an essay on civic education

The need for civic education in 21st-century schools

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Rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

June 4, 2020

14 min read

Americans’ participation in civic life is essential to sustaining our democratic form of government. Without it, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people will not last. Of increasing concern to many is the declining levels of civic engagement across the country, a trend that started several decades ago. Today, we see evidence of this in the limited civic knowledge of the American public, 1 in 4 of whom, according to a 2016 survey led by Annenberg Public Policy Center, are unable to name the three branches of government. It is not only knowledge about how the government works that is lacking—confidence in our leadership is also extremely low. According to the Pew Research Center , which tracks public trust in government, as of March 2019, only an unnerving 17 percent trust the government in Washington to do the right thing. We also see this lack of engagement in civic behaviors, with Americans’ reduced participation in community organizations and lackluster participation in elections , especially among young voters. 1

Many reasons undoubtedly contribute to this decline in civic engagement: from political dysfunction to an actively polarized media to the growing mobility of Americans and even the technological transformation of leisure , as posited by Robert D. Putnam. Of particular concern is the rise of what Matthew N. Atwell, John Bridgeland, and Peter Levine call “civic deserts,” namely places where there are few to no opportunities for people to “meet, discuss issues, or address problems.” They estimate that 60 percent of all rural youth live in civic deserts along with 30 percent of urban and suburban Americans. Given the decline of participation in religious organizations and unions, which a large proportion of Americans consistently engaged in over the course of the 20th century, it is clear that new forms of civic networks are needed in communities.

As one of the few social institutions present in virtually every community across America, schools can and should play an important role in catalyzing increased civic engagement. They can do this by helping young people develop and practice the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors needed to participate in civic life. Schools can also directly provide opportunities for civic engagement as a local institution that can connect young and old people alike across the community. To do this, civic learning needs to be part and parcel of the current movement across many schools in America to equip young people with 21st-century skills.

To date however, civic education experts argue that civic learning is on the margins of young people’s school experience. The 2018 Brown Center Report on American Education examined the status of civic education and found that while reading and math scores have improved in recent years, there has not been the commensurate increase in eighth grade civics knowledge. While 42 states and the District of Columbia require at least one course related to civics, few states prioritize the range of strategies, such as service learning which is only included in the standards for 11 states, that is required for an effective civic education experience. The study also found that high school social studies teachers are some of the least supported teachers in schools and report teaching larger numbers of students and taking on more non-teaching responsibilities like coaching school sports than other teachers. Student experience reinforces this view that civic learning is not a central concern of schools. Seventy percent of 12th graders say they have never written a letter to give an opinion or solve a problem and 30 percent say they have never taken part in a debate—all important parts of a quality civic learning.

The origins of civic education

The fact that children today across the country wake up in the morning and go to school five days a week for most of the year has everything to do with civic education. The idea of a shared school experience where all young people in America receive a standard quality education is inextricably linked to the development of the United States as a national entity and the development of citizens who had the skills and knowledge to engage in a democracy.

In the early 1800s, as the country struggled to navigate what it meant to be a democratic republic, school as we know it did not exist as a distinguishing feature of childhood. Even almost midway into the century—in 1840—only 40 percent of the population ages 5 to 19 attended school. 2 For those who did attend, what they learned while at school was widely variable depending on the institution they attended and the instructor they had. Several education leaders began advocating for a more cohesive school system, one in which all young people could attend and receive similar instruction regardless of economic status, institution, or location. Chief among these leaders was Horace Mann, often referred to as the “father of American education,” who argued that free, standardized, and universal schooling was essential to the grand American experiment of self-governance. In an 1848 report he wrote: “It may be an easy thing to make a Republic; but it is a very laborious thing to make Republicans; and woe to the republic that rests upon no better foundations than ignorance, selfishness, and passion.”

The rise of reading, math, and science

The Common Schools Movement that Mann helped establish and design was the foundation of our current American education system. Despite the fact that the core of our education system was built upon the belief that schooling institutions have a central role to play in preparing American youth to be civically engaged, this goal has been pushed to the margins over time as other educational objectives have moved to the forefront. Reading, math, and science have always been essential elements of a child’s educational experience, but many educationalists argue that these subjects were elevated above all others after the country’s “Sputnik moment.” In 1957, the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, the first space satellite, made waves across the U.S. as Americans perceived they were falling behind academically and scientifically. A wave of reforms including in math, science, and engineering education followed. Improving students poor reading and math skills received particular attention over the last several decades including in President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. A focus on ensuring American students get strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills continues to be an ongoing concern, as highlighted by President Obama’s 2013 Educate to Innovate plan focused on improving American students performance in STEM subjects.

The case for incorporating 21st-century skills

Civic learning experts, however, are not the only ones concerned about the perceived narrow focus on reading, math, and science in American schools. In recent years, there has been a growing movement for schools to help students develop “21st-century skills” alongside academic competencies, driven in large part by frequent reports of employers unsatisfied with the skills of recent school graduates. Business leaders point out that they not only need employees who are smart and competent in math and reading and writing, they also need people who can lead teams, communicate effectively to partners, come up with new ways to solve problems, and effectively navigate an increasingly digital world. With the rise of automation , there is an increasing premium on non-routine and higher order thinking skills across both blue collar and white collar jobs. A recent study of trends in the U.S. labor market shows that social skills that are increasingly in demand 3 and many employers are struggling to find people with the sets of skills they need.

Advances in the science of learning have bolstered the 21st-century skills movement. Learning scientists argue that young people master math, reading, and science much better if they have an educational experience that develops their social and emotional learning competencies—like self-awareness and relationship skills which are the foundation of later workplace skills—and puts academic learning in a larger, more meaningful context. One framework, among many, that articulates the breadth of skills and competencies young people need to succeed in a fast-changing world comes from learning scientists Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff. Their “6 Cs” framework , a variation on the prior “4 Cs” framework, is widely used and argues that schools should focus on helping young people develop not just academically, but as people. As all learning is fundamentally social, students must learn to collaborate , laying an important foundation for communication —an essential prerequisite for mastering the academic content in school that provides the specific topics around which students can practice critical thinking and creative innovation , and which ultimately will help develop the confidence to take risks and iterate on failures.

This movement for 21st-century skills has powerful allies and growing momentum even while the movement itself is comprised of an eclectic collection of organizations spread across the country with a wide range of interests and multiple missions for their work. However, a central thread is that the standardized approach to education, the legacy of Horace Mann’s Common Schools movement, is holding back student learning. Teacher-led instruction, for example, will never be sufficient for helping students learn to collaborate with each other or create new things. Active and experiential learning is required, which is harder to standardize as the specifics must be adapted to the particular communities and learners.

Civic learning as an essential 21st-century skill

This focus on mastering academic subjects through a teaching and learning approach that develops 21st-century skills is important but brings with it a worldview that focuses on the development of the individual child to the exclusion of the political. After all, one could argue that the leaders of the terrorist organization ISIS display excellence in key 21st-century skills such as collaboration, creativity, confidence, and navigating the digital world. Their ability to work together to bring in new recruits, largely through on-line strategies, and pull off terrorist attacks with relatively limited resources takes a great deal of ingenuity, teamwork, perseverance, and problem solving. Of course, the goals of Islamic extremists and their methods of inflicting violence on civilians are morally unacceptable in almost any corner of the globe, but creative innovation they have in abundance.

What the 21st-century skills movement is missing is an explicit focus on social values. Schools always impart values, whether intentionally or not. From the content in the curriculum to the language of instruction to the way in which teachers interact with students, ideas around what is good and what is bad are constantly being modeled and taught. While a number of competencies that are regularly included in 21st-century skills frameworks, like the ability to work with others, have implicit values such as respect for others’ perspectives, they do not explicitly impart strong norms and values about society. Of course, as long as there has been public education there has been heated debate about whose values should be privileged, especially in relation to deeply held religious and cultural beliefs. From the teaching of evolution and creationism to transgender bathrooms, debates on values in public schools can be contentious.

In a democracy, however, the values that are at the core of civic learning are different. They are foundational to helping young people develop the dispositions needed to actively engage in civic life and maintain the norms by which Americans debate and decide their differences. The very nature of developing and sustaining a social norm means that a shared or common experience across all schools is needed. While civic learning has been essential throughout American history, in this age of growing polarization and rising civic deserts, it should be considered an essential component of a 21st-century education.

Civic learning defined

The term civic learning evokes for most Americans their high school civics class in which they learned about the U.S. Constitution, the three branches of government, and how a bill becomes a law. This knowledge and information is essential—after all how can young people be expected to actively participate in democracy if they are unaware of the basic rules of the game?—but it is by no means sufficient. There is an emerging consensus across the many scholars and organizations that work on civic learning that imparting knowledge must be paired with developing civic attitudes and behaviors. For example, CivXNow , a bipartisan coalition of over one hundred actors including academic and research institutions, learning providers, and philanthropic organizations, argues that civic education must include a focus on:

Civic knowledge and skills: where youth gain an understanding of the processes of government, prevalent political ideologies, civic and constitutional rights, and the history and heritage of the above.
Civic values and dispositions: where youth gain an appreciation for civil discourse, free speech, and engaging with those whose perspectives differ from their own.
Civic behaviors: where students develop the civic agency and confidence to vote, volunteer, attend public meetings, and engage with their communities.

There is also emerging evidence suggesting a correlation between high quality civic learning programs and increased civic engagement from students. As the 2011 Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools report highlights, students who receive high quality civic education are more likely to “understand public issues, view political engagement as a means of addressing communal challenges, and participate in civic activities.” The outcomes are equally as influential on civic equality, as there is evidence to suggest that poor, minority, rural, and urban students who receive high-quality civics education perform better than their counterparts.

Civic learning delivered

The crucial question is how to deliver high-quality civic learning across American schools. Researchers in civic learning have reviewed a wide range of approaches and the evidence surrounding their effectiveness. Experts identified a menu of six specific approaches , which was later updated to ten, that if implemented well has been demonstrated to advance civic learning. These range from teaching young people about civics to creating learning opportunities for practicing civic behaviors.

Classroom instruction, including discussing current events and developing media literacy skills, is needed for developing civic knowledge and skills, whether it is delivered as a stand-alone course or lessons integrated into other subjects. Many in the civics education community are advocating for more time devoted to civics from the elementary grades through high school and the corresponding teacher professional development and support required to make this a reality.

However, for developing civic dispositions, values, and behaviors, the promising practices identified by the civic learning experts are very similar to those required to develop 21st-century skills in part because many of the competencies in question are essentially the same. For example, strong communication skills contribute to the ability of students to speak up at meetings and strong collaboration skills enable them to effectively work with others in their community. Indeed, the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College notes that “civic and political values are a subset of the values that young people should learn, and there are no sharp lines separating the civic/political domain from others.”

Hence, the range of teaching and learning experiences needed to develop civic behaviors and needed for 21st-century skills are similar. They include experiential learning approaches, such as service learning where students work on a community project alongside organizations or extracurricular activities where students learn to work together in teams. Experiential learning can also include simulations of democratic procedures or, better yet, direct engagement in school governance and school climate initiatives. In communities where there is limited opportunities for civic engagement, schools can themselves model civic values by becoming the place where community members gather and connect with each other.

Uniting the 21st-century skills and civic learning movements

A movement for 21st-century skills that does not include in a meaningful way the cultivation of democratic values is incomplete and will not prepare young people to thrive in today’s world. Given what is at stake in terms of civic engagement in America, uniting the powerful push for 21st-century skills with the less well-resourced but equally important movement for civic learning could prove to be an important strategy for helping schools fill the civic desert vacuum and renew the social norms that underpin our democratic form of government. In the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, “Civic education, like all education, is a continuing enterprise and conversation. Each generation has an obligation to pass on to the next, not only a fully functioning government responsive to the needs of the people, but the tools to understand and improve it.”

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What Is Civic Education and Why Is It Important?

In the United States, civic education is often focused on knowledge of government. Students are taught the many structures of government and the procedures within those structures. Their understanding of civics is evaluated based on whether they can name the three branches of government, their representatives in Congress, and their state governor. By these measurements, the current state of civic education is lacking.

Only 56% of Americans can name all three branches of government, according to the 2021 Annenberg Civics Knowledge Survey , and that’s up from a mere 26% in 2016. A 2018 Johns Hopkins survey found that a third of Americans couldn’t name their governor and that 80% couldn’t name their state legislator, among other information about state government.

It’s tempting to say the meaning of civic education is to teach information about government. Students must be informed about the structures of their government to understand it. If they don’t know who their leaders are, it seems natural that they also don’t know what those leaders are doing.

Yet knowledge of government structures, while important, doesn’t really tell the whole story. One should empathize with the student – the federal government alone is built from countless structures and procedures, each one more complicated than the last. Factor in state and local governments and that’s a lot to remember. Knowing the three branches is basic stuff, but it makes some sense why people who don’t use that information daily wouldn’t have it offhand. Besides – most information can be found through a search engine. It’s trivially easy for anyone to look up the three branches of government if they can’t remember. They can just do that when they need it. So the important question isn’t “Why don’t they know?”

It’s “Why don’t they need it?”

The Gap Between Policy and Government

Ask Americans to name the three branches of government and 20% won’t be able to name a single one . Ask them if they approve or disapprove of Congress and only 3% won’t have an opinion . How can you disapprove of Congress without being aware of the legislative branch?

The answer is that Americans still care about policy. Ask them what they think is the most important problem facing their country, and only 3% say they have no opinion . 97% of Americans do have an opinion, but somehow that doesn’t always translate into learning procedure. There’s a disconnect somewhere between caring about policy and understanding the government that decides it.

Therein lies the importance of civic education. A civically minded person must be able to relate their opinions about policy with the actual procedures by which policy is decided. They should know the three branches of government not because they have them memorized, but because they understand that any policy that becomes law needs to be written, executed, and evaluated separately. Bridging the gap between individual policy preference and the government that enacts policy is a critical first step towards quality civic engagement, and the first step towards that is to recognize what civic engagement is – participating as a member of a collective.

Government structures exist because they allow for collective decision-making. The reason to work within those structures, especially in a democracy, is as an effective method of elevating one’s own voice while respecting the voices of others. When those structures no longer feel connected to participating in the national conversation, when policymaking begins to feel out of reach for everyday citizens and trust in government sinks close to all-time lows , that’s when people stop caring to remember the three branches. Why bother?

Teaching Civic Engagement

For civic education to have meaning, one must teach students to feel empowered to make a difference in their government. That means demonstrating respect. Good civic programs work to teach students that they are valued by the social structures they live in, and that if they aren’t being valued then something needs to change. Working outside the structure of government through civil disobedience is still a form of civic engagement.

Coffee & Conversations: Policy Education for Civic Engagement – Feb. 16, 2022

For young people that respect is lacking. Young people often are raised without a say in the structures of their lives, starting with public schooling systems that, from the student’s perspective, can be near authoritarian. For them to be told that they can participate in the federal government while also not being trusted to use the bathroom without a permission slip is a contradiction. It breaks the connection between their social structure and their own interests. If they don’t feel empowered in the classroom where they are learning civics, how can they possibly feel empowered in their greater society and government?

That cycle of disempowerment can continue throughout life. If those youth never start feeling respected by their social structures, they stay civically disengaged into adulthood.

Civic education must break that cycle. New Hampshire Listens , a civic engagement initiative by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, works to engage citizens by demonstrating that respect and relating citizen’s policy concerns to their local governments. It’s challenging work – often involving working past many years of perceived neglect by communities. But the results are rewarding. As more members of the community begin to feel valued by the system they live in, they become engaged citizens.

CBS News Reports: NH Listens brings diverse voters together

More About the Carsey School

Bridging the gap between Americans and their government is one of the key focuses of the Carsey School. Carsey's research educates community members about how policy impacts them, while also learning from those communities to ground that research in reality. The school offers civic awareness graduate degrees in Community Development , Public Administration , and Public Policy , all of which take a focus on training graduates to act as that bridge between their communities and the governments that represent them. Graduates reach an in-depth level of understanding of American policymaking, preparing them to relate each individual policy action to real-life consequences. They learn in an environment of respect for themselves and their communities.

Carsey School Webinar: The MPA for Working Professionals with Alumni Sarah Dorner '14G – Jan. 30, 2020

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The Role of Education in Democracy

Posted October 8, 2020
By Jill Anderson

Many people question the state of democracy in America. This is especially true of young people, who no longer share the same interest in democracy as the generations before them. Professor Danielle Allen , director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, has long studied what citizens need in order to succeed in democracy and how our social studies and civics education have impacted democracy.

"We have really disinvested in civic education and social studies. You can see that now in the comparison that we currently spend $54 per year per kid of federal dollars on STEM education and only 5 cents per year per kid on civics,” Allen says. “We have really ceased to lay the foundation in K–12 for young people to understand democracy, be motivated to participate in it, to have the skills and tools they need to participate effectively, and as a result, enjoy participation."

In this episode, Allen discusses how we got where we are today and what it will take to reinvest in education for democracy.

Find ways to tell “an integrated version of U.S. history that is simultaneously honest about the crimes and wrongs of the past, but without falling into cynicism,” Allen says.
When broaching a challenging topic in the classroom, begin from a place of inquiry. Try not to start with the instructional content or even understanding the issue, but let students think about what comes to mind about the issue and record their feelings and how they connect to it. “I think it’s really important that teachers be able to see what the starting points are – both analytically and emotionally that students have for engaging with these issues,” she says.
To raise engaged citizens, Allen suggests bringing democratic practices of reason giving into the life of a family. “There are lots of lessons inside a family that can feed in to help the understanding of democratic practice,” Allen says.

I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast. Harvard's Danielle Allen knows young people aren't as invested in democracy like the generations before them. Today, fewer than 30% under age 40 even consider it important to live in a democracy. Allen is a political theorist who's long studied what citizens need in order for democracy to succeed.

Education plays a big part in how we think about democracy, yet America's classrooms haven't always emphasized these subjects. With the presidential election just weeks away, I wanted to understand how education can preserve democracy and whether tensions rising in America signal a change underway.

Danielle Allen: In another moment of crisis in the country, The Cold War, the country really turned to science and technology to meet the moment. So there's the period during World War II, the Manhattan Project, for example, which really brought universities into the project of supporting national security with the pursuit of the atom bomb. That was a point in time, it was really the beginning of decades long investment in STEM education. That was important.

We needed to do that, but at the same time, over that same 50 year period, we have really disinvested in civic education and social studies. You can see that now in the comparison that we currently spend $54 per year per kid of federal dollars on STEM education and only 5 cents per year per kid on civics. So we have really ceased to lay the foundation in K–12 for young people to understand democracy, be motivated to participate in it, to have the skills and tools they need to participate effectively and as a result, enjoy participation.

Jill Anderson: We're also living in a time when teaching history is being really politicized and I'm wondering how you think we can effectively teach history and democracy to young people.

Danielle Allen: I've been really privileged over the last 15 months or so to be a part of a cross-institutional network under the banners and they call it the Educating for American Democracy Project and my center Harvard, the ethics centers participating. Jane Kamensky, who directs the Schlesinger Library for Women as a PI Tufts, Arizona state university and this group has pulled together a network of hundreds of scholars across the country with the goal of developing a blueprint, a roadmap for the integration of history and civics education K–12.

The reason I'm going through all of that is because at an early point in our work, directly thinking about the issue you just raised or polarization of our national history and polarization of education around civics, we decided that we were going to do two things on our roadmap.

One was to really structure it around inquiry to really focus on the kinds of questions that should be asked over the span of K–12 more so than on the answers and also that we would really focus on design challenges. That instead of seeing the disagreement about how to narrate our nation's history as a kind of end of the conversation, we would see it as the beginning of a conversation. So for instance, one of the design challenges we put to educators is that we have to find a way to tell an integrated version of US history that is simultaneously honest about the crimes and wrongs of the past, but without falling into cynicism and also appreciative in appropriate ways of the founding era without tipping into gamification.

So what we try to do is to say, "This is a design challenge. We don't know exactly what the answer is to meriting a history in this way that integrates clear-eyed view of the problems as well as a clear-eyed view of the goods and the potentialities, but we believe it can be done and we believe that this big country with so many committed educators is a place where we can experiment our way into solutions."

Jill Anderson: Right. One of the things I think is interesting as you look at the polls and voter turnout, and you often see young people not being as engaged, but when you look at some of the protests that have been happening around the country, it seems to be largely younger people. Is that a shift happening in our democracy where young people are maybe becoming more engaged?

Danielle Allen: It's certainly the case that young people are showing engagement through their participation in social movements and protests. In that regard, the moment is a lot like the 1960s with similar levels of engagement from young people. The question is whether or not young people who engage in the democracy tool of a social movement or of a protest can also understand themselves to have access to the tool of using political institutions. So social movements are an important part of the democracy toolkit, but they're just a part.

So it's really a question of whether or not young people see value in political institutions too, and can knit these things together. To some extent, I think that actually we really need to do work to redesign, even for example, our electoral system. So when we look around and we see that lots of people are disaffected or alienated or feel disempowered, that doesn't just mean that they're sort of haven't got enough education or don't have the right perspective.

It also means that our institutions aren't delivering what they promise. They're not responsive. They don't generally empower ordinary people and they very often don't deliver sort of equal representation. So in that regard, everybody, all citizens, civic participants have a job to do to think about redesigning our institutions so that they achieve those things.

On that front. I was again, fortunate to participate with a huge network of people through the American Academy Of Arts And Sciences, a commission on the future of the of practice of democratic citizenship and we released a report in June the 31 recommendations, a chunk of which are about redesigning our electoral system to deliver that responsive, empowering form of government that also provides equal representation.

Jill Anderson: Do you think something like this pandemic could be a tipping point because so much has moved online and I'm wondering how you think that might change civic action in education?

Danielle Allen: Well, the pandemic without any question is a huge exogenous shock, as we would say in social sciences, that it's a transformative event. Period. The magnitude is so significant. I think we're a very long way from being able to see and understand all of its impacts and consequences. For me personally, one of the things it has driven home is the weaknesses in our practices of governance. These weaknesses are partly institutional and partly cultural. Our polarization is one of the significant causes of our failure to come to grips with the current crisis. So I think for lots of people, the pandemic is really bringing our vulnerabilities to the surface. Also, for example, the disparate impacts across racial and ethnic groups of the disease and the underlying disparities in health equity has really come to the fore to visibility. So I think a lot of people are really focused in a more intensive way than in the past on addressing those problems.

I always sort of have a lot of confidence in the kind of creative energies of human beings when they really sort of see and face problems. So I believe that the moment does give us an opportunity to transform our conception of what we want for our society, what it means to name the public good, what it means to invest in the public good and my hope is that we'll be able to pull energy around a concept of the public good with us in the coming years.

Jill Anderson: We have this huge election coming up and the pandemic has somewhat overshadowed the election a little bit. I look at parents and their children and wonder are there things that parents could be doing at home to help raise their children to be more engaged and value democracy?

Danielle Allen: Well, I think there are a number of things. I mean, I actually think it matters to bring democratic practices of reason giving for example, into the life of a family. That can be very hard. Family structures are often and for very good reason, very hierarchical. So within the sort of context of hierarchical family structures, how can parents foster reason giving, hear their children's reasons for things, help their children understand what it means to engage in the back and forth around reasons, help them understand what it means for one person to lose out in one decision-making moment, but then to win out in another moment and nonetheless, even though we sort of exchange sacrifices for one another over the course of collective decision-making, our commitment to our social bond is so strong that that makes that sort of exchange of burdens tolerable. So I think there are lots of lessons inside a family that can feed into help the understanding of democratic practice.

Jill Anderson: One last final question would be if you have any thoughts or advice to share with the teachers out there who are working hard, and many of them working remotely to try to teach lessons about the upcoming election and all the things happening in the world.

Danielle Allen: So teachers really always have a hard job, and it's so hard now between the remote learning and the intensity of the external environment, the political questions and the debates and so forth. I think it's really important to remember that different students will bring different kinds of perspectives and exposures with them into the classroom. So I think when a teacher is trying to engage a hard topic, whether it's a hard element of history or a controversial issue in our contemporary debates, it's really important to start by bringing to the surface what's already in students' minds.

So maybe you use a Google doc, maybe you use a chat function, but when a topic comes up before sort of launching into the instructional content or the real digesting of the issue, just go ahead and let the students record the first thing that comes to mind for them when they hear the relevant issue and let them record the emotion that they connect to that issue. I think it's really important that teachers be able to see what the starting points are, both analytically and emotionally that students have for engaging with these [inaudible 00:10:35] issues.

Jill Anderson: Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time and talking and sharing your thoughts today.

Danielle Allen: Thank you, Jill. Appreciate your interest.

Jill Anderson: Danielle Allen is the director of the Edmond J. Safra Center For Ethics at Harvard. She's a professor at the Harvard graduate school of education and faculty of arts and sciences. She leads the Democratic Knowledge Project, which focuses on how to strengthen and build that knowledge that democratic citizens need to operate their democracy. I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast produced by the Harvard graduate school of education. Thanks for listening.

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Civic Education

Civic education, whenever and however undertaken, prepares people of a country, especially the young, to carry out their roles as citizens. Civic education is, therefore, political education or, as Amy Gutmann describes it, “the cultivation of the virtues, knowledge, and skills necessary for political participation” (1987, 287). Of course, in some regimes political participation and therefore civic education can be limited or even negligible.

Though commonly associated with schooling, civic education is not the exclusive domain of schools. A rightly famous rendition of this idea is Tocqueville's often quoted view: “Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it.” Therefore, understanding civic education, especially democratic education, can, and should, involve both formal settings (schools) and informal settings (families, communities, libraries, houses of worship, workplaces, civic organizations, unions, sports teams, campaigns and elections, mass media, and so on). [ 1 ] Indeed, it seems reasonable to suggest that, following the Athenians of the Classical Age, a sound and effective civic education will coordinate if not integrate these formal and informal settings.

