Affiliation:
1. Fayetteville State University, USA
Abstract
There is a dearth of civic knowledge, skills, dispositions, and interest among pre-and post-secondary students and the general public. Many people are not equipped with the necessary knowledge of American political history, democratic institutions, processes, and civic life needed to allow them to become active, effective, responsible, and empowered citizens and leaders of the future. The traditional mode of incorporating civics in the lecture format in social studies and political science curricula is ineffective. The Performing Arts for Effective Civic Engagement (PAECE) program is a cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional effort that was created to address this problem through creative, entertaining performance-based content delivery that is designed by students. This paper describes the details on the program implementation, evalution, as well as its outcomes, in an effort to disseminate pertinent information for possible replication or adaptation of the model by other institutions. The paper concludes with some implications for higher education institutions.
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