The civics test: a political or educational tool for creating the perfect citizen? A historical overview of forms and processes of naturalization in the United States

Abstract

Naturalization, or the process through which citizenship is granted to a foreigner, is a process that has begun to increasingly look like that of the school. In the United States, as in many other countries, one of the main features of the naturalization is the civics test. This paper aims to document the historical development of naturalization procedures in the United States and shed light on how schoolish tools were introduced to decide who can be offered or denied American citizenship. Much of past research has critiqued the civics test for its unreliability, or difficulty for even natives. We argue, however, that the current civics test is rather a product of a system that began without a solid foundation. In an attempt to avoid fraud and control efficiency, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has promoted the use of a test that devalues the importance of the choice to re-align loyalties to a country and regulates it to memory testing.