The informal settings and methods are most often associated with political socialization. This entry, however, focuses largely on schooling, which, as Amy Gutmann also points out, is our most deliberate form of human instruction (1987, 15). That is, formal civic education is a term reserved for the organized system of schooling (predominantly public) that aims, as one of its primary purposes, to prepare future citizens for participation in public life. Thus civic education as currently understood is to be contrasted, for example, with paideia (See below.) and other forms of citizen preparation that are informal cultural productions.

Of course, in many significant ways, informal institutions of civic education do help prepare citizens for public participation. Yet today, as Gutmann suggests, the educative effects are often not the deliberate design or intention of those informal institutions. If one were to try to cover all those social and political institutions that had educative effects, the project would become unmanageable. Besides, if we considered civic education to be part of what goes on in any institution even remotely related to civil society, then we are no longer defining and discussing civic education, but are defining and discussing politics itself.

1.1 Ancient Greece

1.2 rousseau: toward progressive education, 1.3 mill: education through political participation.

1.4 Early Civic Education in the United States

2.1 Amy Gutmann: Conscious Social Reproduction

2.2 William Galston: Civic Education in a Representative System

3.1 Good Persons and Good Citizens

3.2 spectrum of virtues, 4.1 service learning, 4.2 john dewey: school as community, 4.3 paulo freire: liberation pedagogy, 5. cosmopolitan education, works cited, works to consult, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the good citizen [ 2 ].

At the same time that civic educators seek to impart skills, knowledge, and participatory virtues, they also seek to engrain in society's youth a felt connection to, if not an identity with, that country or society. This is no small or minor undertaking. “As far back as evidence can be found—and virtually without exception—young adults seem to have been less attached to civic life than their parents and grandparents.” [ 3 ] Hence there is a need to educate youth to be “civic-minded”; that is, to think and care about the welfare of the community (the commonweal or civitas ) and not simply about their own individual well-being. Here lies a danger, however, for many forms of civic education: Those in charge of it may wish to indoctrinate students rather than educate them, thereby abandoning the very mission that they initially undertook. As Sheldon Wolin phrased it: “…[T]he inherent danger…is that the identity given to the collectivity by those who exercise power will reflect the needs of power rather than the political possibilities of a complex collectivity” (1989, 13). For some regimes—fascist or communist, for example—this is not a danger at all but, instead, the very purpose of their forms of civic education. Nowhere, however, is this danger more insidious than in democracy and, therefore, in democratic education.

Democratic education is a subset of civic education. For philosophers it is the most important—indeed, the predominant—subset. This entry, therefore, focuses exclusively on the subset of democratic education.

There are, of course, more propitious reasons for examining civic education in the context of democracies. One significant reason, for example, can be traced to Aristotle. In The Politics Aristotle asks whether there is any case “in which the excellence of the good citizen and the excellence of the good man coincide” (1277a13-15). The answer for him is politea or the mixed constitution in which persons must know both how to rule and how to obey. Herein coincide the excellence, the virtues, of the good man and the good citizen. Thus in modern democracies society has a vested interest in preparing citizens to rule and to be ruled, as Aristotle pointed out. In democracies, therefore, and especially in civic education the virtues of the citizen are an important, and even a vital, aspect of the virtues of a good person.

In this view, a good or virtuous citizen is nothing other than a good or virtuous person acting morally in the public or political sphere. As we shall consider later, just what the virtues are that constitute, at least in part, that person is not easy to ascertain.

The pursuit of this combination or matching of virtues can be considered a central and perpetual theme of civic educators. We see, for example, John Dewey picking up this theme in the 20 th century. From the 18 th century onward, commented Dewey, states came to see education as the best means of perpetuating and recovering their political power. But “the maintenance of a particular national sovereignty required subordination of individuals to the superior interests of the state both in military defense and in struggles for international supremacy in commerce…To form the citizen, not the ‘man,’ became the aim of education” (1916, 90).

In a democracy, however, because of its combination of “numerous and more varied points of shared common interest” and its requirement of “continuous readjustment through meeting the new situations produced by varied intercourse,” which Dewey called “progress,” education could address personal development and “full and free interplay” among social groups (Ibid, 83, 79). In other words, it is in democratic states that we want to look for the preparation of good persons as well as good citizens; that is, for democratic education, which in this context, to repeat for emphasis, is what is meant by civic education.

We have already encountered Aristotle's view that politea or the mixed constitution provides the excellence of both good citizens and good men. Because that requires men to have the virtues both to rule and be ruled, we should not be surprised that ancient Greece, and especially ancient Athens, is the home of democracy. One of the requirements of any democracy is having the rule of law, because it demands, or should demand, that no one is above the law and that all are equal before the law. Thus, before they could have democracy, the Greeks had to have not only laws but also written laws. Otherwise, those in power could declare the law to be whatever they wanted it to be. So the Greeks wrote down their laws, their statutes, on wood or marble tablets and placed them for all to see in the public squares. Of course, citizens and residents of the cities had to be able to read them, and so the rule of law called for public education to teach the people to read. Thus the ancient Greeks provide one of the earliest forms of civic education.

The polis itself was thought to be an educational community, expressed by the Greek term paideia . The purpose of political—that is civic or city—life was the self-development of the citizens. This meant more than just education, which is how paideia is usually translated. Education for the Greeks involved a deeply formative and life-long process whose goal was for each person (read: man) to be an asset to his friends, to his family, and, most important, to the polis.

Becoming such an asset necessitated internalizing and living up to the highest ethical ideals of the community. So paideia included education in the arts, philosophy and rhetoric, history, science, and mathematics; training in sports and warfare; enculturation or learning of the city's religious, social, political, and professional customs and training to participate in them; and the development of one's moral character through the virtues. Above all, the person should have a keen sense of duty to the city. Every aspect of Greek culture in the Classical Age—from the arts to politics and athletics—was devoted to the development of personal powers in public service.

Paideia was inseparable from another Greek concept: arete or excellence, especially excellence of reputation but also goodness and excellence in all aspects of life. Together paideia and arête form one process of self-development, which is nothing other than civic-development. Thus one could only develop himself in politics, through participation in the activities of the polis; and as individuals developed the characteristics of virtue, so would the polis itself become more virtuous and excellent.

All persons, whatever their occupations or tasks, were teachers, and the purpose of education—which was political life itself—was to develop a greater (a nobler, stronger, more virtuous) public community. So politics was more than regulating or ordering the affairs of the community; it was also a “school” for ordering the lives—internal and external—of the citizens. Therefore, the practice of Athenian democratic politics was not only a means of engendering good policies for the city, but it was also a “curriculum” for the intellectual, moral, and civic education of her citizens. “…[A]sk in general what great benefit the state derives from the training by which it educates its citizens, and the reply will be perfectly straightforward. The good education they have received will make them good men…” (Plato, Laws , 641b7-10). Indeed, later in the Laws the Athenian remarks that education should be designed to produce the desire to become “perfect citizens” who know, preceding Aristotle, “how to rule and be ruled” (643e4-6).

But how far should that “curriculum” go? Citizens are taught to obey the laws; should they also be taught to challenge the laws and customs of the city? Was that not one accusation against Socrates? Civic education in a democracy, though not in every kind of regime, must prepare citizens to participate in and thereby perpetuate the system and at the same time prepare them to challenge what they see as inequities and injustice within that system.

What we observe, therefore, in civic education for democracy—that is, in democratic education—is a tension between the need and desire to perpetuate the roles, rules, standards, values, and institutions of the democratic system and the opposite; that is, the need and desire to challenge those very same roles, rules, standards, values, and institutions. So democratic education is be both conservative, as in “conserving” the stability and continuity of the system, and radical, as in calling into question “the roots” or the foundations of that system. The possible solution to this tension is to suggest that no democratic system that cannot withstand scrutiny of its central values, institutions, and principles deserves to be perpetuated or perpetuated in its current form.

Although ancient Athens instituted democracy, her most famous philosophers—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—were not great champions of it. At best they were ambiguous about democracy; at worst, they were hostile toward it. The earliest unadulterated champion of democracy, a “dreamer of democracy,” was undoubtedly Rousseau. Yet Rousseau had his doubts that men could be good men and simultaneously good citizens. A good man for Rousseau is a natural man, with the attributes of freedom, independence, equality, happiness, sympathy, and love-of-self ( amour de soi ) found prior to society in the state of nature. Thus society could do little but corrupt such a man.

Still, Rousseau recognized that life in society is unavoidable, and so civic education or learning to function well in society is also unavoidable. The ideal for Rousseau is for men to act morally and yet retain as much of their naturalness as possible. Only in this way can a man retain his freedom; and only if a man follows those rules that he prescribes for himself—that is, only if a man is self-ruling—can he remain free: “…[E]ach individual…obeys no one but himself and remains as free as before [society]” (1988, 60).

Yet prescribing those rules is not a subjective or selfish act. It is a moral obligation because the question each citizen asks himself or should ask himself was not “What's best for me?” Rather, each asks, “What's best for all?” When all citizens ask this question and answer on the basis of what ought to be done, then, says Rousseau, they are expressing and following the general will. Enacting the general will is the only legitimately moral foundation for a law and the only expression of moral freedom. Getting men to ask this question and to answer it actively is the purpose of civic education.

Showing how to educate men to retain naturalness and yet to function in society and participate untouched by corruption in this direct democracy was the purpose of his educational treatise, Emile . If it could be done, Rousseau would show us the way. To do it would seem to require educating a man to be in society but not of society; that is, to be “attached to human society as little as possible” (Ibid, 105).

How could a man for Rousseau be a good man—meaning, for him a naturally good man (1979, 93), showing his amour de soi and also his natural compassion for others—and also have the proper frame of mind of a good citizen to be able to transcend self-interest and prescribe the general will? How could this be done in society when society's influence is nothing but corrupting?

Rousseau himself seems ambivalent on exactly whether men can overcome social corruption. Society is based on private property; private property brings inequality, as some own more than others; such inequality brings forth social comparisons with others ( amour propre ), which in turn can produce envy, pride, and greed. Only when and if men can exercise their moral and political freedom and will the general will can they be saved from the corrupting influences of society. Willing for the general will, which is the good for all, is the act of a moral or good person. Its exercise in the assembly is the act of a good citizen.

Still, Rousseau comments that if “[f]orced to combat nature or the social institutions, one must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time” (Ibid, 39). There seems little, if any, ambiguity here. One cannot make both a man and a citizen at the same time. Yet on the very next page of Emile Rousseau raises the question of whether a man who remains true to himself, to his nature, and is always decisive in his choices “is a man or a citizen, or how he goes about being both at the same time” (Ibid, 40).

Perhaps the contradiction might be resolved if we emphasize that a man cannot be made a man and a citizen at the same time, but he can be a man and a citizen at the same time. Rousseau hints at this distinction when he says of his educational scheme that it avoids the “two contrary ends…the contrary routes…these different impulses…[and] these necessarily opposed objects” (Ibid, 40, 41) when you raise a man “uniquely for himself.” What, then, will he be for others? He will be a man and a citizen, for the “double object we set for ourselves,” those contradictory objects, “could be joined in a single one by removing the contradictions of man…” (Idem). Doubtless, this will be a rare man, but raising a man to live a natural life can be done.

One might find the fully mature, and natural, Emile an abhorrent person. Although “good” in the sense of doing his duty and acting civilly, he seems nevertheless without imagination or deep curiosity about people or life itself—no interest in art or many books or intimate social relationships. Is his independence fear of dependence and thus built on an inability ever to be interdependent? Is he truly independent, or does he exhibit simply the appearance of independence, while the tutor “remains master of his person” (Ibid, 332)?

Whatever one thinks of Rousseau's attempt to educate Emile—whether, for example, the tutor's utter control of Emile's life and environment is not in itself a betrayal of education—Rousseau is a precursor of those progressive educators who seek to permit children to learn at their own rate and from their own experiences, as we shall see below.

Mill argued that participation in representative government, or democracy, is undertaken both for its educative effects on participants and for the beneficial political outcomes. Even if elected or appointed officials can perform better than citizens, Mill thought it advisable for citizens to participate “as a means to their own mental education—a mode of strengthening their active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal. This is a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial; of free and popular local and municipal institutions; of the conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary associations” (1972, 179). Thus, political participation is a form of civic education good for men and for citizens.

On Liberty , the essay in which the above quotation appears, is not, writes Mill, the occasion for developing this idea as it relates to “parts of national education.” But in Mill's view the development of the person can and should be undertaken in concert with an education for citizens. The “mental education” he describes is “in truth, the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the political education of a free people, taking them out of the narrow circle of personal and family selfishness, and accustoming them to the comprehension of joint interests, the management of joint concerns—habituating them to act from public or semi-public motives, and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of isolating them from one another” (Idem).

The occasion for discussing civic education as a method of both personal and political development is Mill's Considerations on Representative Government . Mill wants to see persons “progress.” To achieve progress requires “the preservation of all kinds and amounts of good which already exist, and Progress as consisting in the increase of them.” Of what does Mill's good consist? First are “the qualities in the citizens individually which conduce most to keep up the amount of good conduct…Everybody will agree that those qualities are industry, integrity, justice, and prudence” (1972, 201). Add to these “the particular attributes in human beings which seem to have a more especial reference to Progress…They are chiefly the qualities of mental activity, enterprise, and courage” (Ibid, 202).

So, progress is encouraged when society develops the qualities of citizens and persons. Mill tells us that good government depends on the qualities of the human beings that compose it. Men of virtuous character acting in and through justly administered institutions will stabilize and perpetuate the good society. Good persons will be good citizens, provided they have the requisite political institutions in which they can participate. Such participation—as on juries and parish offices—takes participants out of themselves and away from their selfish interests. If that does not occur, if persons regard only their “interests which are selfish,” then, concludes Mill, good government is impossible. “…[I]f the agents, or those who choose the agents, or those to whom the agents are responsible, or the lookers-on whose opinion ought to influence and check all these, are mere masses of ignorance, stupidity, and baleful prejudice, every operation of government will go wrong” (Ibid, 207).

For Mill good government is a two-way street: Good government depends on “the virtue and intelligence of the human beings composing the community”; while at the same time government can further “promote the virtue and intelligence of the people themselves” (Idem). A measure of the quality of any political institution is how far it tends “to foster in the members of the community the various desirable qualities…moral, intellectual, and active” (Ibid, 208). Good persons act politically as good citizens and are thereby maintained or extended in their goodness. “A government is to be judged by its actions upon men…by what it makes of the citizens, and what it does with them; its tendency to improve or deteriorate the people themselves.” Government helps people advance, acts for the improvement of the people, “is at once a great influence acting on the human mind….” Government is, then, “an agency of national education…” (Ibid, 210, 211).

Following Tocqueville, Mill saw political participation as the basis for this national education. “It is not sufficiently considered how little there is in most men's ordinary life to give any largeness either to their conceptions or to their sentiments.” Their work is routine and dull; they proceed through life without much interest or energy. On the other hand, “if circumstances allow the amount of public duty assigned him to be considerable, it makes him an educated man” (Ibid, 233). In this way participation in democratic institutions “must make [persons] very different beings, in range of ideas and development of faculties, from those who have done nothing in their lives but drive a quill, or sell goods over a counter” (Idem).

There was no national public schooling in Mill's Great Britain, and there were clearly lots of Britons without the requisite characteristics either of good citizens or of good men. Mill was certainly aware of this. He was much influenced by Tocqueville's writings on the tyranny of the majority. Mill feared, as did Tocqueville, that the undereducated or uneducated would dominate and tyrannize politics so as to undermine authority and individuality. Being ignorant and inexperienced, the uneducated and undereducated would be susceptible to all manner of demagoguery and manipulation. So too much power in the hands of the inept and ignorant could damage good citizenship and dam the course of self-development. To remedy this Mill proposed two solutions: limit participation and provide the competent and educated with plural votes.

In Mill's “ideally best polity” the highest levels of policymaking would be reserved for nationally elected representatives and for experts in the civil service. These representatives and experts would not only carry out their political duties, but they would also educate the public through debate and deliberation in representative assemblies, in public forums, and through the press. To assure that the best were elected and for the sake of rational government, Mill provided plural votes to those with college educations and to those of certain occupations and training. All citizens (but the criminal and illiterate) could vote, but not all citizens would vote equally. Some citizens, because they were educated or highly trained persons, were “better” than others: “…[T]hough every one ought to have a voice—that every one should have an equal voice is a totally different proposition…No one but a fool…feels offended by the acknowledgment that there are others whose opinion, and even whose wish, is entitled to a greater amount of consideration than his” (Ibid, 307-8).

But education was the great leveling factor. Though not his view when he wrote Considerations on Representative Government , Mill wrote in his autobiography that universal education could make plural voting unnecessary (1924, pp. 153, 183-84). Mill did acknowledge in Representative Government that a national system of education or “a trustworthy system of general examination” would simplify the means of ascertaining “mental superiority” of some persons over others. In their absence, a person's years of schooling and nature of occupation would suffice to determine who would receive plural votes (1972, 308-09). Given Mill's prescriptions for political participation and given the lessons learned from the deliberations and debates of representatives and experts, however, it is doubtful that civic education would have constituted much of his national education.

1.4 Early Civic Education in the United States [ 4 ]

When Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 23 that the federal government ought to be granted “an unconfined authority in respect to all those objects which are entrusted to its management” (1987, p. 187), he underscored the need of the newly organized central government for, in Sheldon Wolin's words, “a new type of citizen…one who would accept the attenuated relationship with power implied if voting and elections were to serve as the main link between citizens and those in power.” [ 5 ] Schools would be entrusted to develop this new type of citizen.

It is commonplace, therefore, to find among those who examine the interstices of democracy and education views much like Franklin Delano Roosevelt's: “That the schools make worthy citizens is the most important responsibility placed on them.” In the United States public schools had the mission of educating the young for citizenship.

Initially education in America was not publicly funded. It wasn't even a system, however inchoate. Instead it was every community for itself. Nor was it universal education. Education was restricted to free white males and, moreover, free white males who could afford the school fees. One of the “founders” of the public-school system in the United States, even though his era predated the establishment of public schools, was Noah Webster, who saw education as the tool for developing a national identity. As a result, he created his own speller and dictionary as a way of advancing a common American language.

Opposed to this idea of developing a national identity was Thomas Jefferson, who saw education as the means for safeguarding individual rights, especially against the intrusions of the state. Central to Jefferson's democratic education were the “liberal arts.” These arts liberate men and women (though Jefferson was thinking only of men) from the grip of both tyrants and demagogues and enable those liberated to rule themselves. Through his ward system of education, Jefferson proposed establishing free schools to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, and from these schools those of intellectual ability, regardless of background or economic status, would receive a college education paid for by the state.

When widespread free or publicly funded education did come to America in the 19 th century, it came in the form of Horace Mann's “common school.” Such schools would educate all children together, “in common,” regardless of their background, religion, or social standing. Underneath such fine sentiments lurked an additional goal: to ensure that all children could flourish in America's democratic system. The civic education curriculum was explicit, if not simplistic. To create good citizens and good persons required little beyond teaching the basic mechanics of government and imbuing students with loyalty to America and her democratic ideals. That involved large amounts of rote memorization of information about political and military history and about the workings of governmental bodies at the local, state, and federal levels. It also involved conformity to specific rules describing conduct inside and outside of school.

Through this kind of civic education, all children would be melded, if not melted, into an American citizen. A heavy emphasis on Protestantism at the expense of Catholicism was one example of such work. What some supporters might have called “assimilation” of foreigners into an American way of life, critics saw as “homogenization,” “normalization,” and “conformity,” if not “uniformity.” With over nine million immigrants coming to America between 1880 and the First World War, it is not surprising that there was resistance by many immigrant communities to what seemed insensitivity to foreign language and culture. Hence what developed was a system of religious—namely Catholic—education separate from the “public school” system.

While Webster and, after him, Mann wanted public education to generate the national identity that they thought democracy required, later educational reformers moved away from the idea of the common school and toward a differentiation of students. The Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, for example, pushed in 1906 for industrial and vocational education in the public schools. Educating all youth equally for participation in democracy by giving them a liberal, or academic, education, they argued, was a waste of time and resources. “School reformers insisted that the academic curriculum was not appropriate for all children, because most children—especially the children of immigrants and of African Americans—lacked the intellectual capacity to study subjects like algebra and chemistry” (Ravitch, 2001, 21).

Acting against this view of education was John Dewey. Because Dewey saw democracy as a way of life, he argued that all children deserved and required a democratic education. [ 6 ] As citizens came to share in the interests of others, which they would do in their schools, divisions of race, class, and ethnicity would be worn down and transcended. Dewey thought that the actual interests and experiences of students should be the basis of their education. I recur to a consideration of Dewey and civic education below.

2. The Good Democrat

If voting and campaigns alone are the principal activities of citizenship, as Sheldon Wolin suggests, then what kind of civic education is warranted for creating worthy citizens?

Future citizens might be required only to know how, for example, a democratic system works—the functions of the different branches, the purpose and procedures of elections, the history of the country's systems of governance and governmental institutions—and to know the rights and obligations of citizenship. This is, of course, the content of much civic education today.

Along this line of thinking, one could make an argument that today's sound-bite candidates, their stump-speech “debates,” and their perpetual money-driven campaigns require little in the way of civic education for our citizens. Of course, someone else could argue that our democratic elections demand the opposite: a civic education in critical thinking, if not in resistance, to expose the nature of campaigns and elections. But if you arm citizens with a civic education that teaches them to step back reflectively and critically from our democratic systems, then, so one version could go, you should expect a critique of that system since it fails to exercise the very critical-thinking skills that they were taught.

If, therefore, we wish to educate future citizens for a different sort of participation, if we want them to challenge officials and the nature and scope of the democratic system itself—that is, if we want civic education and not civic indoctrination—then we also need to educate them to think critically about our democratic systems. Both political knowledge and critical thinking are required if citizens are to participate and share in what Amy Gutmann describes as the collective re-creation of our society or “conscious social reproduction” (1987, 14 and passim). Gutmann's arguments on how to justify democratic education are some of the best currently on offer.

Democratic society-at-large, argues Gutmann, has a significant stake in the education of its children, for they will grow up to be democratic citizens. At the very least, then, society has the responsibility for educating all children for citizenship. Because democratic societies have this responsibility, we cannot leave the education of future citizens to the will or whim of parents. This central insight leads Gutmann to rule out certain exclusive suzerainties of power over educational theory and policy. Those suzerainties are of three sorts. First is “the family state” in which all children are educated into the sole good life identified and fortified by the state. Such education cultivates “a level of like-mindedness and camaraderie among citizens” that most persons find only in families (Ibid, 23). Only the state can be entrusted with the authority to mandate and carry out an education of such magnitude that all will learn to desire this one particular good life over all others.

Next is “the state of families” that rests on the impulse of families to perpetuate their values through their children. This state “places educational authority exclusively in the hands of parents, thereby permitting parents to predispose their children, through education, to choose a way of life consistent with their familial heritage” (Ibid, 28).

Finally, Gutmann argues against “the state of individuals,” which is based on a notion of liberal neutrality in which both parents and the state look to educational experts to make certain that no way of life is neglected nor discriminated against. The desire here is to avoid controversy, and to avoid teaching virtues, in a climate of social pluralism. Yet, as Gutmann points out, any educational policy is itself a choice that will shape our children's character. Choosing to educate for freedom rather than for virtue is still insinuating an influential choice.

In light of these three theories that fail to provide an adequate foundation for educational authority, Gutmann proposes “a democratic state of education.” This state recognizes that educational authority must be shared among parents, citizens, and educational professionals, because each has a legitimate interest in each child and the child's future. Whatever our aim of education, whatever kind of education these authorities argue for, it will not be, it cannot be, neutral. Needed is an educational aim that is inclusive. Gutmann settles on our inclusive commitment as democratic citizens to conscious social reproduction, the self-conscious shaping of the structures of society. To actuate this commitment we as a society “must educate all educable children to be capable of participating in collectively shaping their society” (Ibid, 14).

To shape the structures of society, to engage in conscious social reproduction, students will need to develop the capacities for examining and evaluating competing conceptions of the good life and the good society, and society must avoid the inculcation “in children [of the] uncritical acceptance of any particular way or ways of [personal and political] life” (Ibid, 44). This is the crux of Gutmann's democratic education. For this reason, she argues forcefully that children must learn to exercise critical deliberation among good lives and, presumably, good societies. To assure that they can do so, limits must be set for when and where parents and the state can interfere. Guidelines must be introduced that limit the political authority of the state and the parental authority of families. One limit is nonrepression, which assures that neither the state nor any group within it can “restrict rational deliberation of competing conceptions of the good life and the good society” (Idem). In this way, adults cannot use their freedom to deliberate to prohibit the future deliberative freedom of children. Furthermore, claims Gutmann, nonrepression requires schools to support “the intellectual and emotional preconditions for democratic deliberation among future generations of citizens” (Ibid, 76.)

The second limit is nondiscrimination, which prevents the state or groups within the state from excluding anyone or any group from an education in deliberation. Thus, as Gutmann says, “all educable children must be educated” (Ibid, 45).

Gutmann's point is not that the state has a greater interest than parents in the education of our children. Instead, her point is that all citizens of the state have a common interest in educating future citizens. Therefore, while parents should have a say in the education of their children, the state should have a say as well. Yet neither should have the final, or a monopolistic, say. Indeed, these two interested parties should also cede some of their educational authority to educational experts. There is, therefore, a collective interest in schooling, which is why Gutmann finds parental “choice” and voucher programs unacceptable.

But is conscious social reproduction the only aim of education? What about shaping one's private concerns? Isn't educating the young to be good persons also important? Or are the skills that encourage citizen participation also the skills necessary for making personal life choices and personal decision-making? For Gutmann, educating for one is also educating for the other: “…[M]any if not all of the capacities necessary for choice among good lives are also necessary for choice among good societies” (p. 40). She goes even further: “a good life and a good society for self-reflective people require (respectively) individual and collective freedom of choice” (Idem). Here Gutmann is stipulating that to have conscious social reproduction citizens must have the opportunity—the freedom and the capacities—to exercise personal or self-reflective choice.

