responsiveclassrooms. Here, the curriculum becomes an extension oflife itself rather than abstract facts to be memorized. In-formation and “facts” are useful to the extent that it isrelevant to the students’ experience. According to Dewey,for a “project” to be truly educative, it “must generate in-terest; must be worthwhile intrinsically; and must presentproblems that awaken new curiosity and create a demandfor new information” (1933, 217–18). The teacher’s role inthis process, as evidenced by Mrs. C., can be connectingstudents’ intrinsic interests to the curriculum, allowing stu-dents to make life the object of curriculum, and utilizingthat process to envision and impact social change.

Asking Questions

The term “inquiry” was familiar to the girls from theirclassroom vocabulary framed by Mrs. C.—asking big re-searchable questions and finding answers. The girls came toMrs. C. initially “ready to protest,” yet Mrs. C. and Princi-pal Shannon encouraged the girls to frame their issue in theform of an inquiry question they could investigate. Mrs. C.was a graduate of a teacher-education program groundedin inquiry. She embraces the practice of inquiry in her ownprofessional development as well as within curriculum (i.e.,taking a university course on Teacher Inquiry, presentingannually at a local conference on Inquiry). Thus, it madesense that the salad girls came around to asking: Should

we and how can we change the school salad? Then, insteadof presuming that it felt unjust to others as well within theschool, they asked, again something they were encouragedto do by their teacher and principal. As they told the schoolbody in the All-School Gathering, “We want to know whatYOU think!” and set out to collect data.

Similarly, as they wanted to “make their case,” they tooka stance of learning and questioning from the first meet-ing with the school-level cafeteria head (Mrs. Y.). PrincipalShannon scheduled this meeting in her office with the girls,Mrs. Y., and myself as a researcher-observer. The girls askedMrs. Y. to teach them about USDA requirements and howher job works. From here, it seemed that they understoodwhy her “hands are tied” and that they needed to go up tothe district level to impact change in the school lunch. Inunderstanding her perspective, a sense of empathy and re-spect for Mrs. Y. became evident (in place of their previousfrustration). Embracing inquiry allowed for a give and take,rather than just making their case or immediately “protest-ing.” This open-minded stance supported their path to be-coming efficacious in the end.

In an interview, the girls stated that Mrs. C. was one ofthe few people in their lives who “thought it was okay topush (against) rules (that) the adults made.” Indeed, Mrs.C. encouraged her students to ask questions from day onein her classroom. In an interview, she explained:

I tell the kids at the beginning of the year, ‘If ever you havequestions about why we’re doing something, or ideas abouthow to do better, questions about life, ask me. And it takesthem a really long time, some times, to get there. . ..some ofthem never step outside of the box that they are in, but, alot of them do’ [teacher interview, 3/18/10].

Mrs. C. went on to describe her philosophy of inquirythrough an example of her method of creating “rules” withher students. She begins by posing questions about what“being a good person” means to them:

I tell them there are absolutely no rules, except to be a goodperson. And [we are] just talking about that for a really longtime . . . what does that mean to you guys and what does itlook like in your lives? And who’s been a good person . . .

who do you consider to be a good person to you? And wehash that out for awhile, and I ask them, you know, why doyou think there are rules? What was your original question?What was the question? [teacher interview, 3/18/10].

Unlike traditional or hierarchical modes of rule enforce-ment in schools, Mrs. C. framed “rules” as a purposefuland coconstructed inquiry. Her students were encouragedto ask questions of themselves and what they do on a dailybasis. She also taught an inquiry-based science curriculum.She continued, “I don’t care if they go to Harvard. I justwant them to be thoughtful and deliberate with the thingsthat they do, and questioning.”

