Civic Language Perceptions Project: Deep Dive on the Impact of Civic Education

Wednesday, April 13, 2022 | 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM Eastern

This event is hosted by PACE, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, Generation Citizen, and CivxNow.

PACE’s Civic Language Perceptions Project seeks to understand peoples’ perceptions of the language associated with “civic engagement and democracy” work. At best, are we talking past each other? At worst, are we furthering divisions and/or disengagement? In 2019, PACE took its first steps of exploration on this topic; since then, the world has changed, the need to understand has grown, and the questions about what we do have become more urgent. In partnership with Citizen Data, the Rita Allen Foundation, and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, PACE fielded a nationally representative survey in November 2021 to poll 21 terms commonly used in “civic engagement and democracy” work and to understand how people perceive and associate them. PACE released the data on March 23, 2022, which is fully accessible at www.PACEFunders.org/Language.

For additional depth, survey participants were asked whether they recall taking civic education classes, which means we can look to explore the relationship between civic education background and perceptions and associations of “civic engagement and democracy” language.

Join us on Wednesday, April 13, 2022 from 3-4pm Eastern for an overview of the project and a deep dive on the impact of civic education on the language of democracy.