What does it mean to be civic-ready? Uncovering citizenship conceptualizations in US states that require the ‘citizenship test’

Abstract

There is a growing trend within civics education within the United States to adopt the USCIS naturalization civics exam (commonly referred to as the ‘citizenship test’), which consists of 100 multiple choice questions, to determine the civic readiness of students. This study explores civics education within eight US states that have adopted the ‘citizenship test’ model through the lens of citizenship conceptualizations evidenced within their high school civics state standards. Utilizing a directed content analysis, the researcher located more than 230 standards within three citizenship discourse categories: civic republican, liberal, and reconstructionist. Citizenship within the examined state standards, was largely conceptualized as civic republican in orientation (96%) and nested within untroubled assumptions of US society and desires for a common American identity that often crowded out attention to diversity and conflict and in doing so, mirrored exclusionary practices common to standardized, high-stakes assessments including the USCIS naturalization civics exam.