The notion of educational gaps often portrays students of color as lower performing (or with less resources) than their White counterparts. The most prevalent gap narratives in civic education are the civic opportunity gap, where students of color in low-income areas tend to receive less quality civic education than White, wealthier students; and the civic empowerment gap, where disenfranchised students (often students of color in low income neighborhoods) display less civic knowledge, attitude and behavior than White students. In this paper, I argue that both of these civic gaps are a manifestation of a larger civic debt that is partially rooted in the racial grammar of civic education.

中文翻译：

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公民债务在民主教育中的作用

教育差距的概念通常将有色人种学生描述为比白人学生表现较差（或资源较少）。公民教育中最普遍的差距叙述是公民机会差距，低收入地区的有色人种学生接受的公民教育质量往往低于较富裕的白人学生；以及公民赋权差距，被剥夺权利的学生（通常是低收入社区的有色人种学生）表现出的公民知识、态度和行为比白人学生少。在本文中，我认为这两种公民差距都是更大的公民债务的表现，部分根源于公民教育的种族语法。