Ana López Almánzar ‘25 has published an op-ed in The South Bend Tribune entitled “Civic Education Lessons from Latin America.” Almánzar is an undergraduate fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS) and wrote the piece as part of her spring research seminar at the NDIAS.

In the column, Almánzar praises a recent Indiana law requiring middle school students to take a semester-long civics course, pointing to favorable outcomes of similar laws in her home country, the Dominican Republic, and other places throughout Latin America.

She notes that through civic-education efforts in Latin America, “understanding of complex political matters and critical thinking is expanded, engagement in civil movements increases, and attention is brought to discrepancies in political practice. It might not be the only solution to political injustices and participation, but civic education has proven to be a step in the right direction, and now the children of Indiana will be walking that way too.”

Almánzar is a rising junior at the University of Notre Dame majoring Psychology and Education, Schooling & Society with a concentration in Comparative Educational Policy.

For more information about undergraduate programming at the NDIAS, visit https://ndias.nd.edu/fellowships/undergraduate-fellowships/.