How Important is Learning History and Civics Anyways?

America celebrates its 250^th anniversary this week. That marks a massive milestone. But as we enjoy the festivities of parades, fireworks, and backyard barbecues, it’s also an important time to reflect on our country’s history and civics—and how we’re educating the next generation to engage with those ideas.

What do Americans think is important for kids to learn? And how well are schools living up to those expectations in teaching social studies?

As the school year wrapped up in May, we surveyed Americans (N = 2,254) and school parents (N = 1,368) as part of our Public Opinion Tracker polling series in partnership with Morning Consult. We asked questions to understand the general public’s views on teaching U.S. history and government/civics in school.

Let’s start with history. Overwhelmingly and unambiguously, both parents and Americans believe it’s very important to teach students about U.S. history. About three-fourths of respondents agree on this. Moreover, people believe learning history is important both for middle school and high school students, at approximately equal levels across grade levels. And for the record, most of the remaining respondents say that history is at least somewhat important to teach. Only about 4% believe it’s unimportant.

Next, on to civics and government. Once again, parents and the public agree that these subjects are very important for students to learn. This time, we do see some variation based on grade level. About two-thirds think civics is important for middle school students, increasing to about 80% for high school students.

For what it’s worth, Americans recognize the importance of a good civics education across partisan lines. Democrats and Republicans both strongly support teaching students about civics and government, at almost identical levels.

We seem to have a consensus that teaching U.S. history and government is important. But what if we look at these subjects at a more granular level?

To get into the details, we asked respondents to rate the importance of teaching various topics relevant to U.S. social studies, ranging from studying founding documents to evaluating news sources to learning the history of the civil rights movement.

Long story short, Americans rank every single topic on our list as being very important for students to learn. The top answers are “the rights and responsibilities of citizens” and “the U.S. Constitution,” but they don’t have much of a lead. Every option garnered between 70 and 79 percent support among the general public.

With such widespread and strong support, schools ought to prioritize teaching their students about these subjects. However, as you might suspect, that’s not always the case.

Only 23% of adults and 33% of parents say that their local schools teach a lot about civics and U.S. history. The plurality answer that students are taught “some” about these subjects, a lukewarm response that doesn’t inspire confidence that kids are receiving a robust civics education.

There’s a clear consensus on the importance of teaching K-12 students about history and government. However, aspirations don’t always align with the reality of how much subject matter actually makes it into the classroom curriculum.

So, this Fourth of July, perhaps take a moment to share some knowledge with a kid in your life. Civics education takes place at home, as well as in the classroom.

For more on the importance of civics and history, check out our podcast.

This was originally published to our Substack.