Because the state is interested in the education of future citizens, all children must develop those capacities necessary for choice among good societies; this is simply what Gutmann means by being able to participate in conscious social reproduction. Yet such capacities also enable persons to scrutinize the ways of life that they have inherited. Thus, Gutmann concludes, it is illegitimate for any parent to impose a particular way of life on anyone else, even on his/her own child, for this would deprive the child of the capacities necessary for citizenship as well as for choosing a good life.

Gutmann's position is that government can and must force one to participate in an education for citizenship. Children must be exposed to ways of life different from their parents' and must embrace certain values such as mutual respect. On this last point Gutmann is insistent. She argues that choice is not meaningful, for anyone, unless persons choosing have “the intellectual skills necessary to evaluate ways of life different from that of their parents.” Without the teaching of such skills as a central component of education children will not be taught “mutual respect among persons” (Ibid, 30-31). “Teaching mutual respect is instrumental to assuring all children the freedom to choose in the future…[S]ocial diversity enriches our lives by expanding our understanding of differing ways of life. To reap the benefits of social diversity, children must be exposed to ways of life different from their parents and—in the course of their exposure—must embrace certain values, such as mutual respect among persons…” (Ibid, 32-33).

2.2 William Galston: Civic Education in Representative Democracy

Yet what Gutmann suggests seems to go beyond seeing diversity as enrichment. She suggests that children not simply tolerate ways of life divergent from their own, but that they actually respect them. She is careful to say “mutual respect among persons,” which can only mean that neo-Nazis, while advocating an execrable way of life, must be respected as persons, though their way of life should be condemned. Perhaps this is a subtlety that Gutmann intended, but William Galston, for one, has come away thinking that Gutmann advocates forcing children to confront their own ways of life as they simultaneously show respect for neo-Nazis.

In our representative system, argues Galston, citizens need to develop “the capacity to evaluate the talents, character, and performance of public officials” (1989, p. 93). This, he says, is what our democratic system demands from citizens. Thus he disagrees with Gutmann, so much so that he says, “It is at best a partial truth to characterize the United States as a democracy in Gutmann's sense” (Ibid, p. 94). We do not require deliberation among our citizens, says Galston, because “representative institutions replace direct self-government for many purposes” (Idem). Civic education, therefore, should not be about teaching the skills and virtues of deliberation, but, instead, about teaching “the virtues and competences needed to select representatives wisely, to relate to them appropriately, and to evaluate their performance in office soberly” (Idem).

Because civic education is limited in scope to what Galston outlines above, students will not be expected, and will not be taught, to evaluate their own ways of life. Persons must be able to lead the kinds of lives they find valuable, without fear that they will be coerced into believing or acting or thinking contrary to their values, including being led to question those ways of life that they have inherited. As Galston points out, “[c]ivic tolerance of deep differences is perfectly compatible with unswerving belief in the correctness of one's own way of life” (Ibid, p. 99).

Some parents, for example, are not interested in having their children choose ways of life. Those parents believe that the way of life that they currently follow is not simply best for them but is best simpliciter . To introduce choice is simply to confuse the children and the issue. If you know the true way to live, is it best to let your children wade among diverse ways of life until they can possibly get it right? Or should you socialize the children into the right way of life as soon and as quickly as possible?

Yet what about the obligations that parents, as citizens, and children as future citizens, owe the state? How can children be prepared to participate in collectively shaping society if they have not received an education in how to deliberate about choices? To this some parents might respond that they are not interested in having their children focus on participation, or perhaps on anything secular. What these parents appreciate about liberal democracy is that there is a clear, and firm, separation between public and private, and they seek to focus exclusively on the private. Citizenship offers protections of the law, and it does not require participation. Liberal democracy certainly will not force one to participate.

Yet both Galston and Gutmann want to educate children for “democratic character.” Both see the need in this respect for critical thinking. For Galston children must develop “the capacity to evaluate the talents, character, and performance of public officials”; Gutmann seeks to educate the capacities necessary for choice among good lives and for choice among good societies. However much critical thinking plays in democratic character, active participation requires something more than mere skills, even thinking skills.

3. The Good Person

The qualities of the good citizen are not, then, simply the skills necessary to participate in the political system. They are also the virtues that will lead one to participate, to want to participate, to have a disposition to participate. This is what Rousseau was referring to when he described how citizens in his ideal polity would “fly to the assemblies” (1988, 140). Citizens, that is, ought to display a certain kind of disposition or character. As it turns out, and not surprisingly, given our perspective, in a democracy the virtues or traits that constitute good citizenship are also closely associated with being a good or moral person. We can summarize that close association as what we mean by the phrase "good character."

It is the absence of these virtues or traits—that is, the absence of character—that leads some to conclude that democracy, especially in the United States, is in crisis. The withering of our democratic system, argues Richard Battistoni, for one, can be traced to “a crisis in civic education” and the failure of our educators to prepare citizens for democratic participation (1985, pp. 4-5). Missing, he argues, is a central character trait, a disposition to participate. Crucial to the continuation of our democracy “is the proper inculcation in the young of the character, skills, values, social practices, and ideals that foster democratic politics” (Ibid, p. 15); in other words, educating for democratic character.

Two groups predominate in advocating the use of character education as a way of improving democracy. One group comprises political theorists such as Galston, Battistoni, Benjamin Barber, and Adrian Oldfield who often reflect modern-day versions of civic republicanism. This group wishes to instill or nurture [ 7 ] a willingness among our future citizens to sacrifice their self-interests for the sake of the common good. Participation on this view is important both to stabilize society and to enhance each individual's human flourishing through the promotion of our collective welfare.

The second group does not see democratic participation as the center, but instead sees democratic participation as one aspect of overall character education. Central to the mission of our public schools, on this view, is the establishing of character traits important both to individual conduct (being a good person) and to a thriving democracy (being a good citizen). The unannounced leader of the second group is educational practitioner Thomas Lickona, and it includes such others as William Bennett and Patricia White.

Neither group describes in actual terms what might be called “democratic character.” Though their work intimates such character, they talk more about character traits important to human growth and well-being, which also happen to be related to democratic participation. What traits do these pundits discuss, and what do they mean by “character”?

It is difficult, comments British philosopher R. S. Peters, “to decide what in general we mean when we speak of a person's character as distinct from his nature, his temperament, and his personality” (1966, p. 40). Many advocates of character education are vague on just this distinction, and it might be helpful to propose that character consists of traits that are learned, while personality and temperament consist of traits that are innate. [ 8 ]

What advocates are clear on, however, is that character is the essence of what we are. The term comes from the world of engraving, from the Greek term kharakter , an instrument used for making distinctive marks. Thus character is what marks a person or persons as distinctive.

Character is not just one attribute or trait. It signifies the sum total of particular traits, the “sum of mental and moral qualities” ( O.E.D ., p. 163). The addition of “moral qualities” to the definition may be insignificant, for character carries with it a connotation of “good” traits. Thus character traits are associated, if not synonymous, with virtues. So a good person and, in the context of liberal democracy, a good citizen will have these virtues.

To Thomas Lickona a virtue is “a reliable inner disposition to respond to situations in a morally good way” (p. 51); “good character,” he continues, “consists of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good” (Idem). Who determines what the good is? In general, inculcated traits or virtues or dispositions are used “in following rules of conduct.” These are the rules that reinforce social conventions and social order (Peters, p. 40). So in this view social convention determines what “good” means.

This might be problematic. What occurs when the set of virtues of the good person clashes with the set of virtues of the good citizen? What is thought to be good in one context, even when approved by society, is not necessarily what is thought to be good in another. Should the only child of a deceased farmer stay at home to care for his ailing mother, or should he, like a good citizen, join the resistance to fight an occupying army?

What do we do when the requirements of civic education call into question the values or beliefs of what one takes to be the values of being a good person? In Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education just such a case occurred. Should the Mozerts and other fundamentalist Christian parents have the right to opt their children out of those classes that required their children to read selections that went against or undermined their faith? On the one hand, if they are permitted to opt out, then without those children present the class is denied the diversity of opinion on the reading selections that would be educative and a hallmark of democracy. On the other hand, if the children cannot opt out, then they are denied the right to follow their faith as they think necessary. [ 9 ]

We can see, therefore, why educating for character has never been straightforward. William Bennett pushes for the virtues of patriotism, loyalty, and national pride; Amy Gutmann wants to see toleration of difference and mutual respect. Can a pacifist in a time of war be a patriot? Is the rebel a hero or simply a troublemaker? [ 10 ] Can idealized character types speak to all of our students and to the variegated contexts in which they will find themselves?

Should our teachers teach a prescribed morality, often closely linked to certain religious ideas and ideals? Should they teach a content only of secular values related to democratic character? Or should they teach a form of values clarification in which children's moral positions are identified but not criticized?

These two approaches—a prescribed moral content or values clarification—appear to form the two ends of a character education spectrum. At one end is the method of indoctrination of prescribed values and virtues, regardless of sacred or secular orientation. But here some citizens will express concern about just whose values are to be taught or, to some, imposed. [ 11 ] At the same time, some will see the inculcation of specified values and virtues as little more than teaching a “morality of compliance” (Nord, 2001, 144).

At the other end of the spectrum is values clarification, [ 12 ] but this seems to be a kind of moral relativism where everything goes because nothing can be ruled out. In values clarification there is no right or wrong value to hold. Indeed, teachers are supposed to be value neutral so as to avoid imposing values on their students and to avoid damaging students' self-esteem. William Damon calls this approach “anything-goes constructivism” (1996), for such a position may leave the door open for students to approve racism, violence, and “might makes right.”

Is there a middle of the spectrum that would not impose values or simply clarify values? There is no middle path that can cut a swath through imposition on one side and clarification on the other. Perhaps the closest we can get is to offer something like Gutmann's or Galston's teaching of critical thinking. Here students can think about and think through what different moral situations require of persons. With fascists looking for hiding Jews, I lie; about my wife's new dress, I tell the truth (well, usually). Even critical thinking, however, requires students to be critical about something. That is, we must presuppose the existence, if not prior inculcation, of some values about which to be critical.

What we have, then, is not a spectrum but a sequence, a developmental sequence. Character education, from this perspective, begins with the inculcation in students of specific values. But at a later date character education switches to teaching and using the skills of critical thinking on the very values that have been inculcated.

This approach is in keeping with what William Damon, an expert on innovative education and on intellectual and moral development, has observed: “The capacity for constructive criticism is an essential requirement for civic engagement in a democratic society; but in the course of intellectual development, this capacity must build upon a prior sympathetic understanding of that which is being criticized” (2001, 135).

The process, therefore, would consist of two phases, two developmental phases. Phase One is the indoctrination phase. Yet which values do we inculcate? Perhaps the easiest way to begin is to focus first on those behaviors that all students must possess. In fact, without first insisting that students “behave,” it seems problematic whether students could ever learn to think critically. Every school, in order to conduct the business of education, reinforces certain values and behaviors. Teachers demand that students sit in their seats; raise their hands before speaking; hand assignments in on time; display sportsmanship on the athletic field; be punctual when coming to class; do not cheat on their tests or homework; refrain from attacking one another on the playground, in the hallways, or in the classroom; be respectful of and polite to their elders (e.g., teachers, staff, administrators, parents, visitors, police); and the like. The teachers' commands, demands, manner of interacting with the students, and own conformity to the regulations of the classroom and school establish an ethos of behavior—a way of conducting oneself within that institution. From the ethos come the requisite virtues—honesty, cooperation, civility, respect, and so on. [ 13 ]

Another set of values to inculcate at this early stage is that associated with democracy. Here the lessons are more didactic than behavioral. One point of civic education in a democracy is to raise free and equal citizens who appreciate that they have both rights and responsibilities. Students need to learn that they have freedoms, such as those found in Bill of Rights (press, assembly, worship, and the like) in the U. S. Constitution. But they also need to learn that they have responsibilities to their fellow citizens and to their country. This requires teaching students to obey the law; not to interfere with the rights of others; and to honor their country, its principles, and its values. Schools must teach those traits or virtues that conduce to democratic character: cooperation, honesty, toleration, and respect.

So we inculcate in our students the values and virtues that our society honors as those that constitute good citizenship and good character. But if we inculcate a love of justice, say, is it the justice found in our laws or an ideal justice that underlies all laws? Obviously, this question will not arise in the minds of most, if any, first graders. As students mature and develop cognitively, however, such questions will arise. So a high-school student studying American History might well ask whether the Jim Crow laws found in the South were just laws simply because they were the law. Or were they only just laws until they were discovered through argument to be unjust? Or were they always unjust because they did not live up to some ideal conception of justice?

Then we could introduce Phase Two of character education: education in judgment. Judgment is based on weighing and considering reasons and evidence for and against propositions. Judgment is a virtue that relies upon practical wisdom; it is established as a habit through practice. Judgment, or thoughtfulness, was the master virtue for Aristotle from whose exercise comes an appreciation for those other virtues: honesty, cooperation, toleration, and respect.

Because young children have difficulty taking up multiple perspectives, as developmental psychologists tell us, thinking and deliberating that require the consideration of multiple perspectives would seem unsuitable for elementary-school children. Additionally, young children are far more reliant on the teacher's involvement in presenting problem situations in which the children's knowledge and skills can be applied and developed. R. S. Peters offers an important consideration in this regard:

The cardinal function of the teacher, in the early stages, is to get the pupil on the inside of the form of thought or awareness with which he is concerned. At a later stage, when the pupil has built into his mind both the concepts and the mode of exploration involved, the difference between teacher and taught is obviously only one of degree. For both are participating in the shared experience of exploring a common world (1966, 53).

The distinction between those moving into “the inside” of reflective thinking and those already there may seem so vast as to be a difference of kind, not degree. But the difference is always one of degree. Elementary-school students have yet to develop the skills and knowledge, or have yet to gain the experience, to participate in phase- two procedures that require perspectivism.

In this two-phased civic education teachers inculcate specific virtues such as patriotism. But at a later stage this orientation toward solidifying a conventional perspective gives way to one of critical thinking. The virtue of patriotism shifts from an indoctrinated feeling of exaltation for the nation, whatever its actions and motives, to a need to examine the nation's principles and practices to see whether those practices are in harmony with those principles. The first requires loyalty; the second, judgment. We teach the first through pledges, salutes, and oaths; we teach the second through critical inquiry.

Have we introduced a significant problem when we teach students to judge values, standards, and beliefs critically? Could this approach lead to students' contempt for authority and tradition? Students need to see and hear that disagreement does not necessarily entail disrespect. Thoughtful, decent people can disagree. To teach students that those who disagree with us in a complicated situation like abortion or affirmative action are wrong or irresponsible or weak is to treat them unfairly. It also conveys the message that we think that we are infallible and have nothing to learn from what others have to say. Such positions undercut democracy.

Would all parents approve of such a two-phased civic education? Would they abide their children's possible questioning of their families' values and religious views? Yet the response to such parental concerns must be the same as that to any authority figure: Why do you think that you are always right? Aren't there times when parents can see that it is better to lie, maybe even to their children, than to tell the truth? This, however, presupposes that parents, or authority figures, are themselves willing to exercise critical judgment on their own positions, values, and behaviors. This point underscores the need to involve other social institutions and persons in character education.

4. Civic Education as Political Action

Civic education as political action is to be contrasted with the more traditional form or teacher-centered education. This is not to suggest that those teaching political action will shirk or short-change knowledge and instruction in favor of exercises, simulations, and projects. Instead, knowledge and instruction arise out of the students' own experiences and interests. That is the point of student-centered in place of teacher-centered education.

Putting students into the community-at-large is today called “service learning,” which is a form of civic education that integrates classroom instruction with work within the community. This is not a combination of classroom and community, as if students undertake two different kinds of work side-by-side. Rather, the work done in the community has a learning objective related directly to what the students are studying in the classroom.

Service learning is in keeping with Dewey's emphasis on students' linking learning with real-world experiences found in their communities. Dewey warned of the “standing danger that the material of formal instruction will be merely the subject matter of the schools, isolated from the subject matter of life experience.” This could be countered by immersing students in “the spirit of service,” especially by learning about the various occupations within their communities (1916, 10-11, 49). [ 14 ]

A variation of service learning, highly popular in the U.S. during the 1970's, is experiential learning, which was thought of as a species of civic education. Jerome Bruner, the renowned educator and psychologist, proposed that some classroom learning ought to be devoted to students creating political-action plans addressing significant social and political issues such as poverty or race. He also urged educators to get their students out into the local communities to explore the occupations, ways of life, and habits of residence. Bruner is here following Dewey, who criticized traditional education for its failure to get teachers and students out into the community to become intimately familiar with the physical, historical, occupational, and economic conditions that could then be used as educational resources (Dewey 1938, 40).

We live in an age of high-density electronic technology—for example, television, DVD players, cell phones that serve as cameras and computers, computer and video games. In this climate face-to-face interaction seems in decline as people isolate themselves in their homes and offices and disconnect themselves more and more from public, and thus political, interaction. As a result, the need for experiential education, service-learning, and activist civic education may never have been greater.

Activism in this sense is nothing other than students taking an active role in their own learning and doing so in contexts within and outside the classroom. It is experiential and cooperative learning. William Damon concludes that the most effective moral education programs “are those that engage students directly in action, with subsequent opportunities for reflection” (2001, 144). Community service is touted, almost universally, as one such avenue of reflection. But that is really just the beginning.

We can think of political action as participation that can involve far more than voting, working on a campaign, or writing a letter to the editor. It can take many other forms: attending and participating in political meetings; organizing and running meetings, rallies, protests, fund drives; gathering signatures for bills, ballots, initiatives, recalls; serving without pay on local elected and appointed boards; starting or participating in political clubs; deliberating with fellow citizens about social and political issues central to their lives; and the like. If we include service-learning as part of civic education, then we can broaden the concept of civic education even further to include various kinds of voluntarism and community work. Action here could include participation in the sphere of civil society, the network of non-governmental and private organizations differentiated from the family, the market, and the state. Students could be encouraged to volunteer in a soup kitchen, take part in a walkathon, clean up a neighborhood, or organize a basketball tournament to benefit homeless children. Such action exercises the skills that can be associated with political action.

Thus, one argument for activist civic education is that it meets the criteria of cultivating both good persons and good citizens. When students take responsibility for their own learning, when they work together cooperatively, when they deliberate about how to proceed on a project in the community or in their classrooms, and when they actually work in the community, they exercise the skills and values that we associate with democracy and effective, moral social interaction. They exhibit the values, or virtues, of toleration of differences, mutual respect, listening, reasoning, criticizing, empathy, and acceptance of responsibility.

Why does action work so well as a form of moral or character education? “The reason, again, is that students respond to experiences that touch their emotions and senses of self in a firsthand way” (Damon, 2001, 141). There is also a “negative” reason, which is really a compensatory reason: As Conover and Searing point out, “while most students identify themselves as citizens, their grasp of what it means to act as citizens is rudimentary and dominated by a focus on rights, thus creating a privately oriented, passive understanding” (2000, 108). To bring them out of this private and passive understanding, nothing is better, as Tocqueville noted, than political participation. The kind of participation here is political action, not simply voting or giving money.

Nowhere is there a better site for political or democratic action than the school itself, the students' own community. This is Dewey's insight (1916). Creating a democratic culture within the schools not only facilitates preparing students for democratic participation in the political system, but it also fosters a democratic environment that shapes the relationships with adults and among peers that the students already engage in. “Students learn much more from the way a school is run,” comments Theodore Sizer, “and the best way to teach values is when the school is a living example of the values to be taught” (1984, 120, 122).

Real problems, and not hypotheticals or academic exercises, are, Dewey argued, always of real concern to students. So in addition to activities of writing and classroom discussion, typical of today's public schools, students should engage in “active inquiry and careful deliberation in the significant and vital problems” that confront their communities, however defined but especially their schools (1910, 55). Book lessons and classroom discussions rarely connect with decision-making on issues that affect that community. In fact, Dewey comments that traditional methods of instruction are often “foreign to the existing capacities of the young…beyond the reach of [their] experience…[T]he very situation forbids much active participation by pupils” (1938, 19).

As a core of learning Dewey wanted “an experiential continuum” (1938, 28, 33). The experiences that he wanted to promote were those that underscored healthy growth; those, in other words, that generated a greater desire to learn and to keep on learning and that built upon prior experiences. “[D]emocratic social experiences” were superior in providing “a better quality of human experience” than any other form of social or political organization (Ibid, 34).

One logical, and practical, possibility was to make the operations of the school part of the curriculum. Let the students use their in-school experiences to make, or help make, decisions that directly affect some of the day-to-day operations of the school—student discipline, maintenance of the grounds and buildings, problems with cliques, issues of sexism and racism, incidents of ostracism, and the like—as well as topics and issues inside the classrooms. Make the school itself part of the curriculum.

Dewey thought of schools as “embryo communities” (1915, 174), “institution[s] in which the child is, for the time…to be a member of a community life in which he feels that he participates, and to which he contributes” (1916, 88). We need not become sidetracked in questioning just what Dewey means by, or what we should mean by, “community” to grasp the sense that he is after. It is not surprising that Dewey wanted to give students experience in making decisions that affect their lives in schools. What is surprising is that so little democracy takes place in schools and that those who spend the most time in schools have the least opportunity to experience it.

The significance of democratic decision-making within the schools and about the wider community—the making of actual decisions through democratic means—cannot be overstated. As a propaedeutic to democratic participation, political action of this sort is invaluable. Melissa S. Williams comments: “…[L]earning cooperation as a practice is the only way to develop individuals' sense of agency to reshape the world they share with others. It teaches moderation in promoting one's own vision, and the capacity of individuals to see themselves as part of a project of collective self-rule” (2005, 238; emphasis in original).

Of course, not everything in school should be decided democratically. There are some areas in which decisions require expertise—a combination of experience and knowledge—that rules out students as decision-makers. Chief among such areas is pedagogy. Because the teachers and administrators know more about the processes of education and about their subjects, because they have firsthand and often intimate knowledge of the range and nature of abilities and problems of their students—a point emphasized by Dewey (1938, 56)—as well as the particular circumstances in which the learning takes place, they and not the students should make pedagogical decisions.

At the same time, because many students are still children, the decisions that they are to make should be age-appropriate. Not all democratic procedures or school issues are suitable for all ages. Differences in cognitive, social, and emotional development, especially at the elementary-school level, complicate democratic action. While all students may have the same capacity as potentiality, activating those capacities requires development, as noted in the discussion of a two-phased form of civic education.

In his critique of traditional pedagogy Paulo Freire refers to teacher-centered education as the “banking concept of education” (1970, 72). This for Freire is unacceptable as civic education. Too often, observes Freire, students are asked to memorize and repeat ideas, stanzas, phrases, and formulas without understanding the meaning of or meaning behind them. This process “turns [students] into ‘containers,’ into ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by the teacher” (Idem). As a result, students are nothing but objects, nothing but receptacles to receive, file, and store deposits—that is, containers for what the teacher has deposited in their “banks.”

Like Dewey, Freire thinks that knowledge comes only from invention and reinvention and the perpetual inquiry in the world that is a mark of all free human beings. Students thereby educate the teachers as well. In sharp contrast, then, to the banking concept is “‘problem-posing’ education” (Ibid, 79), which is an experiential education that empowers students by educing the power that they already possess.

That power is to be used to liberate themselves from oppression. This pedagogy to end oppression, as Freire writes, “must be forged with , not for , the oppressed” (1970, 48; emphases in original), irrespective of whether they are children or adults. Freire worked primarily with illiterate adult peasants in South America, but his work has applications as well to schools and school-aged children. It is to be a pedagogy for all, and Freire includes oppressors and the oppressed.

To overcome oppression people must first critically recognize its causes. One cause is people's own internalization of the oppressor consciousness [or “image,” as Freire says at one point (Ibid, 61)]. Until the oppressed seek to remove this internalized oppressor, they cannot be free. They will continue to live in the duality of both oppressed and oppressor. It is no wonder, then, as Freire tells us, that peasants once promoted to overseers become more tyrannical toward their former workmates than the owners themselves (Ibid, 46). The banking concept of education precludes the perspective that students need to recognize their oppression: “The more students [or adults] work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world” (Ibid, 73).

Having confronted the reality of the dual nature of her consciousness, having discovered her own internal oppressor and realized her actual situation, the person now must act on her realization. She must act, in other words, in and on the world so as to lessen oppression. Freire wanted his students, whether adult peasants or a country's youth, to value their cultures as they simultaneously questioned some of those cultures' practices and ethos. This Freire referred to as “reading the word”—as in ending illiteracy—and “reading the world”—the ability to analyze social and political situations that influenced and especially limited people's life chances. For Freire, to question was not enough; people must act as well.

Liberation, therefore, is a “praxis,” but it cannot consist of action alone, which Freire calls “activism.” It must be, instead, action combined with “serious reflection” (Ibid, 79, 65). This reflection or “reflective participation” takes place in dialogue with others who are in the same position of realization and action.

This “critical and liberating dialogue,” also known as “culture circles,” is the heart of Freire's pedagogy. The circles consist of somewhere between 12 and 25 students and some teachers, all involved in dialogic exchange. The role of the “teachers” in this civic education is to participate with the people/students in these dialogues. “The correct method for a revolutionary leadership…is, therefore, not ‘libertarian propaganda.’ Nor can the leadership merely ‘implant’ in the oppressed a belief in freedom…The correct method lies in dialogue” (Ibid, 67).

The oppressed thereby use their own experiences and language to explain and surmount their oppression. They do not rely upon others, even teachers, to explain their oppressed circumstances. “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers” (Ibid, 80). The reciprocity of roles means that students teach teachers as teachers teach students. Dialogue encourages everyone to teach and everyone to create together.