Asking questions with multiple right answers seemed likediving into a sea of unknown to the Salad Girls. Indeed,efficacy in action involves taking risks, which can be scary

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for many children when they know they may fail. For in-stance, Tameka laughed in a focus group interview with theSalad Girls about the time when she temporarily lost theirdata. Ayesha explained the scenario and Tameka added,“It was the hardest part for me but it was okay in the end.”The girls mentioned this delicate scenario approximatelyseven times across focus group interviews. These data showhow making mistakes were a component of the inquiryprocess. Mistakes, although precarious as they reveal as-sumptions or ignorance, can be generative toward becom-ing more efficacious. While defying traditional hierarchicalroles of teacher-expert, Mrs. C. shows how teachers canmodel making mistakes for students:

I make mistakes all the time in front of them, and let themtell me sometimes what I could have done better, you know?There’s no harm in that. I think that there’s a certain level ofletting go of . . .caring that the kids see that I make mistakesfor them . . . I feel like kids need to see a whole person andnot just a facade that’s considered teacher. . . I don’t feel likethere’s any way to get them to want to do the things thatthey need to do, when they’re in school, which is hardcore,the academic part, unless they’re feeling good. Unless theyknow that I genuinely love them . . . getting them to realizethat they can be a whole person with me, and that I’m awhole person with them [teacher interview, 3/18/10].

Being a “whole person” to Mrs. C. involves asking one’sown questions and being open to mistakes along the way,even public ones, which the salad girls exemplified for oneanother. Creating a space for civic efficacy involves beingvulnerable enough to ask and set forth in action withoutan answer, the heart of inquiry.

Working in a Diverse Group

A theme of diversity recurred in these data on several levels.As the Salad Girls stood up in front of the whole school andspoke publically about their religious and dietary needs,they brought an awareness of diversity to their school body(religious diversity, dietary, etc.). In the opinion polls, theyoften told children, “Remember, even if you can eat thesalad, think about your friend who might not be able to.”This point was solidified after they heard a teacher tell thestudents in her class before the opinion poll that if the stu-dents don’t eat the salad, “they don’t need to vote,” some-thing that initially maddened the girls but later solidifiedtheir belief that voting is not just about oneself but thinkingof others’ needs too.

From observations, interviews with Mrs. C. and withthe girls, the specific strengths of each girl were clearer.Ayesha was “the talker” in front of adults (in the forumwith the Secretary of Health and to cafeteria personnel),whereas Tameka felt more comfortable speaking to theschoolmates (class-by-class polls). Haley, who excelled atacademics, was meticulous in the details of their presen-tation, whereas Madison was described as more generally

“kind and supportive” within the group and by Mrs. C.Another girl, Bella, was introverted and quiet, but this pro-cess seemed to instill a greater sense of confidence in her asthe group encouraged her to share her thoughts on severaloccasions and she did. Conversely, because Ayesha was a“talker,” she reported that she learned to be a better listener.Mrs. C. described the girls’ strengths as “complementary,”and the girls too recognized their diverse strengths (andweaknesses). The data show how they not only used theirexisting and various strengths, they further diversified themwithin the process with support from Mrs. C. Tameka de-scribed how she, herself, became aware of her shift fromtaking care of herself toward working for an increasinglyenlarged and diverse group:

Well, when I was first thinking, I was only thinking aboutmyself, but then when I started to get more and more into it,I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there are so many other kids in thisschool who can’t have it, because they’re lactose intolerantor can’t have it because of the ham. . .It’s not just about us,it’s about the whole school.’

It is notable that this was not just a case of the popu-lar girls getting together to push their agenda (see Finders1997), nor did they previously socialize as a group. Al-though Mrs. C. described a couple of them as very intelli-gent, they were not seen as “advantaged.” One of the SaladGirls in particular had been going through troubling timesas her parent, who was having issues with drugs, left her andher brother to live in a bigger city. The girls were somewhatof a motley crew brought together by their shared issue.

In a collective written reflection (June 2010), the girls ex-panded upon the idea of their diversity as a strength, “Youhave people with all different abilities on a team; so oneperson can help another person with something they maybe struggling with. . .We can do many things at a time whenwe are in a team; we can all count on each other for differentthings.” In an earlier interview, Ayesha explained, “Yeah,like if I was doing this alone I would like . . . I would prob-ably back out.” Then she pointed out that her reason alonewasn’t enough to convince people that that salad should bechanged, “. . . if I went to All-School Gathering for religiousbeliefs, and then people would be like, ‘Oh, I don’t have areligious belief. Why should I care?’” She realized that theother girls’ personal rationales allowed them to connectwith more students in the school and create a stronger caseto cafeteria personnel. Thus, like any good working democ-racy, their collective diversity enhanced their potential forefficacy.

