New Books In Political Science

Matthew D. Nelsen, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, has a new book out that focuses on the content of civic education in the United States, and how we learn about the diverse and varied history of the United States. There is an ongoing and contemporary conversation about civic education in the United States, and what should and should not be taught in explaining the United States, how it works, who is part of it, and how it has evolved over four centuries. Nelsen’s work, The Color of Civics: Civic Education for a Multiracial Democracy (Oxford UP, 2023), pays close attention to what happens in classrooms, particularly urban classrooms, when these lessons are taught, and how students respond to these curricula and experiences. What he finds should be of interest to all of us, since it gets to the very heart of civic education, which is how to teach young people about being citizens in a democracy. Nelsen poses these broader questions throughout the book: Who is learning wh