Because Freire worked with illiterate adult peasants, he insisted that the circles use the ways of speaking and the shared understandings of the peasants themselves. In the circles the learners identify their own problems and concerns and seek answers to them in the group dialogue. Dialogue focuses on what Freire called “codifications,” which are representations of the learner's day-to-day circumstances (Ibid, 114 and passim). Codifications may be photographs, drawings, poems, even a single word. As representations, codifications abstract the daily circumstances. For example, a photograph of workers in a sugar cane field permits workers to talk about the realities of their work and working conditions without identifying them as the actual workers in the photograph. This permits the dialogue to steer toward understanding the nature of the participants' specific circumstances but from a more abstract position. Teachers and learners worked together to understand the problems identified by the peasants, a process that Freire calls “decoding,” and to propose actions to be taken to rectify or overturn those problems.

The circles therefore have four basic elements: 1) problem posing, 2) critical dialogue, 3) solution posing, and 4) plan of action. The goal, of course, is to overcome the problems, but it is also to raise the awareness, the critical consciousness (conscientization), of the learners so as to end oppression in their individual and collective lives. The increased critical awareness enables learners to appropriate language without being colonized by it. [ 15 ] Decoding allows participants “to perceive reality differently…by broadening the horizon of perception…[It] stimulates the appearance of a new perception” that allows for the transformation of the participants' concrete reality (Ibid 115).

“Finally,” comments Freire, “true dialogue cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical thinking…thinking which perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static activity” (Ibid, 92).

True dialogue is for Freire what civic education must be about. If civic education does not include it, then there is little hope that the future will be anything for the oppressed but a continuation of the present. “Authentic education is not carried on by ‘A’ for ‘B’ or by ‘A’ about ‘B,’ but by ‘A’ with ‘B’…” (Ibid, 93; emphases in original). Essential to such education are the experiences of the students, whatever their ages or situations. Naively conceived humanism, part and parcel of so much traditional education, tries “to create an ideal model of the ‘good man,’” but does so by leaving out “the concrete, existential, present situation of real people” (Idem). Therefore, traditional civic education, non-experiential civic education that overlooks the importance of Freire's praxis, fails for Freire to raise either good persons or good citizens.

The Brazilian government has recognized Freire's culture circles as a form of civic education and has underwritten their use for combating illiteracy among youth and adults (Souto-Manning, 2007).

Cosmopolitanism is an emerging and, because of globalization, an increasingly important topic for civic educators. In an earlier iteration, cosmopolitan education was multicultural education. According to both, good persons need to be aware of the perspectives of others and the effects their decisions have on others. While multicultural good citizens needed to think about the perspectives and plight of those living on the margins of their societies and about those whose good lives deviated from their own, good citizens in cosmopolitanism need to think, or begin to think, of themselves as “global citizens” with obligations that extend across national boundaries. Should and must civic education incorporate a global awareness and foster a cosmopolitan sensibility?

Martha Nussbaum, for one, thinks so. Nussbaum argues that our first obligation must be to all persons, regardless of race, creed, class, or border. She does not mean that we ought to forsake our commitments to our family, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. She means that we ought to do nothing in our other communities or in our lives that we know to be immoral from the perspective of Kant's community of all humanity (1996, 7). We should “work to make all human beings part of our community of dialogue and concern” (Ibid, 9). Civic education should reflect that (Ibid, 11).

Philosopher Eamonn Callan, however, thinks otherwise. Callan wants to avoid a civic education, and the pursuit of justice that underlies it, “that gives pride of place to a cosmopolitan sensibility at the cost of particularistic affiliations” (1999, p. 197). In Callan's view our civic education should be constructed ideally around the concept of “liberal patriotism.” Although liberal patriotism is an “identification with a particular, historically located project of political self-rule”—that is, American liberal democracy—it nevertheless also “entails a sense of responsibility to outsiders and insiders alike….” (Ibid, 198).

Of course, the danger here is that a liberal patriot may well feel a sense of obligation or responsibility only when her country is committing the injustice. Callan points out that it is “precisely the thought that ‘we Americans’ have done these terrible things that gave impetus [during the Vietnam war] to their horror and rage” (Idem). This thought is to be contrasted with our feelings and sense of responsibility when, as Callan suggests, Soviet tanks rolled through Prague. Because, according to Callan, our politico-moral identity was not implicated in the Soviet action, we somehow do not have to have a similar sense of horror and rage. Perhaps we do not have to, but should we? Nussbaum's point is that we certainly should.

What, therefore, should civic education look like? Callan provides two examples: Should we “cultivate a civic identity in which patriotic affinities are muted or disappear altogether and a cosmopolitan ideal of ‘world citizenship’ is brought” to the forefront? Or should we cultivate a kind of patriotism “in which identification with a particular project of democratic self-rule is yet attuned to the claims of justice that both civic outsiders and insiders” will make (1999, 198). It appears that Nussbaum would favor the first, while Callan favors the second.

Perhaps these two are not the only options. In her metaphor of concentric identity circles Nussbaum argues that we ought to try to bring the outer circles of our relationships, the circle of all humanity, closer to the center, to our selves and to our loved ones (1996, 9). By doing so, we do not push out of our identities those particular relationships of significance to us. Instead, we need to take into consideration the effects that our moral and political decisions have on all of humanity. If our civic education helps us extend our sympathies, as Hume proposed, and if we could do so without paying the price of muting or eliminating our local and national affinities, then would Nussbaum and Callan agree on such a civic education?

Additionally, we need to consider that patriotism itself seems to have its own version of concentric circles. For example, Theodore Roosevelt warned against “that overexaltation of the little community at the expense of the great nation.” Here is a nod toward Roosevelt's “New Nationalism” as opposed to what he called “the patriotism of the village.” [ 16 ] If we move from the village to the nation, then can't we move from the nation to the world? As Alexander Pope wrote in “An Essay on Man”: “God loves from Whole to Parts; but human soul/Must rise from Individual to the Whole/…Friend, parent, neighbor first it will embrace/His country next, and next all human race.”

Is it ever too early to begin educating children about the cultures, customs, values, ideas, and beliefs of people from around the world? Will this undercut our commitment and even devotion to our own family, neighborhood, region, and nation? No civic education must consist exclusively either of love of one's community and a patriotic affiliation with one's country or of preparation for world citizenship—a term that implies, at the least, a world state. There ought to be a composite that will work here.

If the purpose of civic education is to generate in the young those values that underscore successful participation in our liberal democracies, then the task facing educators, whether in elementary school, secondary school, or post-secondary school, might be far easier than we imagine. There seems to be a direct correlation between years in school and an increase in tolerance of difference (Nie et al., 1996). An increase of tolerance can lead to an increase of respect for those holding divergent views. Such increases could certainly help engender a cosmopolitan sensibility. But does the number of years in school correlate with a willingness to participate in the first place? For example, the number of Americans going to college has increased dramatically over the past 50 years, yet voting in elections and political participation in general are still woefully low.

Perhaps public schools should not teach any virtue that is unrelated to the attainment of academic skills, which to some is the paramount, if not the sole, purpose of schooling. But shouldn't all students learn not just the skills but also the predispositions required to participate in the “conscious social reproduction” of our democracies, as Gutmann argues? If our democracies are important and robust, then do our citizens need such predispositions to see the value of participation? And if we say that our democracies are not robust enough, then shouldn't our students be striving to reinvigorate, or invigorate, our democratic systems? Will they need infusions of patriotism to do that? If tolerance and respect are democratic virtues, then do we fail our students when we do not tolerate or respect their desires as good persons to eschew civic participation even though this violates what we think of as the duties of good citizens?

As stated earlier, civic education in a democracy must prepare citizens to participate in and thereby perpetuate the system; at the same time, it must prepare them to challenge what they see as inequities and injustices within that system. Yet a civic education that encourages students to challenge the nature and scope of our democracies runs the risk of turning off our students and turning them away from participation. But if that civic education has offered more than simply critique, if its basis is critical thinking, which involves developing a tolerance of, if not an appreciation for, difference and divergence, as well as a willingness and even eagerness for political action, then galvanized citizens can make our systems more robust. Greater demands on our citizens, like higher expectations of our students, often lead to stronger performances. As Mill reminds us, “if circumstances allow the amount of public duty assigned him to be considerable, it makes him an educated man” (Ibid, 233).

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Civic Education Essay

Introduction, reasons why schools have stopped teaching civic education, minorities’ involvement with civic education, involvement and participation of white children in civic education, reasons why civic education should be taught in schools, methods used in teaching civic education, reference list.

Civic education is necessary for every citizen to be able to perform the required obligations in a democracy. However, the teaching of civic education in schools has declined. This discussion aims to shed light on the current situation of civic education in the United States.

The reasons why the teaching of this subject is being neglected are explored. Moreover, the differences in the way white and minority students participate in civic education are discussed. The paper also examines the importance of teaching this subject in schools and the best methods that can be used to efficiently pass on this knowledge to the students.

Civic education arms students with the necessary knowledge and skills in order for them to be able to take part in the activities that citizens in a democracy are involved with. It enables them to exercise their civil liberties and carry out their responsibilities as future responsible citizens.

In addition, it prepares the young people for the roles of leading their country or participating in the country’s political activities. Civic education also aims to bond the youth and their country. It teaches the youth not to be self centered but also be concerned about the welfare of their society and country as a whole. Moreover, it teaches them to be loyal to their country and be ready to defend it at all times. Therefore, it is important that this subject is adequately represented in the school curriculum.

In the United States, civic education is rarely taught in schools. Courses touching on civic education are rarely included in the curriculum, and if they are, the students study it for a very short time. The subject is assigned few lessons. This is not enough to instill knowledge to the students about their government, rights and responsibilities.

Many students are disinterested in the subject because they are not enlightened on the importance of political awareness. Many Students do not even take part in student elections and are disinterested in community initiatives like taking care of the environment. Most of them do not even know what is contained in the constitution or their civil rights. Therefore they have no idea what privileges they are entitled to as legitimate citizens in a democracy, and consequently would not know if their rights were violated (Gehring, 2005).

In addition, there is little effort on the part of the government to enforce a public policy in support of civic education. Therefore, civic education is not adequately included in the school curriculums. The curriculum incorporates civic education in few units or courses and therefore it is not taught thoroughly.

Moreover, the teachers are not well prepared to teach the subject. The teaching of the subject is done by teachers qualified to teach other subjects. Many teachers are also not knowledgeable in the matters of civic education. Therefore, they cannot be able to enlighten the students on this matter. Some of them do not even know the relevance of teaching the subject.

Additionally, the teachers feel that civic education should not be allocated a lot of time. Therefore, they reduce the civic education lessons and spend more time teaching other subjects that they consider to be important, for instance, mathematics and sciences. This therefore denies the students enough knowledge on the subject.

The teachers also feel that instilling civic knowledge to students is not their responsibility only and therefore they can get it from other sources outside the school. They assume that students can learn this information from churches, community or though adult civic education programs once they finish school. Outside the school, civic education is taught to adults through adult civic education programs. These programs are initiated by the government or Non-Governmental Organizations.

The citizens are taught about how to become good citizens and leaders, how to participate in electing leaders and what their rights as citizens are. In addition, issues like low levels of citizens’ participation in the government’s activities and neglecting of certain groups in the society are tackled. However, the teaching of civic education should start from school so that the students gain a proper understanding of civic issues from an early age (Office of Democracy and Governance, 2002).

American schools comprise of white students and those from minority groups. There is a difference in civic participation between these two groups of students. Students from minority groups are less involved with civic education than the white ones. They rarely attend civic meetings and seldom participate in civic activities like volunteering and voting, among others.

America has a history of sidelining the minorities and consequently, the minority students do not trust the government. Before the 1960’s minority groups in America were denied their civil rights. For instance, the education facilities for the whites and the minorities were separated. The facilities designed for the minority groups were usually of poor quality and little government funds were availed to improve them.

The minorities were also denied voting rights by being deregistered. Therefore, they could not take part in the process of electing their representatives. The minorities were also discriminated in matters of economic and employment opportunities. Crimes of violence were also perpetrated against them.

Therefore, this history of slavery and injustices against the minority groups creates disinterest among the minority students. They feel alienated and unwanted in their country. Many minority students feel excluded from the American history therefore they are not interested in civic education (Iram, 2006).

Today the minority groups have equal civil rights as the other white children. However students from minority groups do not actively take part in civic education. Discursive democracy is encouraged in civic education, which does not enable members from all groups, including minorities to participate equally and voice their concerns.

Even if they participate, their contributions are not taken seriously and therefore they are not able to influence the discussion. The minorities also need to learn the common language of expression so that their views can not be misunderstood (Blum, 1999).

Students from the minority groups think that civic engagement is for rich white children because they feel discriminated. The school curriculum is not accommodating to the minorities as it is designed with the assumption that all students are white. The curriculum and teachers also assume that all students are well off.

Therefore, the problems of poor minorities are not taken into consideration during civic education. Therefore, these students feel that they are being treated as insignificant citizens. The schools also assume that every student speaks English whereas many minorities have other native languages. All the documents used in teaching civic education like the constitution are written in English. This denies the minority students an equal opportunity to understand civic knowledge (Nodding, 2005).

Citizens from minority groups are mostly less educated and have lower incomes than whites and these contribute to their low participation in civic activities. The civic education curriculum taught to minorities is different as the teachers feel that the minorities need proper understanding on how to become good citizens (Levinson, 2003).

White children have always been given better privileges in schools throughout American history. During racial segregation, the schools attended by white children were well funded and had good facilities compared to those of the minority groups.

White American children participate a lot in civic education. They feel a sense of belonging in their country and therefore engage in activities to improve its welfare. This is because the system of education and the laws were designed with the white students in mind. The school curriculum is in favor of white children as it is designed with the assumption that all children are white, rich and speak English as their native language (Nodding, 2005).

Students from white families are also rich and are able to participate properly in civic activities. They can participate in community building, and other activities. They can also afford the necessary equipment required for students to participate actively in civic activities.

The white students also actively take part in civic activities like electing student leaders. They have trust in their government because they are properly represented. Even when they leave school, statistics show that white citizens are the most active participants in civic activities. They vote in large numbers and are more likely to attend civic meetings, and take part in community development activities (Blum, 1999).

The country’s core documents like the constitution are written in English; therefore the white children can clearly understand its contents as they are native English speakers. During civic discussions in class, the white students participate more actively because they are English speakers and can express their views without being misunderstood. Therefore they are able to influence the discussion.

Civic education is taught in schools, communities, labor unions, churches. The citizens are taught how to vote wisely, what rights they are entitled to, or how to resolve conflicts. Teaching civic education in schools is important because it instills civic knowledge to the students from an early age. Civic education can be taught from as early as kindergarten all the way through the entire school life. Therefore, this knowledge prepares the students to be future democratic citizens.

They learn the importance of shared responsibility and taking initiative. Civic education should be incorporated in school curriculums in order to achieve this goal. The contents of the course should be in line with the needs and the level of the students. For instance, kindergarten children should not be taught complex issues as this will be taught later when they can clearly understand it.

The students must be prepared to either be good rulers or obedient citizens. Students need to be taught that in democracies there must be the rule of law and everyone should obey it. They are also supposed to challenge the rules that are unjust It teaches them how to co-exist with other members of the society and to live ethically.

Civic education entails knowing the country’s governance history, how an autonomous government works, the responsibilities of different sections in the government, their privileges and responsibilities as citizens, the rationale and procedures of voting, among others (Crittenden, 2007).

The citizens in a democracy must have the correct knowledge, virtues and behavior in order for it to develop. The citizens must understand how their government is run and whether their welfare is being taken into consideration. Citizens need civic education in order to be able to know how they can progress themselves locally and nationally.

They must be taught the importance of trusting in their government and obeying the law in order to avoid any conflicts. This ensures a stable democratic system. Civic education enables the citizens to learn the virtues expected of them in a democratic system like loyalty, forbearance, concession and reverence for the law. The citizens are also encouraged to actively and responsibly participate in activities like voting, among others (Lynch, 1997).

Civic education should be taught to every student in a democracy in order to mold them into responsible and enlightened citizens in future. It instills political knowledge and awareness about various issues in the government, including the functions of the government, the rights of citizens, the responsibilities of leaders, and the composition of the political organizations, among others. The citizens also get to know their civil rights and what to expect from the government.

In addition, civic education encourages political participation among the citizens. It enlightens the citizens and empowers them to take part in political activities that shape their future. These include voting, attending government meetings, challenging injustices, and pressurizing their elected leaders to represent them effectively. They learn that they are not just passive but active participants in their own governance.

Civic education also raises the political worth among the citizens. The citizens feel empowered, in control, and in charge of making the decisions that affect their welfare. They have the audacity to challenge any injustices perpetrated against them. They even condemn poor representation by their leaders. They can even protest if their rights are violated.

Civic education is also important because it imparts the necessary democratic principles in the citizens. For instance the students learn that they should have loyalty, forbearance, respect for the rule of law and concession. These values are important for a democratic government to prosper.

The study of this subject also creates awareness to the citizens and therefore they begin to see the defects in the way their government is run. Therefore they are able to push for changes in the way things are done. This leads to better governance and a better democracy.

Moreover, civic education empowers all the members to actively take part in the political activities. This includes the women and the minority groups. These citizens get enlightened on equal rights and therefore there is increased participation in the activities of the democracy by all the citizens regardless of their gender or race.

According to Branson (1998) civic education involves teaching the ideals of self governance to the students. The students learn how to take part in the civic activities in order to enhance the wellbeing of their country. It enables them to make informed choices about the governance off their country. Civic education arms the students with civic skills, knowledge and dispositions.

Civic education gives the students knowledge about their country and how it is governed. The students get to know the proper meaning of being civically engaged and what government means.

This helps them to understand why it is important to have a government and the rule of law governing all the citizens. It will enable them to learn the roles of the government and therefore they can challenge the government if those roles are not performed satisfactorily. They will get a clear understanding of the importance of self-governance (Audigier, 1993).

Besides they get to know the composition of the political system and its values. This enables them to know the history of their country and the values that it upholds. This will in addition enable them to know their constitutional rights as citizens and the need to obey the rule of law, and practice loyalty and other virtues. Understanding of this knowledge will involve the exploration of certain documents like the constitution and other legal documents with fundamental information about that country.

The students also gain knowledge about what is contained in the constitution and whether the government is in line with democratic principles. This will enable them to find out if their government is upholding the values contained in the constitution and whether the rights of the citizens are being violated.

In addition, the students get to know what is expected of them as citizens in the democracy. The students get to understand that each one of them has obligations as a citizen to ensure the well being of the country. They learn that their active participation in civic activities can improve their standards of living. This can be achieved through participation in the election of leaders, community service, among others.

Furthermore, they get insight on how their country relates with other countries in the world. The students get to knows how matters happening around the world affect them. The world is interconnected and matters happening in one country affect the rest in some way. They understand why good relations with other countries area important in ensuring their wellbeing.

According to OBrien (2010) civic education enables students to acquire the necessary skills to enable them to perform their obligations and fight for their rights. They acquire both logical skills and other skills to enable them to take part in civic activities. Logical skills include critical thinking, evaluating and analyzing issues. The citizens are able to think critically and analyze issues related to the democracy.

They are able to understand the meaning of national symbols like the flag. Moreover they understand the importance of values such as loyalty. They get to analyze how their government works and therefore are able to identify any misconduct on the part of government officials. The students acquire good decision-making skills which enable them to make informed and correct decisions on matters affecting them.

The students as well learn how to relate with others without conflict. They learn to share and exchange ideas with others meaningfully. Civic education enables students to learn enough skills to enable them to take part in the civic activities of their country. It teaches them how to resolve crises by engaging in peaceful dialogue. Students learn to participate in activities like meetings, court hearings, elections, community service, among others.

Another importance of civic education is that it helps students to develop values that are necessary in a democracy. The students are taught to be responsible, respectful of others and loyal to the country. They are also taught to abide by the laws of the democracy. They learn that self-governance involves people performing their responsibilities and having self-regulation in everything and not relying on the country’s laws to govern them.

They also learn what is expected of them as citizens including serving the community, electing leaders, pin-pointing injustices, paying taxes, among others. It enables the students to be informed about what is going on in the government and whether proper procedures are being followed, failure of which corrective measures should be recommended.

In order for civic education to be effective, it has to be taught through a number of ways. These include discussion groups, staging dramatizations, mock political and legal dealings, distributing civic literature, lectures and mass media among others.

Each method applied should match with the intended goal. For instance, passive methods like lectures are used to merely pass on information about a particular issue whereas vigorous methods like dramatization should be used to change the citizens’ perceptions and actions towards democracy (Feith, 2010).

Successful civic learning takes place when the lessons are held frequently. Moreover when teaching methods that are participatory like dramatizations, mock-ups and discussions are applied, better results are achieved. In addition, when teachers encourage their students to actively participate in the civic learning activities more productive learning takes place and the students are able to grasp concepts more swiftly. Therefore the quality of training is important in fostering good democratic behavior to the students (Lewis-Ferrell, 2007).

Successful civic education should include participatory activities. The teacher should initiate discussions about civic issues that are happening both locally and internationally in order to illustrate her points. In addition, after the theoretical teaching is over the teacher should look for avenues where the students can apply the knowledge. This can be in form of doing community service. Moreover, the schools’ extracurricular activities should include civic engagement.

The activities should include ways through which students can contribute to the welfare of their school and the community as a whole. Students should also be included in the process of making decisions that affect them. This encourages them to participate more actively in civic activities. Engaging students in community service gives them a sense of responsibility and prepares them to take up their roles in the community in future (Levinson and Stevick, 2007).

The teaching of civic education should largely include discussions. The students should be allowed to voice their opinions about various issues. Discussions will enhance the detailed learning of a range of civic issues and will also create a feeling of democracy among the sstudents because each person will be ggiven an opporrtunity to share theirs views (Prasanth, 2004).

From the above discussion, it is evident that civic education is an important ingredient in molding students into politically enlightened and democratic citizens in future.

Therefore it is a pity that currently, this subject is not taken seriously in American schools. The subject is not adequately represented in the school curriculums and therefore most students have little or no civic knowledge. This calls for action to be taken to ensure that students gain civic education because the future of a democratic nation depends on civically enlightened citizens.

Audigier, F. (1993). Teaching About Society, Passing On Values: Elementary Law In Civic Education. Germany: Council of Europe.

Blum, L. (1999). Race, Community and Moral Education: Kohlberg and Spielberg as civic educators. Journal of Moral Education. Vol. 28, No 2, 1999. USA: Taylor & Francis.

Branson, M.S. (1998). The Role of Civic Education. Web.

Crittenden, J. (2007). Civic Education . Web.

Feith, D. (2011). Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education . USA: R&L Education.

Gehring, V. V. (2005). Community Matters: Challenges to Civic Engagement in the 21st Century. USA: Rowman & Littlefield.

Iram, Y. (2006). Education of Minorities and Peace Education. USA: IAP.

Levinson, B. A. and Stevick, D. (2007). Reimagining Civic Education: How Diverse Societies Form Democratic Citizens. USA: Rowman & Littlefield.

Levinson, M. (2003). Challenging Deliberation . Web.

Lewis-Ferrell, G.D. (2007). Democracy Renaissance: Civic Education as a Framework For Elementary Education Methods Courses . USA: ProQuest.

Lynch, J. (1997). Education and Development: Tradition and Innovation . Great Britain: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Nodding, N. (2005). Educating Citizen for Global Awareness. USA: Teachers College Press.

Obrien, A. (2010). Let’s Bring Civic Education to the Front Burner . Web.

Office of Democracy and Governance. (2002). Approaches To Civic Education: Lessons Learned. Web.

Prasanth, J. K. (2004). Methods of Teaching Civics . New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House.

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American Academy of Arts  and Sciences

The Challenges Facing Civic Education

This essay explores the value and state of civics education in the United States and identifies five challenges facing those seeking to improve its quality and accessibility: 1) ensuring that the quality of civics education is high is not a state or federal priority; 2) social studies textbooks do not facilitate the development of needed civic skills; 3) upper-income students are better served by our schools than are lower-income individuals; 4) cutbacks in funds available to schools make implementing changes in civics education difficult; and 5) reform efforts are complicated by the fact that civics education has become a pawn in a polarized debate among partisans.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2001, is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author, coauthor, or editor of fifteen books, including The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Messages Shaped the 2008 Election (with Kate Kenski and Bruce Hardy, 2010), Presidents Creating the Presidency (2008), and unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation (2007).

Because, as John Dewey contended, “[d]emocracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife,” 1 the quality of civic education has been a concern of those interested in the health of our system of government and the well-being of the citizenry. For much of the nation’s history, our leaders have viewed civics education as a means of realizing the country’s democratic ideals. In the past decade, low levels of youth voting and non-proficient student performance on a widely respected civics assessment test have elicited efforts to increase the amount and quality of time spent teaching civic education and have ignited a movement to create common standards in the social studies. Complicating these efforts is ideological disagreement about the content that should be taught and the values that ought to be inculcated. Validating the belief in the worth of civics education and underscoring the importance of reform efforts, data reveal that schooling in civics and other, related cocurricular activities are associated with increased knowledge of the U.S. system of government and heightened participation in democratic activities such as voting.

Reformers seeking to increase the quality and accessibility of civic education in schools confront five challenges. First, neither the federal government nor the states have made high-quality civics education a priority, a conclusion justified by evidence showing that the systematic study of civics in high school is not universal; that fewer high school civics courses are offered now than were offered in the past; that the time devoted to teaching the subject in lower grades has been reduced; and that most states do not require meaningful civics assessment. Second, social studies textbooks may not adequately convey the knowledge or facilitate development of the skills required of an informed, engaged citizenry. Third, consequential differences in access and outcomes between upper- and lower-class students persist. Fourth, cutbacks in funding for schools make implementation of changes in any area of the curriculum difficult. Fifth, the polarized political climate increases the likelihood that curricular changes will be cast as advancing a partisan agenda.

Throughout much of its history, the United States has “relied upon government schools as a principal purveyor of deeply cherished democratic values.” 2 So interconnected are education and citizenship that some historians contend that “the most basic purpose of America’s schools is to teach children the moral and intellectual responsibilities of living and working in a democracy.” 3 Consistent with this view, Americans “have expected schools to prepare future citizens, nurturing in children loyalty and common values and forging from them a strong national character.” 4 Among the implications of these arguments is the notion that the classroom is both the training ground for democracy and the incubator of its leaders.