Along with inquiry, one of Mrs. C.’s largest commitmentsin her teaching is to promote diversity over homogeneity, “Idon’t want them to follow the masses just because. I’m notlooking to teach or raise sheep.” She later continued, “I’mso tired of following—of people being followers, and doingwhat people say we have to do without saying why” [teacherinterview, 7/6/10]. In sum, the girls realized the strength oftheir diversity as they worked for a united cause and as they

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were able to craft their message and presentation for diverseaudiences, from kindergarteners to district-level cafeteriapersonnel. They did so with the help of their teacher whosaw their various strengths as an advantage. Thus, fosteringcivic efficacy is not only about promoting consensus butrather valuing and fostering diversity.

Practicing Skills of Civic Activism

Mrs. C. did not just promote activism; she was an activistin her own time, out of school. Her most recent activismwas in response to Dewey Elementary not passing AYP(Adequate Yearly Progress) as defined by No Child LeftBehind (NCLB). In an interview, she explained an implicitconnection between her activism out of school and her roleas a teacher:

No one ever said to us (as young teachers), there might comea day when they decide not to fund public education, or theystart to just slowly pull the rug out from under you. You’regonna have to scramble for your job, and fight for yourstudents. . . . So all of this stuff that I’m going through withthe politics and the frustration and stuff, it’s causing me tobe more systematic and more deliberate with making surethat that’s something that I instill in my students [teacherinterview, 7/6/10].

Although her students did not seem to know about heractivism, Mrs. C. became purposeful about promoting theactivist quality of “standing up for change” in her students.In our observations of her classroom teaching, Mrs. C.indeed modeled to her students the skills of civic activismsuch as how to contact relevant political officials (fromthe municipal to the national level) and create small actiongroups. For instance, she sat with one group of studentson Martin Luther King Day as they called local stores fordonations for their project on animal treatment.

Citing the help of Mrs. C., Bella similarly explained howthey gained the skills of activism that allowed them tostand up for change, “I think now I’m not afraid to takea stand and try to change something that I think shouldbe changed.” The other girls concurred, and they discussedhow nervous they were to stand up in front of the wholeschool and speak about their issue. Later, Haley went intomore depth:

We’re all American citizens. And just because adults makethe rules doesn’t mean that we don’t have the chance to saythat. And we all have the rights to stand up for them. Andthey shouldn’t say that we shouldn’t be allowed to do that,because that’s just against our rights.

Rights and responsibilities were a theme in Mrs. C.’s cur-riculum. Tameka seemed to draw from those lessons as shestated, “we all have rights and we . . . if we want to changesomething, we have to stick up for each other. . .. It’s like,fight for your rights. That’s all I got to say.” Libby followedTameka’s sentiment, “And fight for what you think shouldbe right.” Madison, a bit quieter, when I asked her directly,responded, “I know that I can change stuff now, and if I try

hard enough that I can.” Their growing sense of efficacywas coupled with the attainment of the skills to take ac-tion effectively. Rights and responsibilities were no longerabstract concepts but grounded in an experience for thegirls.

Ayesha shared that she started thinking about the rolethat standing up for injustices has played in the UnitedStates: “Well if people like don’t go for what they believe,and then like if some people didn’t go and say, ‘I don’t wantslaves,’ there would still be slavery today.” Haley agreedand added, “This kind of taught me, when we were doingthat (standing up in an All-School Gathering), that you’vegot to be a voice for people that are afraid to be theirown voice, or can’t.” Bella stated that their work is, “. . .

important because we’re kind of standing up for all thoseother people who are kind of shy, and they think, ‘Oh, Ihave this opinion but I’m going to be to afraid to state it infront of everybody.’” This points to recent history lessonstaught by Mrs. C. in which she deliberately showed the wayin which citizens became activists in the Civil War.

