Does Civic Education Impact Primary School Students’ Civic Outcomes? Experimental Evidence from Liberia

Abstract

We present experimental evidence on a civic education program in Liberia’s public primary schools across 140 schools serving grades 3 and 4. The program provided new civic textbooks, teacher training, twice-weekly instruction, and regular classroom monitoring. After one school year, treatment students scored 0.38 SDs higher on civic knowledge assessments. Gains were concentrated in factual knowledge (0.37 SDs), with positive effects across the achievement distribution. However, the program had no impact on students’ civic engagement. Classroom observation data reveal that instruction was heavily textbook-centered, in contrast to the participatory models common in high-income countries.