Scholars of U.S. history argue that “it was first religion and next education that engaged the attention of the early settlers.” 5 Whereas the Puritans justified the teaching of reading primarily as a means of accessing Scripture, Benjamin Franklin envisioned schooling as a means of “laying such a foundation of knowledge and ability as, properly improved, may qualify [individuals] to pass through and execute the several offices of civil life, with advantage and reputation to themselves and country.” 6

Unsurprisingly, then, those governing under the Articles of Confederation signaled education’s centrality to national well-being as early as the Land Ordinance of 1785, which “set aside the sixteenth section of government land in each township for school support.” Two years later, Article Three of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 proclaimed, “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” 7

Recognizing the importance of education in developing the capacities of citizenship, early U.S. presidents championed government-supported schooling for at least some citizens. As a result, the Military Academy at West Point was established in 1802. In the years that followed, the Founders continued to associate an educated populace with a secure union. Motivating George Washington’s argument for a national university, for example, was his belief that

the assimilation of the principles, opinions, and manners of our country-men by the common education of a portion of our youth from every quarter well deserves attention. The more homogenous our citizens can be made in these particulars the greater will be our prospect of permanent union; and a primary object of such a national institution should be the education of our youth in the science of government.

“In a republic,” the father of the nation asked, “what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?” 8

In a like vein, Thomas Jefferson included public education, along with roads, rivers, and canals, in a list of “objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of Federal powers.” 9 Drawing a similar connection between education and the productive exercise of citizenship, President James Madison argued in his second annual message:

I . . . invite your attention to the advantages of superadding [sic] to the means of education provided by the several States a seminary of learning instituted by the National Legislature within the limits of their exclusive jurisdiction. . . . Such an institution, though local in its legal character, would be universal in its beneficial effects. By enlightening the opinions, by expanding the patriotism, and by assimilating the principles, the sentiments, and the manners of those who might resort to this temple of science, to be redistributed in due time through every part of the community, sources of jealousy and prejudice would be diminished, the features of national character would be multiplied, and greater extent given to social harmony. But, above all, a well-constituted seminary in the center of the nation is recommended by the consideration that the additional instruction emanating from it would contribute not less to strengthen the foundations than to adorn the structure of our free and happy system of government. 10

These presidential encomia to the indispensable role of education in a democracy prefigure the enactment of such landmark legislation as the 1862 Morrill Act, which gave each state federal land to establish land grant colleges, and the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which gave public schools federal assistance and oversight.

The importance of schooling was magnified by the young country’s impulse to turn away from primogeniture and entail. “The English laws concerning the transmission of property were abolished in almost all the States at the time of the Revolution,” noted Alexis de Tocqueville. “The law of entail was so modified as not materially to interrupt the free circulation of property. . . . [T]he families of the great landed proprietors are almost all commingled with the general mass. . . . The last trace of hereditary ranks and distinctions is destroyed.” 11

Unsurprisingly, the educational system that ultimately developed in the United States bore the imprint of the country’s founding philosophy. If taken seriously, principles such as freedom of speech and of assembly and consent of the governed should be construed as inviting education of the many. The need for public schools was also driven by the extension of voting rights, first beyond the propertied class and, eventually, to African Americans and women. “Education must be universal,” argued Horace Mann. “It is well, when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truth already discovered, amongst the multitude. . . . With us, the qualification of voters is as important as the qualification of governors, and even comes first, in the natural order.” 12 And as the country faced the challenge of absorbing waves of immigrants during the turbulent Gilded Age and Progressive Era, educators came to see public schools “as helping different groups assimilate into American culture and society.” 13 “For many generations of immigrants,” write historian of education Diane Ravitch and public policy expert Joseph Viteritti, “the common school was the primary teacher of patriotism and civic values.” 14

Unlike its European counterpart, the U.S. educational system “reflected the ideal of equality,” an aspiration expressed in the notion of “educational opportunity for all regardless of wealth and ability.” 15 Still, the country was more than a halfcentury old before “real efforts to achieve universal opportunities for education” were undertaken. And “[e]ven after the 1840s . . . most boys could not expect to attend school for more than a few years, and girls could hardly hope to attend at all.” 16 The extent to which the country failed to realize its ideals was evident in the fact that, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, common taxsupported schooling had not yet taken hold in the South, and the education of those identified as “Negroes” was still forbidden by law in some states. 17

Those who feared an empowered rabble challenged the notion that universal education would benefit both the individual and the country. On the other side of the argument, Jeffersonians echoed the sentiments of the author of the Declaration of Independence, who noted that “[i]f a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” 18 Whereas Jefferson envisioned an “aristocracy of worth and genius,” 19 the worriers forecast that the combination of widespread schooling and its corollary, expanded suffrage, would vest elected power in those least– rather than best–suited to govern.

In the contest over these competing worldviews, Jefferson’s prevailed. “In New England,” Tocqueville noted in 1838, “every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution.” 20 The state of affairs we assume today had its roots in arguments made by such champions of education as Pennsylvania’s Thaddeus Stevens, who told that state’s House of Representatives:

If then, education be of admitted importance to the people under all forms of governments; and of unquestioned necessity when they govern themselves, it follows, of course, that its cultivation and diffusion is a matter of public concern; and a duty which every government owes to its people. 21

Because views such as Jefferson’s and Stevens’s won the day, “[o]ver 49 million students” headed “to approximately 99,000 public elementary and secondary schools for the fall 2011 term” at an estimated one-year cost of $525 billion.

On the role of schooling in inculcating the values of citizenship, contemporary presidents share the Founders’ views. Thus, for example, President Ronald Reagan noted, “Since the founding of this Nation, education and democracy have gone hand in hand.” 23 Similarly, President George W. Bush observed, “A love of democratic principles must be taught.” 24 And President Bill Clinton challenged “all our schools to teach character education, to teach good values and good citizenship.” 25

In the past decade, a number of major initiatives have concentrated on enhancing educational quality at the elementary and secondary levels. Signed into law in January 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) focused on increased student proficiency in language arts and mathematics. In 2007, NCLB added student proficiency in science to its goals. In light of the long-lived perception that education should increase civic knowledge and enhance the capacities of citizenship, it is surprising that Title I of NCLB did not list civic education as a priority.

That omission is seen by some as a sign that other priorities have displaced civic education on the public agenda. Reformers have been motivated by concerns that civic education is not as central to public schooling as it once was. They worry that the standards movement may have inadvertently made the delivery of high-quality civic education more difficult. The largest group responding to both of these concerns is the Civic Mission of the Schools (CMS) Coalition. 26

In response to low levels of voting and civics knowledge among the young, in 2003 Carnegie Corporation of New York released The Civic Mission of Schools report 27 and created the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, “a coalition of 40 organizations committed to improving the quality and quantity of civic learning in American schools.” Both the 2003 report and its 2011 follow-up, Guardian of Democracy : Civic Mission of Schools, 28 proposed agendas for action. Among the Campaign’s goals, along with college and career preparation, is reestablishing civic learning as one of the three principal purposes of American education. The CMS Coalition now includes more than sixty participating organizations and individuals representing groups concerned with civic learning, general education, civic engagement, policy-making, civil rights, and business.

The 2003 Civic Mission of Schools report argued that schools should not only “help young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives” but also work to ensure that students:

Are informed and thoughtful . They have a grasp and an appreciation of history and the fundamental processes of American democracy; an understanding and awareness of public and community issues; an ability to obtain information when needed; a capacity to think critically; and a willingness to enter into dialogue with others about different points of view and to understand diverse perspectives. They are tolerant of ambiguity and resist simplistic answers to complex questions.
Participate in their communities. They belong to and contribute to groups in civil society that offer venues for Americans to participate in public service, work together to overcome problems, and pursue an array of cultural, social, political, and religious interests and beliefs.
Act politically. They have the skills, knowledge, and commitment needed to accomplish public purposes – for instance, by organizing people to address social issues, solving problems in groups, speaking in public, petitioning and protesting to influence public policy, and voting.

Since its inception in 2003, CMS has:

Developed state-level campaign coalitions in each state.
Developed an online database of more than two hundred civic-learning practice examples. The Civic Learning On-Line database contains best-practice examples of each of the six promising civic-learning practices of the Civic Mission of Schools report.
Helped the CMS state affiliates pass nearly seventy pieces of supportive state legislation in thirty-five states during the 2004 to 2010 legislative sessions.
Conducted a study of schools and school districts around the nation that are meeting their civic mission through employment of the six promising practices of the Civic Mission of Schools report.
Participated in efforts to create common standards for social studies education.

Elements of this reform agenda are controversial. As education scholars Wayne Ross and Perry Marker argue, “[R]eform efforts have brought to the fore the primary tensions in the field of social studies: 1) the relative emphasis on the cultural heritage of the dominant society versus the development of critical thought; and 2) conflicting conceptions of citizenship, that is, citizenship for social reproduction or social reconstruction.” 30 It is not difficult to imagine political progressives favoring the development of “critical thought” and “social reconstruction” and conservatives championing the cultural heritage of the dominant society and citizenship for social reproduction. Political scientist Amy Gutmann provides a fair summary of the key points of disagreement when she writes:

The first issue is whether civic education that is publicly mandated must be minimal so that parental choice can be maximal. The second issue concerns the way in which publicly subsidized schools should respond to the increasingly multicultural character of societies. The third issue is whether democratic education should try to cultivate cosmopolitan or patriotic sentiments among students. 31

The heat generated by the controversy over content is evident in the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s 2003 publication Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong ? 32 In the foreword to that work, Fordham Foundation President Chester E. Finn, Jr., laid the failures of social studies at the feet of the social studies establishment:

Evidence also accumulated that, in the field of social studies itself, the lunatics had taken over the asylum. Its leaders were people who had plenty of grand degrees and impressive titles but who possessed no respect for Western civilization; who were inclined to view America’s evolution as a problem for humanity rather than mankind’s last, best hope; who pooh-poohed history’s chronological and factual skeleton as somehow “privileging” elites and white males over the poor and oppressed; who saw the study of geography in terms of despoiling the rain forest rather than locating London or the Mississippi River on a map; who interpreted “civics” as consisting largely of political activism and “service learning” rather than understanding how laws are made and why it is important to live in a society governed by laws. 33

Evidence from a 2010 survey of social studies teachers calls Finn’s assessment into question. In a national random sample of 866 public high school teachers and an oversample of 245 Catholic and private high school instructors, 83 percent viewed the United States “as a unique country that stands for something special in the world”; 82 percent thought pupils should be taught to “respect and appreciate their country but know its shortcomings”; and only 1 percent wanted students to learn “that the U.S. is a fundamentally flawed country.” 34

The ideological tensions at play here were also on display in the early 1990s, when those attempting to develop national guidelines for the teaching of American history faced off against critics, including National Endowment for the Humanities Chair Lynne Cheney, over the balance between focusing on past injustices and on narratives centered on traditional historical figures.

In the broad sweep of things, efforts to expand the focus of textbooks have succeeded. As a result of challenges to traditional accounts that excluded the struggles of blacks and women, for example, the content of social studies texts has changed remarkably over the past half-century. In the 1940s, for example, Dred Scott was the only black individual featured more than once; by the 1960s, and even more so by the 1980s, texts contained a notable amount of multicultural and feminist content. 35 Increasingly, textbook publishers have incorporated the aspiration that “students can learn about multiple viewpoints and competing narratives.” 36

Still, clashes among competing views of social studies are so intense that education scholar Ronald Evans has labeled them the “social studies wars.” 37

Even though social studies was ignored in NCLB, states have standardized their civics curricula “as part of the sweeping trend toward greater teacher accountability and systemized decision making.” 38 Since 1989, when a national education summit convened by President George H.W. Bush made the case for common standards, every state has developed standards of learning in curricular areas including social studies, which is defined as the core academic area consisting of civics, history, economics, and geography. Influencing these deliberations were the two voluntary sets of social studies standards developed by the National Council for the Social Studies 39 and the Center for Civic Education. 40

However, as the states have revised their standards over the years, benchmarks have proliferated to the point that even the most skilled teacher would have difficulty meeting them within the available class time. In short, rather than improving the state of civic education, the standards movement may in some ways have undercut it. As the Guardian of Democracy report notes, “In social studies standards revisions . . . most states have added to the amount of material to be covered, rather than developing fewer and clearer standards that encourage an understanding of the vital importance of citizen engagement in our democracy.” 41

Recognizing the problem, in June 2010 the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers released a set of state-led education standards designed to reduce the number and increase the quality of the standards set in math and science. Since then, forty-seven states have agreed to implement the Common Core State Standards in those two subjects. Although acceptance by the states was voluntary, President Barack Obama’s Department of Education accelerated adoption by making it a criterion for entry into the federal Race to the Top education grant competition.

Push back against the standards took two very different forms. Some argued that the math standards were problematic because they were lower than those in place in high-achieving states such as Massachusetts. 42 Others contended that national standards would stifle innovation in the states and constituted an unconstitutional expansion of federal authority. 43

Motivated in part by the Albert Shanker Institute’s influential 2003 study Educating Democracy: State Standards to Ensure a Civic Core, 44 reformers are now focused on clarifying the standards in social studies. The Shanker study found that standards in many states consisted simply of a laundry list of people, events, and dates to be memorized and therefore failed to develop civic competence and critical thinking.

In early 2010, the CMS coalition and the National Council for the Social Studies agreed to develop common state standards in the social studies designed to prepare students for informed and engaged citizenship, and so they established a task force to pursue that goal. Working with the states, the task force is charged with:

Drafting, and agreeing on, the actual standards;
Identifying assessment instruments for use with the standards; and
Developing resources to help teachers use the standards and assessments effectively.

To date, twenty-one states have joined the effort to develop common state standards.

Decades of scholarship suggest that civics classes and certain cocurricular activities help develop the civic skills, transmit the knowledge, and inculcate the civic dispositions valorized by The Civic Mission of Schools . Specifically, schooling in civics increases knowledge of our system of government and its history and laws; builds students’ confidence in their ability to exercise the prerogatives of citizenship; and increases participation in the community and in governments, including voting. In the presence of controls for other factors that could affect civics knowledge, having taken classes in that subject predicts a command of central concepts, 45 an increase reflected in improved performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. 46 Civics education also heightens students’ confidence in their ability to perform such participatory functions as writing a letter to Congress. 47

By increasing the representativeness and perceived legitimacy of our system of government as well as the accountability of its leaders, widespread citizen voting protects democratic governance as surely as lackluster civic participation jeopardizes it. With balloting in U.S. presidential contests hovering around 50 percent of those eligible, U.S. voter participation falls far from the democratic ideal. Overall, the percentage that chooses to cast a ballot in U.S. elections compares unfavorably to that of many other developed countries. In general, for example, turnout in U.S. elections is lower than in comparable ones in much of Europe and Canada. Although balloting among eighteen to twenty-nine year olds increased in 2008, it remained proportionately below that of other age groups.

These data signal the importance of the link between civics education and an inclination to act on the notion that voting is a citizen’s right and duty. In particular, completing a year’s worth of coursework in civics or American government heightens one’s propensity to vote by 3 to 6 percent. 48 Involvement in some forms of extracurricular activities and voluntary associations predicts increased balloting as well. 49 Programs that engage students in gathering and using information in political contexts both increase basic knowledge about our governmental system and stimulate voting behavior. 50 So, too, do course exercises that involve newspaper reading. 51 Importantly, evidence drawn from the National Education Longitudinal Study correlates participation in student government with increased civic and political participation. 52 These findings are consistent with those drawn from the National Education Longitudinal Study and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health that revealed that high school students active in “youth voluntary associations” are more politically engaged in adulthood. 53

Specific curricula have also yielded robust effects. A randomized field experiment concluded that involvement “in Student Voices significantly boosted students’ confidence in their ability to make informed political decisions, their knowledge about how to register to vote, and their belief that their vote matters.” 54 Moreover, in a randomized controlled experiment, “participation in Facing History and Ourselves programs result[ed] in: greater engagement in learning; increased skills for understanding and analyzing history; greater empathy and ethical awareness; increased civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions; an improved ability to recognize racism, anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in themselves and in others; and reduced racist attitudes and self-reported fighting.” 55 Some civics programs, such as Kids Voting USA, have been shown to create a trickle-up effect, not only increasing the knowledge level and civic dispositions of the young but enhancing their parents’ political knowledge as well. 56 Evidence also suggests that inclusion of civics education in a curriculum may correlate with a decreased dropout rate. 57

In a similar vein, student involvement in service learning has produced civic benefits. As the Corporation for National and Community Service notes, “[T]he state of youth volunteering is robust – with 55% of youth participating in volunteer activities each year – and . . . the level of their volunteer commitment is directly related to the nature of the social institutions with which they interact.” 58 The Guardian of Democracy report adds, “Service learning is far more than community service alone; high-quality service learning experiences incorporate intentional opportunities for students to analyze and solve community problems through the application of knowledge and skills.” 59 When well executed, service learning can have positive effects on civic knowledge and engagement. 60

Despite the fact that civic education produces an array of positive outcomes, the citizenry’s current level of civic knowledge is far from ideal, and the role of civic education in schools is far from secure. Over the last half of the twentieth century, political scientists Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter observe, levels of political knowledge changed little, a conclusion made more remarkable by the fact that education levels in the citizenry increased markedly over that period. 61 In practice, this finding means that in the mid-1990s, high school graduates’ knowledge was about the same as that of high school dropouts in the late 1940s; college graduates of the mid-1990s were more or less comparable to high school graduates at the end of World War II. 62

Leaders of both political parties have joined prominent scholars in lamenting the fact that, according to the rigorous standards set by the NAEP, a majority of our elementary and secondary students are not proficient in civics. As President Obama has noted, “The loss of quality civic education from so many of our classrooms has left too many young Americans without the most basic knowledge of who our forefathers are, or the significance of the founding documents.” They were unaware of “the risks and sacrifices made by previous generations, to ensure that this country survived war and depression; through the great struggles for civil, and social, and worker’s rights. It is up to us, then, to teach them.” 63

Consistent with this view, the 2006 NAEP concluded that 27 percent of twelfth graders were at a proficient level and 66 percent at or above the basic level. Although the 2010 NAEP 64 found that the average score for fourth graders was higher than it had been in either 1998 or 2006, there was no year-over-year improvement in grades eight or twelve. And, overall, the performance levels of all three grades were unimpressive. “Twenty-seven percent of fourth-graders, 22 percent of eighth-graders, and 24 percent of twelfth-graders performed at or above the Proficient level in civics in 2010.” 65

Not all of the news about students’ performance in civics is negative. By international standards, U.S. students hold their own. In contrast to their subpar command of math and science relative to other countries, on civic knowledge and skills U.S. students fair reasonably well. When compared to students in other industrialized nations in an international study of twenty-eight democracies, American fourteen year olds performed at a higher level than their counterparts in other democracies. 66 U.S. students also outperformed their international peers at the task of interpreting media content such as political cartoons. These data suggest that in satisfying its obligation to impart civics knowledge and critical thinking skills, the overall U.S. educational system may be performing somewhat better than the systems in place in other democracies.

The NAEP conclusion that many students are not proficient in civics is consistent with the finding that the adult population is ignorant of some basic concepts underlying our system of government. For example, in the past decade, surveys conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center have found that:

Only one-third of Americans could name all three branches of government; one-third could not name any.
Just over a third thought that the Founding Fathers intended for each branch to hold a lot of power but for the president to have the final say.
Just under half of Americans (47 percent) knew that a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court carries the same legal weight as a 9-0 ruling.
Almost a third mistakenly believed that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling could be appealed.
Roughly one in four (23 percent) believed that when the Supreme Court divides 5-4, the decision is referred to Congress for resolution; 16 percent thought it needed to be sent back to the lower courts. 67

One can debate the importance of knowing the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or the details of Paul Revere’s ride, but there is little doubt that understanding such foundational concepts as checks and balances and the importance of an independent judiciary affects one’s other attitudes. Those bewildered by such basics as the branches of government and the concept of judicial review are less likely to express trust in the courts and, as trust declines, more likely to say that courts are too powerful, that judges should be impeached or court jurisdiction stripped when unpopular rulings are issued, and that under some circumstances, it might simply be best to abolish the Supreme Court.

Not only does civics knowledge predict normatively desirable beliefs about the value of our existing structures of government, 68 but heightened knowledge is tied to increased politically relevant activity such as discussing politics and engaging in the community. 69 Overall, “[i]nformed citizens are demonstrably better citizens . . . more likely to participate in politics, more likely to have meaningful, stable attitudes on issues, better able to link their interests with their attitudes, more likely to choose candidates who are consistent with their own attitudes, and more likely to support democratic norms, such as extending basic civil liberties to members of unpopular groups.” 70

As mentioned earlier, five hurdles confront those working to improve the quality and accessibility of civic education in the schools: 1) neither the federal government nor the states have made high-quality civics education a priority; 2) social studies textbooks may not adequately convey the knowledge or facilitate the development of the skills required of an informed, engaged citizenry; 3) consequential differences in access and outcomes between upper- and lower-class students persist; 4) cutbacks in funding for schools make implementation of changes in any area of the curriculum difficult; and 5) the polarized political climate increases the likelihood that curricular changes will be cast as advancing a partisan agenda.

There is a widespread belief among social studies educators that “civic knowledge and inquiry” are “not validated” within the accountability system established by NCLB. 71 Other evidence underscores the conclusion that neither the federal government nor the states have made high-quality civics education a priority. Specifically, the systematic study of civics in high school is not universal; fewer high school civics courses are now offered than in the past; the time devoted to teaching the subject in lower grades has been reduced; and most states do not require meaningful civics assessment. The 2010 NAEP found that “88% of fourth-graders had teachers who reported emphasizing politics and government to a small extent or more in social studies classes.” 72 Just over three-quarters of students said that they had learned about Congress in 2010. And slightly fewer than seven in ten twelfth graders reported that they had studied the U.S. Constitution in that year. 73

Significantly, those who have taken a high school civics class are more likely to have a command of key constitutional concepts. 74 However, proportionately fewer students are now exposed to multiple civic education courses than in the past. Since the generation now in power left high school, the number of civics and government courses completed by students has declined. As the Guardian of Democracy report concludes:

Until the 1960s, three courses in civics and government were common in American high schools, and two of them (“civics” and “problems of democracy”) explored the role of citizens and encouraged students to discuss current issues. Today those courses are very rare. What remains is a course on “American government” that usually spends little time on how people can – and why they should – participate as citizens. 75

Furthermore, class time devoted to civic education appears to have declined in the lower grades. Public policy scholar Martin West’s comparison of Department of Education Schools and Staffing Surveys from 1987–1988 to those from the years shortly after NCLB was implemented (2002–2004) showed a reduction in time spent on social studies instruction in elementary schools. 76 This finding has been amply corroborated. 77 A re-analysis by CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) not only confirmed West’s results but went on to show that the reduction began even before NCLB was passed and continued after 78 On a more encouraging note, studies of instructional time spent and credits earned in middle schools and high schools show either the same or increased attention to social studies compared to past decades. 79

However, in a climate in which we signal what matters by testing it, comparatively few states require meaningful civics assessment. As of 2011, the Guardian of Democracy report noted that “only sixteen states require meaningful assessment in the social studies – a number that has declined in the past five years as states have eliminated civics assessments.” 80

In addition, social studies textbooks may not adequately convey the knowledge or facilitate development of the skills required of an informed, engaged citizenry. The public as well as parents, teachers, and administrators agree about the sorts of knowledge that one should gain in public schools. A 2003 Annenberg Public Policy Center survey of these groups found that more than half agreed that it is absolutely essential or very important that fourth graders are able to:

Understand that the rules of the American government are established in a document called the Constitution;
Give an example of a right protected by the Constitution;
Understand the meaning of American holidays such as the Fourth of July and Presidents’ Day; and

More than six in ten respondents concurred that eighth graders should be able to:

Understand the idea of separation of powers in American government; Identify all fifty states on a map of the United States;
Understand the effects of European settlement of the United States on Native Americans; and

The same proportions held that twelfth graders should:

Understand how immigration has shaped America at different points in history;
Be able to compare and contrast the U.S. economic system with those of other countries; and
Know what differentiates a “liberal” from a “conservative” and understand current American political debates. 81

Nonetheless, a survey of eighteen U.S. government and civics textbooks concluded in 1987 that their tendency to avoid controversial topics “made them lifeless descriptions of the origins, structures, and relationships of government,” 82 a finding consistent with the one political scientists Richard Niemi and Jane Junn reached a decade later. “When we say that students have a ‘textbook’ knowledge of how government operates,” they noted,

what we mean is that they have a naïve view of it that glosses over the fact that democratic politics is all about disagreement and the attempt to settle quarrels peacefully, satisfactorily, and in an orderly manner. We believe that it is a disservice to students to let them think that government ideally operates without conflict, as if it were possible to enact and administer laws that benefit everyone and harm no one. 83

In addition to arguing that “controversial issues should be discussed fairly and explicitly,” the reviewers in that 1987 study recommended that texts change their focus “from imparting information to preparing students to become concerned citizens.” Students need to learn the value of public participation by becoming involved, they concluded. 84 Nearly two decades later, political theorist Stephen Macedo and colleagues agreed that schools too often “teach about citizenship and government without teaching students the skills that are necessary to become active citizens themselves.” 85 Importantly, human development scholars Judy Torney-Purta and Britt Wilkenfeld’s 2009 analysis of data from the IEA Civic Education Study found that “[s]tudents who experience interactive discussion-based civic education (either by itself or in combination with lecture-based civic education) score the highest on the ‘21st Century Competencies,’ including working with others (especially in diverse groups) and knowledge of economic and political processes.” 86

Consequential differences in access and outcomes between upper- and lower-class students persist. More worrisome than low levels of aggregate NAEP scores are indications that students from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES) have fewer opportunities to engage in activities that stimulate voting and civic engagement, and they substantially underperform those from upper SES families. Those high school students who attend “higher SES schools, those who are college-bound, and white students get more of these opportunities than low-income students, those not heading to college, and students of color.” 87

The twinned side of that reality is represented in the 2010 NAEP Civics Assessment’s report of significant disparities in scores by family income and parents’ level of education. Whereas at the fourth-grade level only 10 percent of students eligible for free or reduced lunch scored at the proficient level and just 40 percent were at a basic or higher level, that figure rose to 60 percent and 90 percent, respectively, for those fourth graders not eligible for the lunch program. At the twelfth-grade level, students whose parents failed to graduate from high school were significantly less likely to be proficient (8 percent proficient/33 percent at least basic) than those whose parents graduated from college (40 percent proficient/75 percent basic). 88

In practice these disparities translate into a political penalty for the already disadvantaged. 89 As political theorist William Galston notes, “[C]itizens with low levels of information cannot follow public discussion of issues, are less accepting of the give and take of democratic policy debates, make judgments on the basis of character rather than issues, and are significantly less inclined to participate in politics at all.” 90 When a segment of the population does not comprehend the political debate and lacks the wherewithal to affect collective decision-making, it forfeits its access to political power, a result that makes the political system both less representative of the will of the whole and less democratic. 91

Underlying these findings are two realities. Given that, in general, non-Anglo students live in economically disadvantaged school districts, they have access to a lower quality education overall. 92 And children in higher income families are more likely to live in educationally enriched homes. Thus, for example, “[i]n the period from 1972 to 1973, high income families spent about $2,700 more per year on child enrichment than did low-income families. By 2005 to 2006, this gap had nearly tripled, to $7,500.” 93

As states face the need to balance their budgets in a time of higher-than-average unemployment and lower-than-expected revenues, school budgets in K-12 education are experiencing new pressures. It is unlikely that there will be increased funding for underperforming schools or that extra attention will be paid to any content not evaluated by high-stakes tests. In particular, as the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities reports, a majority of U.S. states funded their public elementary and secondary schools at a lower level in 2012 than they had in 2011. 94

All these challenges are of course compounded by the fact that the polarized political climate all but ensures that curricular changes will be cast as advancing a partisan agenda.