The girls gained skills both as individuals and collec-tively. As students’ civic-political growth happens along in-trapersonal and interpersonal dimensions, they develop thecapacity to construct their own knowledge and value oth-ers’ contributions, a form of self-authorship (Iverson andJames 2013). This building of individual and group em-powerment can also be described as internal (I can make adifference!) and external (We can impact systemic change!)efficacy (Kahne and Westheimer 2006; see also Levy 2011).Fostering civic efficacy involves providing opportunities foryoung citizens to act, to connect meaningfully with widen-ing spheres of influence, and learn the skills of activism.When it does happen, often civic education happens with-out action. This example shows how having a chance togive civic action a try with a skilled leader to scaffold theirprogress, facilitated civic efficacy and learning. Social stud-ies scholars agree (Ochoa-Becker 2007; Parker 1996) thatdeliberately modeling the “arts and crafts” of active citi-zenship (Boyle-Baise, McClain and Montgomery 2010, 42)is integral to promoting students who can go beyond mereknowing and move toward action.

Implications for Practice and Future Research

This article argues that there are particular aspects of Mrs.C.’s enacted philosophy of teaching that allowed for theSalad Girls to experience civic efficacy: her regular prac-tices of building curriculum from students’ lives, encour-aging inquiry, valuing diversity, and practicing the skillsof activism. These philosophical and pedagogical compo-nents can be considered worthwhile by other teachers andteacher educators seeking to foster civic efficacy. The chartbelow lists philosophical and pedagogical considerations,the prior framed as questions for teachers’ practice and thelatter framed as experiences (see Figure 3).

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Elements to Foster Civic Efficacy in Classrooms

Philosophical considerations: Pedagogical considerations:

Building Curriculum from life

Do I seek to connect the rote curriculum with my students’ lives?

Do I allow for opportunities for students to build curriculum from their own interests (i.e. student voice)?

-Eliciting students’ experiences as a means to shape any curricular topic-Listening to students concerns about what is unjust and placing them as agents of change

Asking Questions Do I model inquiry-based practices across subject areas?

Do I encourage or model making mistakes in the inquiry process?

-Asking for students wonderings on various curricular topics

-Building in time to pursue their topic of interest

Working in a Diverse Group

Do I encourage diversity over homogeneity in groups and students’ ideas?

Do I allow dis-sensus as well as consensus in my classroom?

-Gathering diverse students in working interest groups -Designing assessments in which there are multiple right answers -Allowing students to share their perspectives with one another

Building Skills of Civic Activism.

Do I possess the skills and knowledge of civic activism in my community in order to aide in students’ processes?

Do I create space in the curriculum for students to become engaged in civic activism projects?

-Modeling for students the appropriate avenues (township, city, state, nation) and effective methods to impact policy change-Providing potential narratives when using phone numbers and addresses of local, state, and national governmental officials

Fig. 3. Elements to Foster Civic Efficacy: The Philosophical and Pedagogical Considerations.

Taking a contextual step out of Mrs. C.’s impact, it is im-portant also to recognize the larger school environment thatfacilitated the girls’ success. The girls’ story, and resultingsense of efficacy, involved a principal with a matching phi-losophy (to Mrs. C.’s) who created time and space to fosterthe girls’ project. Moreover, the lead cafeteria worker waswilling to listen and work with the girls’ concerns, althoughshe had the capability to shut them down. I also see ways inwhich my presence, as a researcher interested in their projectand as a professor of education with potential power or ex-pertise, may have offered further approval or support.

A specific pedagogy, the All-School Gatherings (wherethe girls presented their initial announcement and later pre-sentation of data) served as an outlet to for the studentsto vent their concerns or share information, garner sup-port, and celebrate success. The role of forums such asAll-School Gatherings, to achieve a “visible victory” (Mi-tra 2009, 1860) could be further investigated as a potentialcontextual school-level support of fostering civic efficacy.

