Does Teach for America Build Civic Engagement?
Aaron Schutz (noreply@blogger.com)
No. One reason may be that the TFA experience often doesn't feel that empowering. And the research on civic participation (to simplify a lot) indicates that if you have a disempowering civic experience that will, not surprisingly, turn you off to civic engagement as a tool for social change. “ There’s been a very clear and somewhat naïve consensus among educators, policy folks and scholars that youth activism invariably has these kinds of effects,” Professor McAdam said. “But we’ve got to be mu