Although it is uncontroversial to suggest that civic education is a means of advancing the well-being of the nation and realizing its democratic ideals, in recent decades concern has been elicited by low levels of voting and inadequate student performance on civics assessment tests. Reformers have responded with efforts both to increase the amount and quality of time spent teaching civic education and to create focused common standards in the social studies. 95 Underscoring the importance of these efforts are data associating civics education writ large with increased knowledge of the U.S. system of government and increased participation in democratic activities such as voting. However, the challenges confronting these reform efforts are substantial – ranging from reestablishing the centrality of civics education to attempting to institute changes at a time when school budgets are being cut and our political culture is increasingly polarized. As a result, any discussion of ways to inculcate civic identity will be controversial.

1 John Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1900).

2 Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti, Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), 5.

3 Linda Darling-Hammond and Jacqueline Ancess, “Democracy and Access to Education,” in Democracy, Education, and the Schools , ed. Roger Soder (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996), 151–181.

4 Julie A. Reuben, “Patriotic Purposes: Public Schools and the Education of Citizens,” in American Institutions of Democracy : The Public Schools , ed. Susan Fuhrman and Marvin Lazerson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1.

5 Carl H. Gross and Charles C. Chandler, “Introduction,” The History of American Education Through Readings, ed. Carl H. Gross and Charles C. Chandler (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1964).

6 Quoted in William Kent Gilbert, “History of the College and Academy of Philadelphia,” in The History of American Education Through Readings, ed. Gross and Chandler, 24–25. The essay was first printed in Philadelphia in January 1751 and later in 1863.

7 Gerald L. Gutek, Education in the United States : An Historical Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986), 30.

8 George Washington, “Eighth Annual Message,” December 7, 1796. See John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29438.

9 Thomas Jefferson, “Sixth Annual Message,” December 2, 1806. See Woolley and Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29448.

10 James Madison, “Second Annual Message,” December 5, 1810. See Woolley and Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29452.

11 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Sever and Francis, 1863), 63–64.

12 Horace Mann, Lectures and Annual Reports on Education (Boston: Wm. B. Fowle and N. Capen, 1845), 55.

13 Reuben, “Patriotic Purposes,” in American Institutions of Democracy , ed. Fuhrman and Lazerson, 13.

14 Ravitch and Viteritti, Making Good Citizens , 5.

16 Edward J. Power, Education for American Democracy: Foundations of Education (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 28.

17 See the Supreme Court holding in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) for a description of the state of education in the South at that earlier time.

18 Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Swearing-In Ceremony for James H. Billington as Librarian of Congress,” September 14, 1987. See Woolley and Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=34792 .

19 Roy J. Honeywell, The Educational Work of Thomas Jefferson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), 9.

20 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: George Adlard, 1838), 297.

21 “Speech of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, April 1835,” The Pennsylvania School Journal , ed. Thomas H. Burrows, vol. XIV (Lancaster, Penn.: Wm. B. Wiley, 1866), 23.

22 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/ (accessed November 12, 2011).

23 Anthony Lutkus and Andrew R. Weiss, “The Nation’s Report Card: Civics 2006,” NCES 2007–476 (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, May 2007), http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/main2006/2007476.asp.

24 George W. Bush, “Remarks Announcing the Teaching American History and Civic Education Initiatives,” September 17, 2002. See Woolley and Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=64688.

25 William J. Clinton, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 23, 1996. See Woolley and Peters, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=53091.

26 In November 2011, the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which I direct, became both the chief funder and the institutional home of the Civic Mission of Schools project.

27 The Civic Mission of Schools (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE: The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, 2003), http://civicmission.s3.amazonaws.com/118/f7/1/172/2003_Civic_Mission_of_Schools_Report.pdf.

28 Jonathan Gould, ed., Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools (Philadelphia: The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, 2011), http://civicmission.s3.amazonaws.com/118/f0/5/171/1/Guardian-of-Democracy-report.pdf.

29 The Civic Mission of Schools.

30 E. Wayne Ross and Perry M. Marker, “Social Studies: Wrong, Right, or Left? A Critical Response to the Fordham Institute’s Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong ?” The Social Studies 96 (4) (July–August 2005): 139.

31 Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education , with a new preface and epilogue (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 292.

32 James S. Leming, Lucien Ellington, and Kathleen Porter, eds., Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? (Washington, D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 2003), http://www.edexcellence.net/publications/wheredidssgowrong.html .

33 Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Foreword,” in Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? , ed. Leming, Ellington, and Porter.

34 Frederick M. Hess, Gary J. Schmitt, Cheryl Miller, and Jenna M. Schuette, High Schools, Civics, and Citizenship: What Social Studies Teachers Think and Do (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, September 2010), 1.

35 Robert Lerner, Althea K. Nagai, and Stanley Rothman, Molding the Good Citizen: The Politics of High School History Texts (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995), 71.

36 Mary Frederickson, “Surveying Gender: Another Look at the Way We Teach United States History,” The History Teacher 37 (4) (August 2004): 476.

37 Ronald W. Evans, The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children ? (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004).

38 Wayne Journell, “Standardizing Citizenship: The Potential Influence of State Curriculum Standards on the Civic Development of Adolescents,” PS: Political Science and Politics 43 (2) (April 2010): 351.

39 http://www.ncss.org/.

40 http://new.civiced.org/.

41 Gould, Guardian of Democracy, 29–30.

42 “Common Core Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade but Massachusetts and California Do!” Education News , September 16, 2010, http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/thinks_tanks/100142.html (accessed November 29, 2011).

43 “Closing the Door on Innovation: Why One National Curriculum is Bad for America,” May 2011, http://www.k12innovation.com/Manifesto/_V2_Home.html (accessed November 29, 2011).

44 Paul Gagnon, Educating Democracy: State Standards to Ensure a Civic Core (Washington, D.C.: The Albert Shanker Institute, 2003).

45 See also James Gimpel, J. Celeste Lay, and Jason Schuknecht, Cultivating Democracy: Civic Environments and Political Socialization in America (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003); The California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, The California Survey of Civic Education (Los Angeles: Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2005), http://www.cms-ca.org/civic_survey_final.pdf.

46 Richard G. Niemi and Jane Junn, Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 145.

47 Compare Melissa K. Comber, “Civics Curriculum and Civic Skills: Recent Evidence,” CIRCLE Fact Sheet, November 2003, http://www.civicyouth.org/fact-sheet-civics-curriculum-and-civic-skills-recent-evidence.

48 Jennifer Bachner, “From Classroom to Voting Booth: The Effect of High School Civic Education on Turnout,” working paper, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 23, 2010, http://www.gov.harvard.edu/files/uploads/CivEdTurnout_1.pdf .

49 Reuben Thomas and Daniel McFarland, “Joining Young, Voting Young: The Effects of Youth Voluntary Associations on Early Adult Voting,” CIRCLE Working Paper 73, August 2010, http://www.civicyouth.org/featured-extracurricular-activities-may-increase-likelihood-of-voting.

50 Patrick Meirick and Daniel Wackman, “Kids Voting and Political Knowledge,” Social Science Quarterly 85 (5) (2004); Amy K. Syvertsen, Michael D. Stout, and Constance A. Flanagan, with Dana L. Mitra, Mary Beth Oliver, and S. Shyam Sundar, “Using Elections as Teachable Moments: A Randomized Evaluation of the Student Voices Civic Education Program,” American Journal of Education 116 (2009): 33–67.

51 Tim Vercellotti and Elizabeth Matto, “The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection: The Effects of Political Discussion on Youth Knowledge and Efficacy,” CIRCLE Working Paper 72, August 2010, http://www.civicyouth.org/featured-the-classroom-kitchen-table-connection-the-effects-of-political-discussion-on-youth-knowledge-and-efficacy/.

52 Alberto Dávila and Marie Mora, “Civic Engagement and High School Academic Progress: An Analysis Using NELS Data,” CIRCLE Working Paper 52, January 2007, http://www.civicyouth.org/circle-working-paper-52-civic-engagement-and-high-school-academic-progress-an-analysis-using-nels-data.

53 Daniel McFarland and Reuben Thomas, “Bowling Young: How Youth Voluntary Associations Influence Adult Political Participation,” American Sociological Review 71 (2006).

54 Syvertsen et al., “Using Elections as Teachable Moments.”

55 Dennis Barr, “Continuing a Tradition of Research on the Foundations of Democratic Education: The National Professional Development and Evaluation Project” (Brookline, Mass.: Facing History and Ourselves, 2010), http://www.facinghistory.org/system/files/Continuing_a_Tradition_v93010_0.pdf.

56 Michael McDevitt, “The Civic Bonding of School and Family: How Kids Voting Students Enliven the Domestic Sphere,” CIRCLE Working Paper 7, July 2003, http://www.civicyouth.org/circle-working-paper-07-the-civic-bonding-of-school-and-family-how-kids-voting-students-enliven-the-domestic-sphere; Michael McDevitt and Steven Chaffee, “Second Chance Political Socialization: ‘Trickle-up’ Effects of Children on Parents,” in Engaging the Public: How Government and the Media Can Reinvigorate American Democracy , ed. Thomas J. Johnson, Carol E. Hays, and Scott P. Hays (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 57–66.

57 Charlane Fay Starks, “Connecting Civic Education to Civil Right and Responsibility: A Strategy for Reducing Dropout Among African American Students,” master’s thesis, California State University, Sacramento, 2010, http://csus-dspace.calstate.edu/handle/10211.9/512.

58 Corporation for National and Community Service, http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/role_impact/performance_research.asp (accessed September 12, 2011).

59 Guardian of Democracy, 33.

60 Shelley Billig, Sue Root, and Dan Jesse, “The Impact of Participation in Service-Learning on High School Students’ Civic Engagement,” CIRCLE Working Paper 33, May 2005, http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/WorkingPapers/WP33Billig.pdf.

61 Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 197–198.

63 “Barack Obama’s Speech in Independence, Mo.,” The New York Times , June 30, 2008.

64 National Center for Education Statistics, “The Nation’s Report Card: Civics 2010,” NCES 2011–466 (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2011). The NAEP in Civics (2010) was based on “nationally representative samples of about 7,100 fourth-graders, 9,600 eighth-graders, and 9,900 twelfth-graders. . . . At each grade, students responded to questions designed to measure the civics knowledge and skills that are critical to the responsibilities of citizenship in America’s constitutional democracy.”

66 Judith Torney-Purta, Rainer Lehmann, Hans Oswald, and Wolfram Schulz, Citizenship and Education in Twenty-Eight Countries: Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen (Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, 2001).

67 Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Bruce Hardy, “Will Public Ignorance and Partisan Election of Judges Undermine Public Trust in the Judiciary?” Dædalus 137 (4) (Fall 2008); Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Michael Hennessy, “Public Understanding of and Support for the Courts,” The Georgetown Law Journal 95 (4) (2007): 899–902.

69 Henry Milner, “The Informed Political Participation of Young Canadians and Americans,” CIRCLE Working Paper 60, May 2006, http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/WorkingPapers/WP60Milner.pdf .

70 Delli Carpini and Keeter, What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters , 272.

71 Lisa Winstead, “The Impact of NCLB and Accountability on Social Studies Teacher Experiences and Perceptions about Teaching Social Studies,” The Social Studies 102 (2011): 221.

72 National Center for Education Statistics, “The Nation’s Report Card: Summary of Major Findings” (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2010), http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/civics_2010/summary.asp.

74 Jamieson and Hardy, “Will Public Ignorance and Partisan Election of Judges Undermine Public Trust in the Judiciary?”; Jamieson and Hennessy, “Public Understanding of and Support for the Courts,” 899–902.

75 “Talking Points on the Need to Restore the Civic Mission of Schools,” Center for Civic Education, 2009, http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=talking_points .

76 Martin West, “Testing, Learning, and Teaching: The Effects of Test-Based Accountability on Student Achievement and Instructional Time in Core Academic Subjects,” in Beyond the Basics: Achieving a Liberal Education for All Children , ed. Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Diane Ravitch (Washington, D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2007), 45–61.

77 Peter Levine, Mark H. Lopez, and Karlo B. Marcelo, Getting Narrower at the Base: The American Curriculum after NCLB (Medford, Mass.: CIRCLE: The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, 2008), 6, 12; Jennifer McMurrer, Instructional Time in Elementary Schools: A Closer Look at Changes for Specific Subjects (Washington, D.C.: Center on Education Policy, February 2008); Claud von Zastrow with Helen Janc, Academic Atrophy: The Condition of the Liberal Arts in America’s Public Schools (Washington, D.C.: Council for Basic Education, 2004).

78 Levine, Lopez, and Marcelo, Getting Narrower at the Base .

79 Ibid., 1; McMurrer, Instructional Time in Elementary Schools, 11; Von Zastrow with Janc, Academic Atrophy, 8.

80 National Center for Learning and Citizenship, Education Commission of the States, Citizenship Education Database of State Civic Education Policies, http://ncoc.net/Promoting-Civic-Learning-Assessment-CMS; Guardian of Democracy.

81 Thomas Romer, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and Bruce Hardy, “The Role of Public Education in Educating for Democracy,” in The Annenberg Democracy Project, A Republic Divided (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 12–13.

82 Stephen Macedo et al., Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation and What We Can Do About It (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2005), 33.

83 Niemi and Junn, Civic Education, 150.

84 James D. Carroll et al., “We the People: A Review of U.S. Government and Civics Textbooks,” Education Resources Information Center Report ed288761 (Washington, D.C.: People for the American Way, 1987).

85 Macedo et al., Democracy at Risk, 33.

86 Judith Torney-Purta and Britt S. Wilkenfeld, “Executive Summary,” in Paths to 21st Century Competencies Through Civic Education Classrooms: An Analysis of Survey Results from Ninth-Graders (Silver Spring, Md.: American Bar Association Division for Public Education and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools Curriculum, October 2009), 1.

87 Joseph Kahne and Ellen Middaugh, “Democracy for Some: The Civic Opportunity Gap in High School,” CIRCLE Working Paper 59, February 2008, 2, http://www.civicyouth.org/circle-working-paper-59-democracy-for-some-the-civic-opportunity-gap-in-high-school/.

88 National Center for Education Statistics, “The Nation’s Report Card: Civics 2010.”

89 Compare Sidney Verba, Kay Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); S. Karthick Ramakrishnan and Mark Baldasarre, The Ties that Bind: Changing Demographics and Civic Engagement in California (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2004).

90 William Galston, “Political Knowledge, Political Engagement, and Civic Education,” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 217–234, esp. 218. See also Samuel L. Popkin and Michael A. Dimock, “Political Knowledge and Citizen Competence,” in Citizen Competence and Democratic Institutions , ed. Stephen L. Elkin and Karol E. Soltan (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).

91 Compare Delli Carpini and Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters, 3–4.

92 Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick, “Demographic Change and Democratic Education,” in American Institutions of Democracy , ed. Fuhrman and Lazerson, 312.

93 Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane, “Introduction: The American Dream, Then and Now,” in Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances, ed. Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane (New York: Russell Sage, 2011), 11.

94 See “One Year (FY11–FY12) Percent Changes in State K-12 Formula Funding,” http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3569.

95 In November 2011, Representatives Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) and Mike Honda (D-California) introduced HR 3464, the “Sandra Day O’Connor Civic Learning Act of 2011,” calling on the National Assessment Governing Board to provide disaggregated (or state-level) data from the NAEPs in civics and history. The proposed legislation also sets up a competitive grant program for civic learning at the U.S. Department of Education that, among other things, focuses on currently underserved school populations. There is also a competitive grant program for civic education in the “Harkin-Enzi” ESEA reauthorization bill, which is currently in play in the Senate.

Civics Education: More Necessary than Ever

Tomorrow is the election (finally!). This election cycle has made it more evident than ever that we need to ensure our students have a firm grounding in civics to be responsible, knowledgeable citizens. Education Secretary John B. King recently called for a, “broader definition of civic duty.... I ask teachers and principals and superintendents to help your students learn to be problem solvers who can grapple with challenging issues, such as how to improve their schools, homelessness, air and water pollution, or the tensions between police and communities of color.” In this spirit, Heather Loewecke, Senior Program Manager, Global Learning Beyond School , Asia Society, shares her thoughts on the benefits of civics education for raising global citizens and provides classrooms resources and strategies.

by Heather Loewecke

The United States’ public education system emerged in the late 1800s with the aim of educating all American children in order to promote the goals of democracy and to prepare people to become informed and responsible citizens. Each state’s constitution or public education statutes acknowledge the civic mission of schools. Public conviction of the civic mission of schools has never wavered on the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup annual poll on American attitudes about education .

The recent influx of immigrants from around the world has led to unprecedented diversity in the United States at the same time that democracy is advancing around the world. The globalization of the workforce, a need to solve transnational issues, and technological advances have required that educators reconsider what it takes to promote the goals of democracy while developing students to be college- and career-ready and productive members of society in this changing landscape. In order to promote civic engagement and global consciousness, young people need a foundation in the history, values, and politics of the American democratic tradition and an understanding of how it fits into the global context.

Despite the mission to promote a thriving democracy, American public schools are inadequately preparing students for participation in civic life. Only 24 percent of high school seniors scored proficient or higher on the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics exam . Proficiency levels for eighth graders on the 2014 exam remained about the same as in 2010 and 2008.

Only about 20 percent of young adults aged 18-29 voted in the 2014 elections, the lowest turnout for that demographic ever recorded for a federal election . And in the 2012 elections, youth voter turnout varied significantly by income and education levels, race/ethnicity, and gender, with perhaps the most striking variation by education levels : only 35 percent of young adults with no college experience voted compared with 60 percent of those with some college education. Although education levels are good predictors of civic engagement, they don’t necessarily equate to civic knowledge: a 2016 Annenberg Public Policy poll reflected that American adults know very little about the US government , with the majority of respondents unable to answer basic questions. For example, only 26 percent of respondents could correctly identify all three branches of the government.

Different arguments prevail for these mixed results: A singular focus on basic skills and standardized test preparation has left little time and resources for the study of civics and related topics. While teachers believe that civics education is important, there is little agreement on what should be prioritized or taught . Civics professional development for teachers is limited given competing priorities . And some educators are concerned that any discussion of politics will be viewed by parents or the media as partisan indoctrination . Many young adults feel disengaged from government, either distrustful of authority figures and those in office or questioning if their votes actually make an impact. Many believe they don’t know enough about the issues to have a qualified vote.

Then there is the “ civic empowerment gap ": white, college-bound youth attending mid-to high socio-economic schools have more access to civic learning opportunities than peers who are low-income, non-college bound, or students of color. Many young adults who did not attend college believe they lack institutional opportunities to address large-scale social issues.

Benefits of Civic Education

There are several reported benefits of civics education:

College and career readiness . Youth exposed to service learning through civics courses are more likely to go to college than those who were not. Additionally, high-quality civics activities foster the collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills in demand by employers .
Civic knowledge attainment . Youth receiving high-quality civics education have more confidence in their ability to make informed political decisions, increased knowledge about history and how to register to vote, increased ethical awareness and empathy, and a positive belief that their vote matters. Some parents’ political knowledge also increased as a result.
Civic engagement and equality . The more teens are exposed to high-quality civics education in high school and through extracurricular activities , the more likely they are to be engaged in community service and voting as young adults . Universally available civic learning opportunities close the civic empowerment gap.
Community economic health . There is a correlation between civic engagement levels and a community’s economic health and resilience .
Dropout prevention and improved school climate . Civics education is correlated with a decreased dropout rate and a safe school environment .

What’s Being Done?

In late 2002, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) and Carnegie Corporation of New York, in consultation with the Corporation for National and Community Service, convened a series of meetings with scholars and practitioners to determine the components of effective and feasible civic education programs, resulting in the manifesto “ The Civic Mission of Schools .” The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools was born. In 2011, the report was revised with evidence to support the Campaign’s Six Proven Practices for Effective Civic Learning . These practices include:

Classroom Instruction : Schools should provide direct instruction in government, history, economics, law, and democracy in ways that provoke analysis and critical thinking skills.
Discussion of Current Events and Controversial Issues : Schools should incorporate discussion of current local, national, and international issues and events into the classroom, particularly those that young people view as important to their lives.
Service Learning : Schools should design and implement programs that provide students with the opportunity to apply what they learn through performing community service that is linked to the formal curriculum and classroom instruction.
Extracurricular Activities : Schools should offer opportunities for young people to get involved in their schools or communities outside of the classroom.
School Governance : Schools should encourage student participation in school governance.
Simulations of Democratic Processes : Schools should encourage students to participate in simulations of democratic processes and procedures.

In 2012, the US Department of Education released “ Advancing Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy ,” a call to action to reinvigorate civic learning and engagement for youth, families, communities, and leaders across education, government, business, and philanthropy.

In 2013, the National Council for the Social Studies published the College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards . This framework aligns with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies. It is meant to guide states as they revise their own standards and policies and to help practitioners create a more robust and rigorous social studies curriculum that promotes the development of 21st century skills and active civic engagement in youth. At least eight states have used the C3 framework to revise their social studies standards.

Florida and Illinois have passed the most rigorous laws to date. Florida requires civic education throughout students’ K-12 education , beginning with an integration into ELA classes, followed by a middle school civics course with an exam that counts for 30 percent of the course grade and impacts teacher evaluation and a school’s performance rating. Illinois requires all youth take a civics course aligned with the revised social studies standards and focused on several of the “Six Proven Practices” noted above, such as service learning, simulations of democratic processes, and deliberation about current issues.

While all but four states require civics education for high school graduation, only 21 have a civics or government assessment. The Civics Education Initiative advocates for high school students to pass the United States citizenship exam in order to graduate. Arizona was the first state in the nation to make passing this test a graduation requirement . Several other states have followed suit or have similar pending legislation. Proponents argue that “what gets tested gets taught” and that this assessment at least promotes the teaching of basic historical and government knowledge. Critics argue that another high-stakes test in the era of standardized testing will squelch the interest in, and desire for, civics education by both teachers and students. Additionally, critics suggest that if the primary purpose of civic education is to promote not only informed, but also active, citizenship, then the focus should be on providing youth with regular opportunities to discuss social and political issues and to identify and address civic problems.

Arguably, testing does provide a limited view of youth civic competencies. Civic education should entail more than rote learning about the US Constitution or government. It should also include hands-on, community- and issue-based experiential learning that promotes informed and ethical decision-making; develops a sense of agency, social responsibility, and the ability to act on issues of local and global significance; and creates civic dispositions such as civility, tolerance, respect, compromise, toleration of diversity, personal efficacy, and concern for the welfare of others. According to the Stanford Center on Adolescence and the Center for Multicultural Education , “Increasing the priority given to educating for global understanding and concern should go hand in hand with strengthening education for US citizenship and civic engagement. Instead of standing in opposition to each other, the two goals represent complementary aspects of a single, larger picture. A complete civic education is one that produces graduates who understand the political systems of the United States, who feel a commitment to its national ideals, but who also respect and feel connected to people living in other societies around the world.”

Here are some ideas to get started:

Study the components of the Constitution and the historical contexts for key amendments. Youth discuss and draft new amendments they believe should be added. Students write a school or classroom constitution that articulates the rights and responsibilities of all participants.
Explore the three branches of the government , their roles, and the balance of power. Do a role play to explore how the three branches of the school or program (educators, principal/director, students) interact and balance powers to accomplish their goals.
Study and compare and contrast the different forms of government that exist around the world. Debate the pros and cons of each type.
Set up a program/school government or youth advisory council so that youth have a voice in policy and decision-making.

