Action Civics as a Powerful Tool—Not a Panacea—in the Provision of High-Quality Civic Education. A Response to “The Domino Effect”: How Early Adolescence Describe their Capacity for Civic Engagement"

Action civics happens when young people do research, action, and reflection on social or political issues they care about. In this third decade of the 21st century, action civics is often found in after-school and/or out-of-school contexts, and substantive research now shows its power and potential for providing transformative learning experiences for young people, as is evidenced again in "The Domino Effect: How Early Adolescents Describe Their Capacity for Civic Engagement"—one of the feature articles of this issue. At the same time, action civics, precisely because it is so often conceived and enacted in out-of-school time spaces, is not, and should not, be considered a panacea for the dearth of school-based opportunities for high-quality civic learning and engagement for students. While recognizing its power and potential, this response article details the problematic of action civics as a panacea to the broader systemic issue of a lack of democratic education today.