Reading Kaplowitz (2017)
Today we are digging into an article from 2017 written by Craig Kaplowitz. It’s an easy read at 8 pages and a great place to start for this series.
Kaplowitz, C. (2017). Helping with the “how”: A role for honors in civic education. Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, 18(2), 17–23. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1222078
This post is part of my series reading civic-related journal articles. Today we’re digging into a 2017 piece by Craig Kaplowitz. It’s an easy eight-page read and a great starting point for this series. While it leans more toward an essay or think piece than a research study, it’s thought-provoking and opens the door to several important questions.
Kaplowitz argues that university-level honors programs can play a unique role in strengthening civic education by focusing on the how—the practical process through which students learn to engage civically. My own view in this space has been that “graduation with civic honors” programs represent a clear path forward. Kaplowitz outlines strategies for embedding civic competencies within honors coursework, emphasizing reflection, deliberation, and interdisciplinary problem-solving. I’m curious to see how the “how” elements from this work may have evolved or been built upon in subsequent research. That’s something I plan to explore in future posts.
The article closes with a short section of suggested readings. I plan to consolidate that list and revisit whether any of those referenced works appear here in later entries.
You can read the full text of the article here: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1222078.pdf