Additional resources

Center for Civic Education
Bill of Rights Institute
Annenberg Center
National Constitution Center
Teaching Civics

Legal System

Study the issues on the Supreme Court docket . Use organized deliberation to have youth debate the issues and make a ruling based upon law research and precedent .
Explore the structure of the legal system and key issues such as due process, equal protection, and the right to a trial with a jury of peers . Implement mock trials on literary conflicts or a campus/program or community issue so youth can experience each role in the process. Explore the juvenile justice system and youth courts . Discuss the effectiveness of these systems and needed changes to the systems. Set up a youth court system as a supportive peer-to-peer approach to solving program or campus discipline issues.
Review how a bill becomes a law. Youth can create an infographic, a children’s book, or their own School House Rock video or Flocabulary song to explain the process to peers or younger youth. Look at the role of Congress. Study how members decide which way to vote on a bill .

Additional Resources

Judicial Learning Center
Explore the electoral process in local, state, and federal elections. Discuss the role of the electoral college and the use of primaries and caucuses for selecting presidential candidates. Study how a presidential candidate can win without winning the popular vote and debate whether the electoral college is still needed.
Study suffrage , voting requirements, voter districts, and the history of voter access and rights . Debate whether or not the voting age should be lowered to include more youth. Debate whether current voting districting processes and voter laws are constitutional.
Study candidates’ campaign platforms and the relevant issues in current elections, such as immigration, trade, or equal rights. Youth can act as campaign advisors by writing, or rewriting, candidates’ key platform messages so that they resonate with different constituencies. Or, youth can create a graphic or website to help peers understand where the candidates stand on the issues. Students can also debate the issues as if they were the candidates while peers create questions and explore the role of a debate moderator . Or, students can write a political cartoon on a candidate’s position.
Review candidates’ campaign strategies (ads, slogans, branding, use of social media, and speech content) during the election process. Debate what worked and what did not. Have youth act as the campaign manager for a local, state, or federal candidate and create a media campaign . Or, youth can write and deliver political speeches on key issues.
Explore the history and platforms of the major political parties. Youth can create and name their own political party and platform based upon current needs and pressing issues in their school/program or in local, state, or federal elections.
Review the debate formats and past debates . Students can fact check candidates’ statements , analyze the debates, and write a review as a political analyst.
Kids Voting USA
PBS Election Collection
The New York Times Learning Network
National Student/Parent Mock Election

Deliberation and Action

Discuss current events , civil rights , and human rights issues that are important to youth. Use effective civil discourse methods and a range of debate strategies to promote healthy and safe deliberation on topics. Use service learning to have youth conduct action or service campaigns that change conditions while developing their civic mindset and sense of social responsibility.
Set up democratic classrooms/programs to facilitate engagement and to model effective democratic principles. Youth can create community agreements to foster group accountability for the learning process. Set up class meetings so that youth can express their values and ideas. Create leadership roles so that youth are regularly co-managing learning activities or running procedures. Ensure that youth have time to reflect on and synthesize their learning .
Promote youth engagement in extracurricular activities that will build leadership skills and civic responsibility, such as 4H, Rotary Club, Honor Society, debate, Future Business Leaders of America, Model UN, and Key Club.
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Facing History and Ourselves
Deliberating in a Democracy
Youth Participatory Politics Research Network
Junior Statesman
Innovations in Civic Participation
Youth Service America
Civic Nation
Mikva Challenge
Student Voices

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Photo of students participating in a Model United Nations exercise courtesy of ITU Pictures, via Flickr.

The opinions expressed in Global Learning are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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Liberty and Civic Education (November/December 2023)

By: David Davenport November 9, 2023

Lead Essay Liberty and Civic Education (November/December 2023)
Response Essay Reflections on the State of Civics Education in America
Response Essay Nurturing American Democracy: The Importance of Transforming Learning Environments
Response Essay Civic Education is Not Enough
Conversation Comments Civic Education: More or Better?
Conversation Comments How Did It Get This Bad? Reflections on Davenport, Trepanier, and Davison Humphries
Conversation Comments Earliest Learning and Civil Society
Conversation Comments The Next Step in Renewing Civic Education

Mark C. Schug November 14, 2023

“The love of our country seems, in ordinary cases, to involve in it two different principles; first, a certain respect and reverence for that constitution or forms of government which is actually established; and secondly an earnest desire to render the condition of our fellow citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can.” ( Page 231 )

“There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]. – George Washington, Letter to Morris, 1786

“… [E]very measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States …. I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in abhorrence … .” – John Adams, Letter to Evans, 1819

“Slavery is … an atrocious debasement of human nature.” – Benjamin Franklin, an Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 1789

“I’ve used the Zinn Education Project’s materials since my first-year teaching. Nine years later, my students can speak to the power of deconstructing the narratives of Christopher Columbus and Abraham Lincoln’s efforts that have replicated white supremacy and marginalization of people of color in historical discourse.For many of them, it is empowering to learn from multiple perspectives and invigorates desire to learn and disrupt the status quo.”

Rachel D. Humphries November 16, 2023

“When de Tocqueville discussed the "art and science of association," he was referring to the crafts learned by those who had solved ways of engaging in collective action to achieve a joint benefit. Some aspects of the science of association are both counterintuitive and counterintentional, and thus must be taught to each generation as part of the culture of a democratic citizenry. Consequently, it is the key set of ideas that citizens must understand to sustain a modern democracy…If all we teach students about American government is the structure of the diverse branches of national government and what government officials do, they will wrongly assume that all democratic citizens have to do is to vote at every election. A democratic citizenry who do no more than vote in national elections cannot sustain a democracy over the long term.”

to teach about democracy and democratic processes (the knowledge component),
to facilitate the acquisition of democratic skills such as deliberation, collective decision making, and dealing with difference (the skills component), and
to support the acquisition of a positive attitude toward democracy (the disposition or values component). ( Biesta, 2006, p.123 )
Classroom Instruction
Discussion of Current Events and Controversial Issues
Service-Learning
Extracurricular Activities
School Governance
Simulations of Democratic Processes
Critical Thinking: Self-governance nurtures critical thinking, enabling individuals to evaluate information, assess arguments, and make rational decisions. Informed citizens are less susceptible to manipulation and misinformation.
Responsible Decision-Making: Democracy entails not only the exercise of rights but also the fulfillment of responsibilities. Self-governance instills a sense of responsibility in individuals, encouraging them to make decisions that consider the broader community's well-being.
Conflict Resolution: Democracy thrives on dialogue and compromise. Self-governance equips individuals with conflict resolution skills, fostering constructive discourse and consensus-building.
Deliberative pedagogy is designed around deliberation that involves thoughtful and reasoned discussion aimed at making collective decisions. In the educational context, deliberative pedagogy encourages students to engage in structured discussions on relevant civic issues. It emphasizes the importance of evidence, reasoned argumentation, and open-mindedness. Deliberative practices cultivate the capacity to analyze complex problems, weigh competing values, and arrive at informed conclusions.
Dialogical pedagogy centers on the exchange of ideas and perspectives among students and between students and educators. It fosters a collaborative learning environment where diverse viewpoints are respected and explored. Dialogical practices promote active listening, empathy, and the ability to engage in meaningful conversations. These skills are vital for democratic participation, where diverse perspectives must coexist and influence policy decisions.

Lee Trepanier November 21, 2023

David Davenport November 28, 2023

Mark C. Schug November 30, 2023

“ By reconceptualizing the social studies curriculum as interdisciplinary and focusing its goals on social change, education theorists of the era hoped they could break the grip of cultural tradition with its emphasis on rugged individualism and ensure that the curriculum would instead serve to advance a more collective social order.”

Rachel D. Humphries December 5, 2023

Lee Trepanier December 7, 2023

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The Challenges Facing Civic Education in the 21st Century

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Kathleen Hall Jamieson; The Challenges Facing Civic Education in the 21st Century. Daedalus 2013; 142 (2): 65–83. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_00204

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Beyond Intractability

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Hyper-Polarization, COVID, Racism, and the Constructive Conflict Initiative Read about (and contribute to) the Constructive Conflict Initiative and its associated Blog —our effort to assemble what we collectively know about how to move beyond our hyperpolarized politics and start solving society's problems.

By Eric Brahm

July 2006

Since the late 1960s, the conventional view among academics was that civic education (also called citizenship education or democracy education) had only marginal impact on students' democratic orientations.[1] There has been much renewed discussion recently about developing education programs to instill patriotic pride and critical democratic patriotism. Just 11 percent of U.S. high school students attained the level of proficient on the 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress civics exam.[2] Despite significant increases in educational attainment in the US during the past 50 years, levels of political knowledge remain largely unchanged.[3] Even college graduates have the same level of political knowledge that high school graduates in 1950 did.

Despite the poor track record in the US, government support for civic education abroad has been a staple of its democracy aid budget since the mid-1980s. Often, this educational support has been part of election preparation efforts, but increasingly it is supporting more general education on democracy . The popularity of civic education programs reemerged with the end of the Cold War as many perceived that efforts to educate citizens in the communist bloc about democracy had played a role in the fall of communism.[4] More recently, funding for civic education has shifted from the former Soviet Bloc to Middle East.[5] The advocacy NGOs and civil society groups often behind civic education programs today need to be cautious about making citizens too skeptical of authority, thereby generating distrust . Although studies generally find little or negative connection between education and political learning,[6] civic education and participatory lessons can have a positive effect.[7] Other studies have been critical of democracy promotion groups for running poorly run programs that present an elite view that is wholly reliant on Western funding.[8]

Civic education programs contain four key elements.[9]

First, programs seek to develop civic knowledge, which itself requires understanding of the principles and practice of democracy. As such, representative democracy, the rule of law , human rights , citizenship, civil society , and the market economy are important subject areas.
Second, programs focus on building cognitive civic skills to enable participants to synthesize information on political and civic life and public issues.
Third, civic education attempts to engender participatory civic skills such as working with others, collaborative deliberation and decision making , and how to peacefully influence debate.
Finally, these programs work to instill civic dispositions such as support for human rights, equal rights, the importance of active political participation , and working to promote the common good.

Recent developments in civic education programs indicate some significant trends around the world.[10] First, there has been an explosion of original curriculum development. In addition, Socratic seminars, role playing/simulations, historical document analysis, and service learning have been popular democratic teaching methods. Second, teacher education programs at the university level have seen significant development. Third, existing curricula have been adapted to local circumstances.

As a number of countries experimented with democracy in the 1990s, recent research has found that traditional classroom-based civic education can significantly raise political knowledge, contrary to earlier findings in the developed world. Specifically, research on the impact of civic education programs has produced a number of findings.[11]

First, civic knowledge appears to help citizens understand their interests as individuals and as members of groups.
Second, program participants have more consistent views across issues and across time.
Third, knowledge, particularly related to political institutions and processes, allow individuals to better understand political events and integrate new information into their preexisting framework.
Fourth, general civic knowledge can alter views on specific public issues.
Fifth, citizens with greater civic knowledge are less likely to be mistrustful of, or alienated from, public life.
Sixth, greater civic knowledge generates greater support for democratic values.
Seventh, those with greater civic knowledge are more active participants in the political process.[12]

Although adult civic education programs have received far less attention, a study of three countries found that those who were exposed to civic education were much more involved in local politics.[13] Less hopefully, civic education has been found to have greater effects on individuals who already have higher levels of participation and cognitive resources, which may exacerbate disparities in society that these programs are intended to address.[14] In addition, although civic education appears to improve knowledge of the political system, it does not help increase tolerance and may hurt trust in institutions.[15]

That said, simple exposure to civic education per se is not enough. Short-term programs and those that focus on general principles often prove too abstract and detached from the daily lives of participants to have too much impact.[16] Furthermore, what matters are specific factors related to the quality of instruction and the use of active pedagogical methods employed by civics instructors.[17] Successful programs are those that have instructors that are attractive, likeable, and credible. In addition, active teaching methods and ‘open' classrooms where controversial issues are discussed frequently and a range of views presented in a neutral fashion are associated with more effective programs.[18] What is more, programs focusing on local problem solving and community action in conjunction with opportunities for interaction with local officials have resulted in higher levels of participation than did general information-based programs.[19] Some see promise in service learning, although program evaluations have yielded mixed results.[20] Curriculum also needs match the resources and culture of its intended national context.[21] Finally, evaluation programs are needed to monitor its suitability to local culture and whether they are achieving their intended purposes.[22]

Civic education programs are often undermined by democratic practice in new democracies. In many fledgling democracies, low participation, intolerance, political ignorance, and alienation are major systemic problems. Civic education efforts in Poland and the Dominican Republic, for example, were found to have limited impact on levels of political participation and knowledge and almost no consequence of respondents' values and skills.[23] The limited educational opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa has also restricted the availability of exposure to civic education. As a result, others are beginning to look at non-formal education opportunities. A study of rural Senegalese, for example, found that both non-formal and formal education increased the likelihood that people would embrace democratic, tolerant attitudes.[24] In Zambia, informal drama shows have been more significant in helping the masses become active citizens than formal education programs.[25]

[1] Finkel, Steven E. & Howard R. Ernst. Civic Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Alternative Paths to the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic Values. Political Psychology , Jun2005, Vol. 26 Issue 3, 336.

[2] Waltzer, Kenneth and Elizabeth Heilman, When Going Right Is Going Wrong: Education for Critical Democratic Patriotism. Social Studies , Jul/Aug2005, Vol. 96 Issue 4, p156-162.

[3] Galston, W. (2001). Political knowledge, political engagement, and civic education. Annual Review of Political Science, 4, 217--234.

[4] Carothers, T. (1999). Aiding democracy abroad: The learning curve . Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

[5] Gregory E. Hamot, 2005, "From Comrade to Citizen," Democracy at Large vol 1 no 4 pp. 11-13. [6] M.K. Jennings and R.G. Niemi. 1974. The Political Character of Adolescence. Princeton: Princeton University Press; K. Langton and M.K. Jennings. 1968. Political Socialization and the High School Civicx Curriculum. American Political Science Review. 62, 852-867.; B.G. Massialas. 1977. Education and Political Development. Comparative Education Review . 21, 274-295.; R.M. Merelman. 1980. Democratic Politics and the Culture of American Education. American Political Science Review. 74, 319-332.; R.G. Niemi and M. Hepburn. 1995. The Rebirth of Political Socialization. Perspectives on Political Science. 1, 7-16.; R.G. Niemi and B.I. Sobieszek. 1977. Political Socialization. Annual review of Sociology. 3, 209-233.; J.J. Patrick and J.D. Hoge. 1991. Teaching Government, Civics, and Law. In J.P. Shavers, ed. Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning . New York: Macmillan. 427-436.; D.O. Sears. 1990. Whither Political Socialization Research? The Question of Persistence. In O. Ichilov, ed. Political Socialization, Citizenship Education, and Democracy. New York: Teachers College Press. 69-97.; A. Somit, J. Tannenbaum et. Al. 1958. The Effect of the Introductory Political Science Course on Student Orientations Toward Personal Political Participation. American Political Science Review. 52, 1129-1132.; J. Torney-Purta and J. Schwille. 1986. Civic Values Learned in School. Comparative Education Review, 30, 30-49.

[7] D. Denver and G. Hands. 1990. Does Studying Politics Make a Difference? The Political Knowledge, Attitudes and Perceptions of School Students. British Journal of Political Science. 20, 263-288.; L.H. Ehman. 1980. The American School in the Political Socialization Process. Review of Education Research. 50, 99-119.; E. Litt. 1963. Civic Education, Community Norms, and Political Indoctrination. Amerian Sociological Review. 28, 69-75.; J.J. Patrick. 1972. The Impact of an Experimental Course "American Political Behavior" on the Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes of Secondary School Students. Social Education. 36, 103-128; K. Prewitt, G. Von Der Muhll, and D. Court. 1970. School Experiences and Political Socialization: A Study of Tanzanian Secondary School Students. Comparative Political Studies. 3, 203-225.; J.V. Torney, A.N. Oppenheim, and R.F. Farnen. 1975. Civic Education in Ten Countries. New York: Wiley.

[8] See especially Thomas Carothers, Assisting Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve ; and Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway, eds., Funding Virtue .

[9] John J. Patrick, "Teaching Democracy Globally, Internationally, and comparatively: The 21 st Century Civic Mission of Schools" in Civic Learning in Teacher Education: International Perspectives on Education for Democracy in the Preparation of Teachers, Vol. 2, edited by John J. Patrick, Gregory E. Hamot, and Robert S. Leming (Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education, 2003) 21-44.

[10] Gregory E. Hamot, 2005, "From Comrade to Citizen," Democracy at Large vol 1 no 4 pp. 11-13. http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/democracy-at-large-boris-petric/?K=9... [11] Galston, W. (2001). Political knowledge, political engagement, and civic education. Annual Review of Political Science, 4, 217--234.

[12] M. Delli Carpini & S. Keeter. 1996. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.; N.H. Nie, J. Junn, & K. Stehlik-Barry, 1996. Education and Democratic Citizenship in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[13] Finkel, S. E. (2003). Can democracy be taught? Adult civic education, civil society, and the development of democratic political culture. Journal of Democracy , 14.

[14] Finkel, S. E. (2003). Can democracy be taught? Adult civic education, civil society, and the development of democratic political culture. Journal of Democracy , 14: 145.

[15] USAID. 2002. APPROACHES TO CIVIC EDUCATION: LESSONS LEARNED , p. 12.

[16] Carothers, T. (1999). Aiding democracy abroad: The learning curve . Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace., p. 232.

[17] Finkel, Steven E. & Howard R. Ernst. Civic Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Alternative Paths to the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic Values. Political Psychology , Jun2005, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p333-364.; Niemi, R.G. and Hepburn, M. 1995. The rebirth of political socialization Perspectives on Political Science , 7-16.

[18] Management Systems International, An Evaluation of the Program of Education for Participation Washington DC: Management Systems International, August 1989).; America's Development Foundation Final Report of the civic Education Project (Alexandria, VA: America's Development Foundation, undated).; Sally Yudelman and Lucy Conger The Paving Stones: An Evaluation of Latin American Civic Education Programs (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, March 1997).

[19] Finkel, S. E. (2003). Can democracy be taught? Adult civic education, civil society, and the development of democratic political culture. Journal of Democracy , 14: 141.; Niemi, R.G. and Hepburn, M. 1995. The rebirth of political socialization Perspectives on Political Science , 7-16.

[20] Galston, W. (2001). Political knowledge, political engagement, and civic education. Annual Review of Political Science, 4, 217--234.

[21] Gregory E. Hamot, 2005, "From Comrade to Citizen," Democracy at Large vol 1 no 4 pp. 11-13.

[22] Gregory E. Hamot, 2005, "From Comrade to Citizen," Democracy at Large vol 1 no 4 pp. 11-13.

[23] Christoper Sabatini, Gwendolyn Bevis, and Steven Finkel, The Impact of Civic Education Programs on Political Participation and Democratic Attitudes (Washington DC: Management Systems International, January 27, 1998).

[24] Kuenzi, Michelle, The role of nonformal education in promoting democratic attitudes: Findings from Senegal. Democratization , Apr2005, Vol. 12 Issue 2, p223-243.

[25] Bratton, M., P. Alderfer, Bowser, G., & Temba, J. (1999). The effects of civic education on political culture: Evidence from Zambia. World Development , 27, 807--824.

Use the following to cite this article: Brahm, Eric. "Civic Education." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: July 2006 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/civic-education >.

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Essay – An Originalist Case for Civic Education as a Constitutional Right

Jun 15, 2023 | Current , Online Edition | 0 comments

by Ethan Yan *

In A.C. v. McKee (2022), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected Rhode Island students’ claims that they had a constitutional right to civic education. Instead of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the students reached a settlement agreement that required the Rhode Island Department of Education to create a civic-education task force. This Essay provides an originalist argument for how the Supreme Court could and should have ruled for the students if they had heard the case. First, a state-counting methodology shows that at least one semester of civic education is a privilege or immunity of U.S. citizens. Second, a structural examination of the Constitution demonstrates that civic education flows from ideas of popular sovereignty and individual rights. Third, civic education is consistent with the vision of the first and second founding generations. Thus, this Essay provides a legal foundation for ensuring that every public-school student receives civic-education instruction that is critical for the health of our democracy.

I. Introduction

In November of 2018, Rhode Island public-school students sued the State for insufficiently preparing them for the responsibilities of citizenship. [1] At the time, Rhode Island did not require classes dedicated to civics, tests for high school civics knowledge, or reports of students’ performance in civics. [2] Thus, the students asserted that they had been denied “an education that is adequate to prepare them to function productively as civic participants capable of voting, serving on a jury, understanding economic, social, and political systems sufficiently to make informed choices, and to participate effectively in civic activities.” [3] As a remedy, the students asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island to declare a constitutional right to education that sufficiently prepares students to vote, serve on juries, exercise other constitutional rights, and become “civic participants in a democratic society[.]” [4] In other words, they were asserting a constitutional right to civic education.

Constrained by precedent, the District Court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in October of 2020, a decision affirmed in January of 2022 by the First Circuit. [5] Nevertheless, both the lower court and the First Circuit were sympathetic to the students’ claims, with the latter noting that “the Students have called attention to critical issues of declining civic engagement and inadequate preparation for participation in civic life at a time when many are concerned about the future of American democracy.” [6] Instead of appealing to the United States Supreme Court, the students reached a settlement with the Rhode Island Department of Education, which agreed to create a civic-education task force. [7] Thus, the Supreme Court never had the opportunity to address whether civic education is a constitutional right. This Essay seeks to fill the gap through an originalist approach embraced by today’s Court. [8] Specifically, the text, structure, and history of the Constitution show that public-school students have a right to at least one semester of civic education.

The following three Parts of this Essay focus on each of these modes of constitutional interpretation in turn. Part II uses a state-counting methodology to demonstrate textually that civic education is a privilege or immunity of U.S. citizens; Part III structurally analyzes various principles and rights within the U.S. Constitution that rely on civic education to have effect; and Part IV analyzes key statements by Founding- and Reconstruction-era figures to provide a historical basis for civic education as a constitutional right. Part V concludes with a brief summary, followed by a discussion on the right to public education more broadly and the policy implications of civic education as a constitutional right. Ultimately, this Essay serves as a legal basis for the mandatory instruction of civic education that is critical for the health of our democracy.

II. Textual Argument: Civic Education as a Privilege or Immunity of U.S. Citizens

The U.S. Constitution—unlike those of Brazil [9] and South Africa, [10] for example—does not explicitly guarantee a right to education, much less one to civic education. However, the Court has frequently recognized unenumerated rights (those not textually laid out but rather inferred), including rights to travel, privacy, interracial marriage, and same-sex marriage. [11] An inquiry into unenumerated rights starts with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. . . .” [12] Thus, if civic education is a “privilege or immunity,” the Amendment requires all states to provide it to students. [13]

One way to determine whether a right deserves such a special distinction is by looking at existing state practices. For example, in holding that there was no right to assisted suicide, the Supreme Court noted that “[i]n almost every State . . . it is a crime to assist a suicide. The States’ assisted-suicide bans are not innovations. Rather, they are longstanding expressions of the States’ commitment to the protection and preservation of all human life.” [14] However, in Lawrence v. Texas , [15] the Court noted that only thirteen states had sodomy laws and within those states, “there [was] a pattern of nonenforcement with respect to consenting adults acting in private.” [16] Thus, the Court struck down existing sodomy laws because the right to engage in the sexual activities Texas ostensibly forbade was, in reality, enjoyed in almost every state.

A survey of existing state practices with respect to civic education demonstrates that these practices likewise fall under the Privileges or Immunities Clause’s protections. [17] According to the 2018 report, thirty-one states require one semester of civic education, nine require a full year, and ten require none. [18] Given that Article V of the U.S. Constitution requires three-fourths of states to ratify amendments, [19] a practice in at least thirty-eight out of fifty states deserves constitutional protection under the Privileges or Immunities Clause. [20] Because the 2018 data show that forty states require at least one semester of civic education, it follows that every state must meet that minimum requirement—as it is a privilege or immunity of U.S. citizens. [21]

The assessment of these data implies several relevant points. First, one semester of civic education is only the minimum requirement; states are certainly permitted to require a full year, as nine have. Indeed, should thirty-eight states (constituting an Article V three-fourths supermajority) eventually require a year of civic education, that would become the national standard. Second, from a policy perspective, establishing semester requirements for civic education is the appropriate level of generality. Courts should not dictate specific curricula requirements; states, school districts, and even individual teachers should have the discretion to implement civic-education programs as they see fit.

For example, in Controversy in the Classroom , Diane Hess discusses her 2006 visit to a charter school classroom where a teacher regularly facilitated discussions about contentious issues of the day like abortion, affirmative action, and the Iraq War. [22] While it would be unreasonable for courts to require all students to engage in such dialogue, courts should also not stand in the way of such valuable classroom discourse. Providing flexibility to schools can also help them implement curricula without the indoctrination and partisanship that civic-education opponents such as James Bernard Murphy fear. [23]

Thus, a state-counting methodology establishes that students have a constitutional right to at least one semester of civic education in public schools. While courts should enforce this requirement, they should avoid prescribing the exact curricula, given the unique needs and resources of each school and district. Still, one could justifiably worry that school authorities might avoid a civic-education requirement through inefficacious or insincere courses. [24] Fortunately, structural and historical analyses of the Constitution can provide guidance for courts to assess the legitimacy of civic-education curricula.

III. Structural Argument: Civic Education’s Central Role in Effectuating Other Constitutional Rights and Provisions

Although the Privileges or Immunities Clause provides the most straightforward textual support for civic education as a constitutional guarantee, other provisions and principles in the Constitution also imply this right. In constitutional interpretation, such reasoning is a structural argument—one that draws “inferences from the existence of constitutional structures and the relationships which the Constitution ordains among these structures.” [25] Numerous aspects of the Constitution buttress the establishment of civic education as a constitutional right, ranging from broad principles like popular sovereignty to the responsibilities of citizenship and individual rights like the freedom of speech.

