Organization affiliations

CivXNow is the national coalition led by iCivics working to expand quality civic education standards at the elementary, middle, and high school levels to ensure that future generations will gain a deep understanding of civic life; know how to engage as informed citizens; and understand why their civic participation matters. Inquiring Minds is proud to be a partner in this important coalition.

DemocracyReady NY is the coalition sponsored by the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College to bring the state into compliance to provide meaningful civic engagement for all students from pre kindergarten to high school. Inquiring Minds Institute is one the of the 100 affiliated institutions and organizations that run DemocracyReady. We started a study group within the coalition to understand how to best provide young children with the tools and strategies they need to be engaged, informed citizens.

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) defines social studies as "the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence." Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences. In essence, social studies promotes knowledge of and involvement in civic affairs. And because civic issues—such as health care, crime, and foreign policy—are multidisciplinary in nature, understanding these issues and developing resolutions to them require multidisciplinary education. These characteristics are the key defining aspects of social studies.

Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility educates young people for hopeful and intelligent engagement with their world. A national leader in the field of social and emotional learning (SEL), Morningside Center has developed a range of research-based programs that improve students' social and emotional intelligence—and their academic performance. They are working to make social and emotional learning a part of every child’s education.

Center for Civic Design 

To the Center, democracy is a design problem. At the core of solving that problem is ensuring voter intent through design.

The Center’s goal is to make every interaction between government and citizens easy, effective, and pleasant.

The Center brings civic design skills in research, usability, design, accessibility, and plain language to improve the voting experience, make elections easier to administer, and encourage participation in elections. Through their work, they have helped hundreds of election officials build their skills and capacity, and touched millions of voters in important ways.

Across all of their projects, their research suggests that the voter journey—all of the information, decisions, interactions that get a voter from an intention to vote to actually casting a ballot—is a story of seemingly small barriers that can add up to a vote not cast.

The Center’s projects and research starts from the causes of those burdens. By smoothing out those barriers, their work can help more people vote, and strengthen democracy.

Civics 101

What's the difference between the House and the Senate? How do congressional investigations work? What is Federalist X actually about? 

Civics 101 is the podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works.  

Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Civics 101 is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

School affiliations

Barnard College, Teachers College and Long Island University are ongoing relationships Inquiring Minds has with teaching colleges in New York City.

Besides collaborating with organizations, Inquiring Minds has been fortunate to develop ongoing relationships with both public and private schools including:

Democracy Prep (Harlem, national)

PS 20 (Brooklyn, NY)

Dock Street Middle School (Brooklyn, NY)

PS 307 (Brooklyn, NY)

LREI (New York, NY)

Powell School (Washington, DC)

Edmund Burke School (Washington, DC)

Design for Social Innovation/SVA (New York, NY)