Conversely, future work on efficacy could analyze stum-bling blocks that may potentially stymie or foment mean-ingful civic learning (i.e., not achieving “success” per se).

The fact that context matters makes the Salad Girls aparticular case from which only some generalizations andmuch more discussion can be made. Still, such qualita-tive research adds essential depth the extant literature onefficacy that is by and large quantitative and focused onadolescents or college-age students. To that end of further-ing future practice and scholarship, I offer three points fordiscussion on civic education: (1) privilege, (2) advocacy,and (3) sustaining efforts.

Civic Efficacy Is Not Just for the Privileged

As the case of the Salad Girls demonstrates, experienceswith being civically efficacious need not be only for thosealready most privileged in society or for those who seem to

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have a propensity for leadership. Diverse groups can cometogether, including the shy, the abandoned, and those whomay have had less chance to participate in the civic sphereor to impact change. Indeed, the principles of democracydemand for this, valuing equal access to participation, jus-tice, and due process of law. Yet on a national scale, Amer-icans earning over $75,000, in comparison to those whoearn under $15,000, are twice as likely to contact an electedofficial and protest, almost three times more likely to par-ticipate in informal community activities, and more thanfour times more likely to work on a campaign or serve ona board (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). If the civicachievement gap is to close (Levinson 2010), diversity andsocioeconomic status has to be a point of consideration inhow civic participation is framed with, to, and for studentsor else it may be a mode of further alienating them.

In particular, this example shows that high-quality teach-ers of civics can support diverse students’ participation andrecognize their diverse strengths. While accessing students’voices (stories, opinions, or personal issues) in society can-not be taken for granted, leveraging students’ stories, opin-ions, and concerns as a platform for engagement may allowunderprivileged students to participate politically and civi-cally in ways that are authentic and personally meaningful(i.e., Schultz 2008).

Valuing and Advocating for Civics

For teachers to “safely” pursue civic efficacy as a goal fortheir students, it should not be seen as separate from teach-ing the core subjects. Recent research on “Action Civics”shows that civic and political engagement can increase stu-dent participation in other academic classes (Pope, Stolte,and Cohen 2011), increasing knowledge that is applicable tostandardized tests. Yet taking the time to “live one’s civics”(Dunn 1915) can unfortunately be considered as time offtask, pushing civics further on the backburner. In a surveyof over 1,000 second-, fifth-, and eighth-grade social stud-ies teachers, 65 percent indicated that they would do “lessdirect instruction and more inquiry if testing were to disap-pear” (Leming, Ellington, and Shug 2006, 235). Thus, in theface of NCLB mandates, continued research and advocacyfor engaged citizenship remain especially important (e.g.,O’Conner, Heafner, and Groce 2007) to establish that focuson civics does not take away from a curriculum. Rather, acivic education can infuse a curriculum with life, personalrelevance, and purpose. Yet this idea runs counter to themindset of individual accountability in schools. As thesedata demonstrate, the individual can have a meaningfullearning experience full of academic content (i.e., writing,speaking, civics in history, analyzing data, etc.). Notably,the Salad Girls all scored above average on that year’s stan-dardized tests in reading and mathematics. Yet strong testscores are likely not what they will remember from theirfifth-grade year. In hopes of developing experiences that

foster civic efficacy, advocacy by adults in diverse roles, in-cluding university faculty in this case, alongside teachersand administration, is crucial to demonstrate how qualitylearning experiences cam flourish from engaged civics.

Sustaining Efficacy

Promoting sustained efficacy for as many students as pos-sible involves putting in place practices from the earliestyears that recur and shape school as an experience. Imag-ine students moving through a system of schooling withregular chances to take civic action, developing a senseof civic efficacy to new and various contexts. This articleworks to identify such particular social spaces and pro-cesses that can sustain civic efficacy, particularly those pro-moted by the teacher. Such logistical elements may includebuilt-in time for student announcements in which studentscan initiate and share action (i.e., All-School Gatherings)and integrating curriculum with civic action at the centeras in models such as Project Citizen (Center for Civic Ed-ucation 1996). Philosophically, schools can ground theirprofessional development around teacher inquiry, studentinquiry, coconstructed curriculum, civic action, and team-work that capitalizes on diversity. Promoting sustained ef-ficacy for as many students as possible involves putting inplace practices from the earliest years that recur and shapeschool as an experience.