Popular sovereignty is one of the Constitution’s central themes. Its preamble states that “We the People . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution,” a declaration that manifested in popular ratification of the document in state conventions. [26] Half of the Bill of Rights references in some manner the rights of the People, [27] and relatedly, Article IV guarantees to each state “a Republican Form of Government.” [28] To realize the Framers’ vision of popular sovereignty, the People must be able to exercise our authority to rule. As legal scholars Akhil Reed Amar and Alan Hirsch note, “our schools must teach students to be sovereign, responsible citizens in a heterogeneous democracy.” [29] Civic education fulfills this aim. In a groundbreaking 1998 study, Richard G. Niemi and Jane Junn established empirically that high school civics courses increase students’ knowledge about politics and government. [30] Such knowledge, in turn, is critical for the People to effectively wield our sovereignty.

The Constitution also provides a template for some objectives of civics instruction. Amar and Hirsch single out the Constitution’s discussion of the People voting in elections, serving on juries, and bearing arms in the military as part of their argument for a constitutional right to education in general. [31] Educating students about our governmental structures, legal systems, and history through civics lessons is crucial for citizens to fulfill these duties responsibly.

Civic education can also empower citizens to exercise their individual rights. Dissenting in San Antonio v. Rodriguez [32] —in which the Court held, among other things, that there is no constitutional right to education—Justice Thurgood Marshall argued that “[e]ducation directly affects the ability of a child to exercise his First Amendment rights, both as a source and as a receiver of information and ideas.” [33] While some aspects of education are debatably relevant to freedom of expression, civic education clearly is. Central to freedom of speech is the ability to criticize one’s government. Yet, without the ability to understand the government’s actions and the mechanisms for affecting change, citizens’ free-speech rights are severely hampered. To borrow the language of an earlier Supreme Court decision, civic education can ensure that rights declared in words are not lost in reality. [34] Indeed, just as the Court recognized in Miranda v. Arizona [35] that the government must inform suspects of their rights before a custodial interrogation, [36] one could view civic education as a Miranda warning for the exercise of individual rights and the responsibilities of citizenship.

In summary, a structural analysis of various constitutional guarantees, principles, and rights not only strengthens the case for civic education as a constitutional right, but also provides guidance for evaluating whether states are effectively teaching civic education. For example, if a state’s curriculum cannot reasonably be connected to the People’s role as sovereign (such as teaching about governmental structures, current events, and voting) or the exercise of individual rights, then courts should be skeptical of whether the state is really upholding the right to civic education. [37] Indeed, federal courts ensuring that states respect the fundamental rights of citizenship would be entirely consistent with the historical context behind the Fourteenth Amendment—namely, the need for federal supervision of states distrusted following the Civil War. [38]

IV. Historical Argument: The First and Second Founding Generations’ Linking of Education with Democracy and Citizenship

While some originalists might worry that the above reasoning strays too far from the Constitution’s original meaning, a historical analysis solidifies the textual and structural arguments in favor of civic education as a constitutional right. Strong historical evidence exists not just at the time of the country’s founding, but also in the post-Civil War context of the Reconstruction Amendments—a period historian Eric Foner has described as “The Second Founding.” [39]

The Founding Fathers strongly supported civic education. As Lorraine Smith Pangle and Thomas L. Pangle summarize, “many of the leading Founders agreed that universal, publicly funded civic education was an urgent national priority.” [40] In line with that argument, President George Washington’s First Annual Address to Congress asserted that “the security of a free constitution” depended on “teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority.” [41] Thomas Jefferson similarly wrote about empowering citizens to “exercise [their rights] with order and justice,” while Benjamin Franklin envisaged educational institutions that produced “men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and their Country.” [42] Indeed, Franklin went further by encouraging students to keep up with current events by regularly reading newspapers and other political commentary. [43]

Notably, these sentiments are consistent with the structural analysis in Part III of this Essay. Not only do Washington and Jefferson both discuss informing individuals of their rights, but Washington’s language about “teaching the people . . . to provide against invasions of them” aligns with the conception of civic education as a Miranda warning for citizenship. [44] Meanwhile, Franklin’s vision of education addresses both individual rights and the idea of popular sovereignty. His exhortation for students to stay abreast of contemporary issues would enable citizens to more effectively exercise their rights to criticize the government and make informed voting decisions. [45] Furthermore, his desire for schools to create “men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour” [46] fits snugly with the Constitution’s overarching idea of popular sovereignty and the responsibilities of jury and military service that Amar and Hirsch note (not to mention political service in public office). [47]

Education is also a prominent theme in the history behind the Reconstruction Amendments. From a big-picture perspective, these Amendments were a direct repudiation of the South’s slavocracy and an attempt to empower former slaves to participate as full citizens in American society. [48] As discussed above, civic education is central to citizenship: it pertains to voting, serving on juries, joining the armed forces, and protesting against the government, among other rights and responsibilities. [49] Given that the practice of slavery was at its core the denial of fundamental human rights, equipping former slaves to defend their rights would also be paramount.

More concretely, substantial historical evidence suggests that education occupied an important position in the historical backdrop of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Having “hitched their politics to black citizenship,” to quote historian Manisha Sinha, abolitionists had amongst their foremost priorities securing publicly funded education for Black Americans. [50] The link between citizenship and education reinforces how civic education was central to a post-slavery vision of schooling. This link persisted after the Civil War; as Foner describes, “Black leaders pressed an expansive understanding of civil rights,” including “jury service, access to public schools . . . even the right to vote and hold office.” [51] Again, the inclusion of education along with the benefits and duties of citizenship highlights the civic-driven motivations of advocates for educational equality. Finally, as part of what Foner describes as “attempt[s] to create the framework for democratic, egalitarian societies,” every Confederate state adopted a new constitution that included public schools for both white and Black students. [52]

In short, the first and so-called second founding generations closely connected education to citizenship and democracy. Several Founding Fathers pushed for civic education that would enable citizens to know and defend their rights, as well as exercise popular sovereignty. Reconstruction-era thinking furthered this vision, viewing education as a means for Black Americans to fully enjoy the rights and responsibilities of citizenship—an aim that civic education squarely and uniquely addresses.

V. Conclusion

An analysis of the text, structure, and history of the Constitution establishes that it guarantees a right to civic education in public schools, for at least one semester. A survey of state practices shows that civic education is a privilege or immunity of U.S. citizens, while a structural examination of the Constitution demonstrates that civic education furthers constitutional principles and gives teeth to the rights and duties of citizens. Finally, the historical record of the Founding and Reconstruction eras confirms that the drafters of both the original U.S. Constitution and the Reconstruction Amendments strongly supported the ideas about civic education seen in the document’s text and structure.

Beyond answering the academic question of how the Rhode Island lawsuit would (or should) have been resolved, two important implications of this Essay’s conclusion remain. First, it strongly suggests that the Court erred when it found no constitutional right to education in San Antonio v. Rodriguez . All fifty state constitutions require free public-school education today and thirty-one of thirty-seven (over the Article V three-fourths threshold) did when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868. [53] Thus, free education is a privilege or immunity of U.S. citizens. The structural and historical arguments about civic education presented above also apply to public education more broadly. Despite a heavy focus on citizenship and democracy, Amar and Hirsch, the Founding Fathers, and key figures in the Reconstruction era all spoke about the benefits of education in general to our nation and society. [54] However, if the Court were reluctant to overturn its precedent against a right to education, it could still carve out civic education as an area with constitutional guarantees. After all, one might view civic education as having a stronger connection to individual rights than, say, science or mathematics. [55]

A second consequence of this Essay’s findings is that it provides a solid legal foundation for the proliferation of civic-education instruction that can strengthen our democracy. As Niemi and Junn summarize, “political knowledge helps citizens operate effectively in a democracy, heightens their awareness of the limits of both governmental and citizen behavior, increases attainment of democratic goals . . . and contributes to the extent to which citizens regard their government with confidence and satisfaction.” [56] Ellen Quintelier has also found that student discussions on contemporary political issues are linked with higher rates of political participation. [57]

Thus, all roads lead to civic education. Textual, structural, and historical interpretations of the U.S. Constitution neatly cohere to support its mandatory instruction in public schools. Civic education also has the distinction of being both a constitutional requirement and sound public policy. At a time when attempts to overturn the 2020 election still loom large and only 21% of Americans trust the federal government to act correctly at least most of the time, we need civic education more than ever. [58] It is time for courts to do their part to make this vision a reality.

* B.A. Candidate, Yale University, 2024. I am grateful to the Suffolk University Law Review editors Samuel T. Alen and Joseph F. Tower IV for their insightful suggestions and edits, which tightened and strengthened this Essay’s arguments. For reviewing early drafts, I thank Amir Shawn Fairdosi, Amy W.K. Liu, and Dicky C.K. Yan. Finally, I am indebted to Akhil Reed Amar, Vikram D. Amar, Steven G. Calabresi, Benjamin Daus, the Honorable William I. Garfinkel, Madeline Levin, David R. Mayhew, the Honorable Stephen P. McGlynn, Caroline Parker, Zoe Robertson, Julia Sulkowski, the Honorable Amul R. Thapar, and Michael Thibodeaux for their kindness, encouragement, and support of my intellectual endeavors. All views and errors are, of course, my own.

[1] Dana Goldstein, Are Civics Lessons a Constitutional Right? This Student Is Suing for Them , N.Y. Times (Nov. 28, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/us/civics-rhode-island-schools.html [https://perma.cc/98MZ-TQ39].

[2] A.C. v. McKee, 23 F.4th 37, 41 (1st Cir. 2022).

[3] Complaint at 3-4, A.C. v. Raimondo, 494 F. Supp. 3d 170 (D.R.I. October 13, 2020), aff’d sub nom. 23 F.4th 37 (1st Cir. 2022).

[4] Raimondo , 494 F. Supp. 3d at 174-75.

[5] See generally McKee , 23 F.4th 37.

[6] Id. at 48 (citing Raimondo , 494 F. Supp. 3d at 175-76, 181, 197). “Plaintiffs should be commended for bringing this case. It highlights a deep flaw in our national education priorities and policies. The Court cannot provide the remedy Plaintiffs seek, but in denying that relief, the Court adds its voice to Plaintiffs’ in calling attention to their plea. Hopefully, others who have the power to address this need will respond appropriately.” Raimondo , 494 F. Supp. 3d at 197.

[7] See Patricia Lamiell, Rhode Island Lawsuit, Filed by the Center for Educational Equity at TC, Ends with Agreement to Improve Civic Education , Tchrs. Coll. Colum. Univ. (June 10, 2022), https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2022/june/rhode-island-lawsuit-ends-with-agreement-to-improve-civics-education/ [https://perma.cc/3QWL-Q9GS].

[8] See Lawrence B. Solum, The Public Meaning Thesis: An Originalist Theory of Constitutional Meaning , 101 B.U. L. Rev. 1953, 1965 (2021). Admittedly, there exist various strains of originalism, emphasizing in varying degrees original intent, original public meaning, textual literalism, and history. Thus, one could likely find originalists on both sides of this Essay’s question. For one summary of various forms of originalism, see id. The focus on text, structure, and history in this essay is an approach prominently used by Akhil Reed Amar. See, e.g. , Akhil Reed Amar, An Open Letter to Professors Paulsen and Powell , 115 Yale L.J. 2101, 2103 (2006) (“Generally, I seek to braid together arguments from text, (enactment) history, and structure into a satisfying account of the document itself. . . .”).

[9] See Braz. Const. ch. III, § I, art. 205.

[10] See S. Afr. Const. ch. 29.

[11] See generally Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958) (establishing right to travel “liberty” protected by Fifth Amendment); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) (upholding right to contraception for married couples via broader right to privacy); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (striking down state statutes banning interracial marriages); Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) (protecting right to same-sex marriage).

[12] U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, cl. 2. The Court has instead used the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to incorporate the Bill of Rights and require state protection of unenumerated rights. See, e.g., Timbs v. Indiana, 139 S. Ct. 682, 687 (2019) (noting Court has incorporated almost entire Bill of Rights via Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause); Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-21 (1997) (describing Court’s criteria for assessing whether unenumerated rights protected under Clause). Some scholars argue against the use of the Due Process Clause and in favor of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. See Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By 119-21 (2012). Others have efficiently summarized the Court’s usage of the Due Process Clause instead of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. See Daniel A. Farber, Retained by the People: The “Silent” Ninth Amendment and the Constitutional Rights Americans Don’t Know They Have 73-83 (2007). Still, the analysis remains the same regardless of the chosen clause, as the Court noted in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . See 142 S. Ct. 2228, 2248 n.22 (2022).

[13] See U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, cl. 2. Although the text only applies to U.S. citizens, the Court has struck down policies that deny education funds to unauthorized immigrant children in public schools. See generally Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982). Thus, this essay proceeds without distinguishing between citizens’ and noncitizens’ rights to civic education. For an originalist argument in support of Plyler , see Steven G. Calabresi & Lena M. Barsky, An Originalist Defense of Plyler v. Doe, 2017 BYU L. Rev. 225 (2017).

[14] Glucksberg , 521 U.S. at 710 (1997) (internal citations omitted).

[15] 539 U.S. 558 (2003).

[16] Id. at 573.

[17] See Sarah Shapiro & Catherine Brown, The State of Civics Education , Ctr. for Am. Prog. (Feb. 21, 2018), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/state-civics-education/ [https://perma.cc/BV8E-Y9VD].

[18] See id.

[19] U.S. Const. art. V.

[20] See Steven Gow Calabresi et al., The U.S. Constitution and Comparative Constitutional Law: Texts, Cases, and Materials 1509 (2016) (applying Article V three-fourths threshold to argue in favor of right to public-school education). Amar engages in a broader discussion of how state practices can inform the identification of unenumerated rights under the Privileges or Immunities Clause and Ninth Amendment. See Amar, supra note 12, at 108-24.

[21] See Shapiro & Brown, supra note 17.

[22] See Diana E. Hess, Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion 1 (2009).

[23] See James Bernard Murphy, Against Civic Education in Public Schools , 30 Int’l J. Pub. Admin. 651, 664-66 (2007). See also Meira Levinson, Democracy, Accountability, and Education , 9 Theory & Res. in Educ. 125, 136-37 (noting importance of “significant contextual flexibility and variation” to best practices in civic education based on political, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic differences).

[24] For example, after the Supreme Court forbade the reading of a voluntary, nondenominational prayer in public schools, some states attempted to “return[] prayer to the schools” via moments of silence to start school days. See Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 425 (1962); Derek W. Black, Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform 716 (3d ed. 2021). The Court struck down a moment-of-silence law in Alabama in part due to the bill’s “prime sponsor” explicitly stating his aim of “return[ing] voluntary prayer to our public schools.” Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 43 (1985). Because the decision emphasized the bill’s unique legislative history, some federal courts have subsequently upheld moment-of-silence laws. Black, supra , at 723. Although school prayer and civic education are distinct issues, the history of school prayer shows that states have sought to undermine the Court’s imposition of constitutional mandates in schools—and thus may do so in response to a civic-education requirement as well.

[25] Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate: Theory of The Constitution 74 (1982).

[26] U.S. Const. pmbl., art. VII.

[27] See id. amends. I, II, IV, IX, X.

[28] Id. art. IV, § 4.

[29] Akhil Reed Amar & Alan Hirsch, For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights 198 (1998).

[30] Richard G. Niemi & Jane Junn, Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn 147 (1998).

[31] Amar & Hirsch, supra note 29, at 199.

[32] 411 U.S. 1 (1973).

[33] Id. at 112 (Marshall, J., dissenting). As discussed in Part V, I believe that this case incorrectly declared that there is no constitutional right to education. See infra , Part V.

[34] See Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 373 (1910) (“Rights declared in words might be lost in reality”).

[35] 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

[36] See generally id .

[37] One might argue that courts are ill-equipped to assess school curricula and performance. Nevertheless, all fifty states have constitutional guarantees to public-school education, and there have been numerous state court decisions relating to the sufficiency of education systems. See Farber, supra note 12, at 145-53. There is no reason that federal courts could not perform similar analyses, especially aided by the standards outlined in Parts III and IV. See infra Parts III, IV. Using its “power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of” the Fourteenth Amendment, such as the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Congress could also provide guidelines for civic education requirements in terms of curricular content, length, age, and more. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 5.

[38] See, e.g., Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment , 101 Yale L.J. 1193, 1217 (1992) (noting while pre-Fourteenth-Amendment Bill of Rights focused on preventing tyrannical federal government, “the Civil War era demonstrated that states required constitutional restraints as well”).

[39] See Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019).

[40] Lorraine Smith Pangle & Thomas Pangle, What the American Founders Have to Teach Us About Schooling for Democratic Citizenship , in Rediscovering the Democratic Purposes of Education 21, 37 (Lorraine McDonnell et al., eds., 2000).

[41] George Washington, First Annual Address to Congress , Am. Presidency Project (Jan. 8, 1790), https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/first-annual-address-congress-0 [https://perma.cc/ZP6S-SPWV].

[42] Pangle & Pangle, supra note 40, at 25, 28.

[43] Id. at 29.

[44] Washington, supra note 41.

[45] Pangle & Pangle, supra note 40, at 29.

[46] Id. at 28.

[47] A couple of caveats are in order. First, many of the Founding Fathers saw civic education as having moral aims, specifically “the formation of character.” Id. at 24. However, this moral component is not a constitutional requirement, as the Constitution’s text and structure do not compel it. For example, in his originalist defense of a constitutional right to education, Derek W. Black does not include morality, virtue, or character formation within the right’s scope. See Derek W. Black, The Fundamental Right to Education , 94 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1059, 1109 (2019) (“[A] fundamental right to education requires the state to provide individuals with the skills to comprehend the political discourse of the day, evaluate its merits, and then act thoughtfully through the ballot and other means of accountability.”). Indeed, the issue of morality and virtue illustrates why a holistic interpretation encompassing the text, structure, and history of the Constitution is required. Second, I endorse as a matter of public policy Franklin’s ideas about discussing current events in schools, just as the teacher in Hess’s example did. See Hess, supra note 22, at 1. Franklin’s vision for education might even impart critical-thinking skills that would create more effective democratic citizens. The contours of the right to civic education, however, should not be defined by the visions of just one Founding Father, as brilliant as Franklin was. Rather, when courts look to enforce this right, they should focus on the objectives espoused by Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin collectively: teaching students about their individual rights, empowering them to defend these rights, and preparing them to serve their communities and country in some capacity. See supra text accompanying notes 40-43.

[48] Consider the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside .” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, cl. 1 (emphasis added). These citizens included, of course, former slaves formally emancipated by the Thirteenth Amendment.

[49] See supra text accompanying note 31.

[50] See Foner, supra note 39, at 11.

[51] Id. at 65.

[52] Id. at 90.

[53] See Calabresi et al., supra note 20, at 1508-09.

[54] See Amar & Hirsch, supra note 29, at 195-99 (highlighting connection between education and democracy and noting how Framers and Thaddeus Stevens—influential figure in Fourteenth Amendment’s approval—similarly stressed centrality of education to successful self-government).

[55] I express no view on the democratic or educational value of these subjects. Rather, I aim to show that there exist subjects commonly taught in schools that one could argue have a weaker connection to constitutional rights than civic education, providing a means for the Court to uphold civic education as a constitutional right without overturning Rodriguez . See also Black, supra note 47, at 1111 (noting his concentration on literacy and civics part of constitutional right to education and acknowledging his lack of emphasis on computer, math, and language skills). But see Amar & Hirsch, supra note 29, at 199 (noting in reference to Second Amendment’s discussion of “the security of a free State” that today “citizens need guns less than they need to be armed with some command of history, science, math, and language”).

[56] Niemi & Junn, supra note 30, at 11.

[57] Ellen Quintelier, Engaging Adolescents in Politics: The Longitudinal Effect of Political Socialization Agents, 47 Youth & Soc’y 51, 62 (2015).

[58] See Public Trust in Government: 1958-2022 , Pew Research Center (June 6, 2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/ [https://perma.cc/QL4Q-HPGE].

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South Africa Is Becoming Something New, and It’s Not Good

A photomontage showing key images from South Africa's recent history, including the Marikana massacre, political party rallies, snaking lines of voters and paintings on fire. A rainbow bends across the image but is broken in the middle. Nelson and Winnie Mandela are between the pieces of the broken rainbow. They hold hands and raise their fists, surrounded by masses of South Africans also raising their fists in a symbol of unity and liberation — the start of a public dream and burgeoning democracy, now falling to pieces.

By William Shoki

Mr. Shoki is a South African journalist and the editor of Africa Is a Country. He wrote from Cape Town.

The ceremony went virtually unnoticed. On an overcast April day in South Africa’s administrative capital, Pretoria, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a lackluster speech commemorating the end of white-minority rule in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the country’s first Black president, the skies were sunny with hope. Thirty years later, Mr. Ramaphosa’s enervated display against a gloomy backdrop was symbolic of decline. The African National Congress, Mr. Ramaphosa’s party, has been politically dominant since the country’s first democratic vote in 1994. In the general elections on Wednesday, it may lose its parliamentary majority for the first time.

This is uncharted territory. On several occasions, the former South African president Jacob Zuma proclaimed that the A.N.C. would rule “ until Jesus comes back .” Now Mr. Zuma is hoping to unseat the party that enabled his notorious graft. Founded in December last year, uMkhonto weSizwe, or M.K. — named after the A.N.C.’s former military wing — features him as its face. Even though he has been disqualified from running for office by the country’s highest court, the party has mobilized thousands of his supporters behind its populist platform. If it can overcome its internal factional battles and legal troubles, it may pose one of the greatest risks to the A.N.C.’s vote share and force it into coalition.

The party’s emergence is one of the many morbid symptoms in South Africa today. The A.N.C. is shorn of its purpose, a shadow of its former self, and the country it has long stewarded is troubled by collapsing infrastructure, systemic corruption, waning central authority and violent crime. Thirty years on from apartheid’s end, South Africa is in the midst of another complex transformation. What comes next is unclear. But given the country’s fragmentation, it is unlikely to be good.

How did we get here? At his state of the nation address in February, Mr. Ramaphosa allegorized the country’s post-apartheid trajectory through the fictional figure of Tintswalo, a woman born in 1994 who would go on to benefit from the deracialized expansion of social services like education, housing, electricity and health care. As many have pointed out , this democratic dividend persisted for at least the first 15 years of South Africa’s post-apartheid history when economic growth was strong, international market conditions were favorable and state management was competent.

The turning point came in 2009 — the year Mr. Zuma took power and a year after the global financial crisis. What followed was a comprehensive backsliding in life chances, political expectations and economic prospects. The A.N.C.’s hegemony was punctured by a series of consensus-shattering episodes: the Marikana massacre in 2012, in which 34 miners were killed by the police; the formation of the Economic Freedom Fighters in 2013 by a former A.N.C. youth leader; the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers from the country’s largest trade union federation, which is formally allied with the A.N.C.; and widespread student protests in 2015 and 2016.

All these developments called into question the conceptual foundations of the post-apartheid settlement, not least rainbowism, the young state’s founding myth of a nonracial, cooperative democracy on a forward march of progress aimed at healing the legacies of apartheid and colonialism. This universalist vision, encapsulated in the assertion in the A.N.C.’s 1955 Freedom Charter that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it,” was gradually undermined by enduring inequalities and a state overrun by corruption. In its place, a void opened up.

No political force, for all the A.N.C.’s loss of support, has yet emerged to fill it. The Economic Freedom Fighters, led by the militant Julius Malema, was once one of the most exciting entrants in the electoral landscape. But its national profile has stalled, and where it has governed — such as in coalition with the A.N.C. in Johannesburg and Durban — it has a less than inspiring record. The party’s claim to be more authentic executors of the A.N.C.’s politics of national liberation, willing to properly confront what it labels white monopoly capital, makes it harder to stand apart. This may not be a problem, with some speculation that it seeks a place in the government as a junior coalition partner.

The other main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has taken another route. Whereas the Economic Freedom Fighters’ animating grievance is that post-apartheid democracy did little to reclaim political and economic control for Black South Africans, the Democratic Alliance has underscored white hang-ups about Black-majority government. Having long abandoned the strategy of cultivating Black leadership in the party, its campaign has mostly consisted of alarmist warnings about continued A.N.C. rule — what its allies call Zimbabwefication — while flirting with separatist sentiments in its redoubt of the Western Cape Province.

South African political life once proceeded on assumptions of common citizenship; politicians disagreed on questions of governance and distribution, but there was a shared, if sometimes reluctant, commitment to the democratic process and belief in each South African’s membership of the polity. Now the so-called national question dominates the political spectrum. The question of who we are has superseded more programmatic questions of what kind of society South Africans want to live in.

In this vacuum of political imagination , identity has become the dividing line of society. To the right of the major parties are more overtly chauvinist forces. Parties like ActionSA, headed by a former mayor of Johannesburg, combine law-and-order invectives with anti-migrant policies. This posture is shared by the Patriotic Alliance, a formation run by a former gangster that has consolidated its base — voters who are mostly colored, as multiethnic South Africans are called — through a revived colored nationalism. Rise Mzansi, led by a former business journalist who compares himself to President Emmanuel Macron of France, diverges from this script. But its limited appeal to urbane professionals will do little to assuage a growing sense that the country’s cleavages are insurmountable.

Amid global discontent with liberal democracy, South Africa is not alone in seeing revanchism reshape the political terrain. The public’s response, generally, has been resignation. In 1994, with a turnout of 86 percent, more than 12 million South Africans voted for Mr. Mandela’s government. After centuries of oppression, exploitation and struggle, people were filled with hope that democracy would deliver a better life. By the last national election, in 2019, turnout had dropped by 20 percent, and over two million A.N.C. voters had been lost. Fed up by the government’s failure to improve their lives, many have simply given up on politics.

This process of disengagement — manifest in declining participation in trade unions, civic associations and political parties — is hard to square with the images of the multiracial, multiethnic, cross-class movement against apartheid that led the world to believe South Africans were uniquely endowed with high levels of social consciousness and good will. As that national story loses coherence, the country is reinventing itself. Like Tintswalo, the new South Africa has come of age and is on the verge of becoming something different. Right now, we just don’t know what.

William Shoki is the editor at Africa Is a Country, an independent online publication.

Source images from Getty Images, Associated Press, Reuters, Satour, SABC News, News24 and the collection of the artist.

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