The Civics Mosaic Program Overview

In October 2002, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a five-year grant, as part of its Cooperative Civic Education and Economic Education Exchange Program, to the Council for Citizenship Education at Russell Sage College to develop Civics Mosaic, an international exchange program in comparative civics.1

Civics Mosaic builds on Civitas-Russia, a U.S.-Russian partnership in civic education that has been in existence since 1995. Civitas-Russia is a member of the international Civitas network coordinated by the Center for Civic Education of Calabasas, CA, with funding from the United States Department of Education and the Department of State.

Civitas-Russia national partners identified 12 U.S. regions and 12 Russian regions. The national partners in consultation with those regions then paired each Russian region with a counterpart region in the U.S. In each region, there is a regional coordinator who recruits two educators each year to serve as Exchange Fellows.

Each November, Russian Fellows visit their American counterparts; each April, American Fellows visit their Russian counterparts in March or April. During these visits, they observe and teach in their counterparts' schools. Each July, American teams meet together with selected Russian colleagues in a retreat-like setting to learn more about comparative civics, to share findings and ideas, and to plan for the coming year. Each year, Russian teams come together for a similar meeting in Russia.

Working together Russian and American counterparts collaborate on shared and individual research projects. Within their regions, American and Russian teams organize professional development activities. U.S. and Russian Fellows are involved in the review and field testing of program products. The end product of the program for U.S. classes will be a high school textbook (and a series of middle school lessons) on comparative civics supplemented by classroom resources written by Civics Mosaic Fellows and posted on the web. The end product of the program for Russian classes will be a teacher's manual on comparative civics supplemented by classroom resources written by Civics Mosaic Fellows and posted on the web.

Research plays an important role not only in the program evaluation of Civics Mosaic but also in its program activities. In fact, both program and evaluation have been determined to be subject to federal human participant protection regulations.

more>