An analysis of civic education policy-making in Arizona using the advocacy coalition framework and policy design theory

There is widespread concern that public schools in the United States are failing to prepare students adequately for citizenship. Policy changes may be needed to improve civic education. The civic education policy-making process at the Arizona legislature was studied to identify the factors that affect policy outcomes. Two theoretical frameworks were used to guide the research---the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) and policy design theory (PDT). The ACF suggests that public policy is made by advocacy coalitions, with each coalition united by shared beliefs. However, no advocacy coalitions were found in civic education policy-making in Arizona. Two coalitions were found in the broader realm of education policy. While the members of each coalition shared some policy core beliefs, there was little evidence of comprehensive deep core beliefs that underlie the policy core beliefs. For the PDT analysis, the civic education policy examined was environmental education policy. PDT attributes policy outcomes to an interaction between the culture of a policy-making institution and the types of groups targeted by a policy. The culture of the Arizona legislature was determined to be degenerative. In degenerative policy-making cultures, policy design is shaped by the characteristics of the group(s) targeted by a policy. For the environmental education policy, three design elements were examined for three target groups---students, automobile owners, and natural resource industries. In the final policy design, eight of the nine design elements matched the predictions from policy design theory. Based on these results, PDT was judged to be more useful than the ACF for explaining civic education policy-making in Arizona. In interviews, eleven of thirteen education policy-makers judged civic education in Arizona to be inadequate or poor. The logic of PDT suggests that civic education policy is unlikely to be effective for students unless greater effectiveness is also in the interests of a more powerful interest group.