As they moved into middle school the next year, the girlsremained somewhat cohesive in their civic action. Theyrecently decided that they disagree with the policy that girlsshould not be able to wear short-shorts and are using theskills they learned with the salad process to impact policychange in their middle school (including Ayesha who nowwears a headscarf to school). They are still unsure of howthe process will unfold. Mrs. C. responded with a sense ofpride, “When I hear how things go in the next year andhow they’re succeeding, that makes me feel like I’ve donemy job, you know.” A few, rare teachers alone, however,cannot sustain the mission of promoting civic efficacy inschools. Instead, this and other examples of extraordinaryteachers (i.e., Brophy, Alleman and Knighton 2008) shouldserve as a catalyst for more educators to seek to defineand create school cultures that foster civic efficacy throughpractical and philosophical supports (i.e., professionaldevelopment, mission statements, processes and forumsfor civic engagement, and civics-based curriculum withinschooling). Especially in the elementary years whereresearch is scant and laying the foundation is crucial, theimperative is to identify such practices and policies thatsupport education for civic efficacy.

Note

1. Pseudonyms are used for the school and all participantsof this study.

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Appendix A:. Interview Protocols for the Salad Girls

1. Tell me how you became interested in this ‘salad’ project.2. Why are you doing surveys? What types of things did you want to learn on the survey?3. What did you say at the All-School Gathering? How did you feel?4. Who has encouraged you in this process?5. When has the process been hard? Has anyone discouraged you?6. If a friend asked you, if it weren’t for blank, we could have never done this. What would that blank be for you?7. What was the moment that you thought, “Wow we might actually change something here!”?8. Some people think that kids should just obey the rules and not question the decisions that adults have made. What would you

say to those people?9. How did you learn to do the something like this? Do you do service in other places, like outside of the school, inside the school?10. Where have you had other opportunities to be a leader?11. If you had to tell kindergarten kids, this is . . . if you want something done this is how you do it. What are the steps? You see

something that needs to be done, what do you do?After salads were changed:

1. Yesterday was the first day of the new salads. How’d that go? What did you notice?2. Did you present at the ASG two days ago? How did that go?3. Did you announce it on the PA? What was that like?4. What was going through your mind when the cafeteria personnel said that trying a salad option #5 and #6 would be do-able?5. What have you learned? School things? Things that might help you in a job someday?

Now I want to ask about the people who helped you do this:6. How did Principal S. specifically help you?7. How did Mrs. C. specifically help you?8. How did your family specifically help you?9. Who else helped?10. How’s the letter to the government going? What types of things are you saying in it?11. So next year, you’ll be in middle school. Do you think you’ll do something like this again? An activism project?12. What steps did you take in this project that you could replicate in future projects?

Post-project written reflection questions:1. What are the advantages of working on a team? Disadvantages?2. What did you do well?3. How can you improve our problem-solving skills?

What would you want to do differently, if you were to develop another project on another issue?

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Appendix B:. Semi-structured Interview Protocol for Mrs. C. (completed over two interview sessions)

1. What are some of the most important aspects of your teaching?2. What are your main goals for your students this year?3. Can you describe scenes in which you have felt effective as teacher and explain why?4. What are some times when you have felt less than effective as a teacher? Why?5. Describe your involvement with the Salad Girls’ project from its inception until now.6. What has been particularly effective in supporting them?7. Describe each of the salad girls and what they have contributed in the project.8. What are your hopes for their project?9. What ideals undergird your practice?10. What activities or events, including professional development, have shaped your philosophy and practice as a teacher?11. Can you describe the various spaces for political/civic action that you have both created and belong to? What are these spaces?

How do you or don’t you share those experiences with your students.12. Interviewer explains various scenes (references from field notes) and asked the teacher her thinking or rationale.

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