Teaching Neutrality, Encountering Conflict: Civic Education and the Student Perception of the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract

Public confidence in the United States Supreme Court has declined in recent years as perceptions of judicial partisanship have increased. At the same time, civic education frequently presents the Court as a politically neutral institution. This study examines whether state-approved instructional materials contribute to this disconnect. This study investigates how South Carolina's state-approved standards and high school government textbooks frame the U.S. Supreme Court and what ideological assumptions and omissions those representations reveal. Using Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis, this study examines two South Carolina standards documents and eight state-approved government textbooks spanning three adoption cycles (2014, 2023, and provisional 2025). Three California district-approved textbooks are analyzed as a comparative case to assess whether identified discursive patterns are unique to South Carolina or reflect broader civic education conventions. These findings suggest that state-approved instructional materials construct a simplified understanding of judicial authority that may contribute to the gap between students' classroom expectations and contemporary public perceptions of the Supreme Court. The study contributes to scholarship on civic education, judicial legitimacy, and Critical Discourse Analysis by connecting these previously separate fields.