Civic Education

First published Thu Dec 27, 2007; substantive revision Thu May 30, 2013
In its broadest definition, civic education means all the processes that affect people's
beliefs, commitments, capabilities, and actions as members or prospective members of
communities. Civic education need not be intentional or deliberate; institutions and
communities transmit values and norms without meaning to. It may not be beneficial:
sometimes people are civically educated in ways that disempower them or impart
harmful values and goals. It is certainly not limited to schooling and the education of
children and youth. Families, governments, religions, and mass media are just some of
the institutions involved in civic education, understood as a lifelong process. A[1]

rightly famous example is Tocqueville's often quoted observation that local political
engagement is a form of civic education: 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.
Nevertheless, most scholarship that uses the phrase civic education investigates
deliberate programs of instruction within schools or colleges, in contrast
to paideia (see below) and other forms of citizen preparation that involve a whole
culture and last a lifetime. There are several good reasons for the emphasis on schools.
First, empirical evidence shows that civic habits and values are relatively easily to
influence and change while people are still young, so schooling can be effective when
other efforts to educate citizens would fail (Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss, 2002).
Another reason is that schools in many countries have an explicit mission to educate
students for citizenship. As Amy Gutmann points out, school-based education is our
most deliberate form of human instruction (1987, 15). Defining the purposes and
methods of civic education in schools is a worthy topic of public debate. Nevertheless,
it is important not to lose sight of the fact that civic education takes place at all stages
of life and in many venues other than schools.
Whether defined narrowly or broadly, civic education raises empirical questions: What
causes people to develop durable habits, values, knowledge, and skills relevant to their
membership in communities? Are people affected differently if they vary by age,
social or cultural background, and starting assumptions? For example, does a high
school civics course have lasting effects on various kinds of students, and what would
make it more effective?
From the 1960s until the 1980s, empirical questions concerning civic education were
relatively neglected, mainly because of a prevailing assumption that intentional
programs would not have significant and durable effects, given the more powerful
influences of social class and ideology (Cook, 1985). Since then, many research
studies and program evaluations have found substantial effects, and most social
scientists who study the topic now believe that educational practices, such as
discussion of controversial issues, hands-on action, and reflection, can influence
students (Sherrod, Torney-Purta & Flanagan, 2010).
The philosophical questions have been less explored, but they are essential. For
example:
Who has the full rights and obligations of a citizen? This question is especially
contested with regard to children, immigrant aliens, and individuals who have
been convicted of felonies.
In what communities ought we see ourselves as citizens? The nation-state is not
the only candidate; some people see themselves as citizens of local
geographical communities, organizations, movements, loosely-defined groups,
or even the world as a whole.
What responsibilities does a citizen of each kind of community have? Do all
members of each community have the same responsibilities, or ought there be
significant differences, for example, between elders and children, or between
leaders and other members?
What is the relationship between a good regime and good citizenship? Aristotle
held that there were several acceptable types of regimes, and each needed
different kinds of citizens. That makes the question of good citizenship relative
to the regime-type. But other theorists have argued for particular combinations
of regime and citizen competence. For example, classical liberals endorsed
regimes that would make relatively modest demands on citizens, both because
they were skeptical that people could rise to higher demands and because they
wanted to safeguard individual liberty against the state. Civic republicans have
seen a certain kind of citizenship--highly active and deliberative--as
constitutive of a good life, and therefore recommend a republican regime
because it permits good citizenship.
Who may decide what constitutes good citizenship? If we consider, for
example, students enrolled in public schools in the United States, should the
decision about what values, habits, and capabilities they should learn belong to
their parents, their teachers, the children themselves, the local community, the
local or state government, or the nation-state? We may reach different
conclusions when thinking about 5-year-olds and adult college students. As
Sheldon Wolin warned: [T]he inherent dangeris 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 regimesfascist or communist, for examplethis is not perceived as a
danger at all but, instead, the very purpose of their forms of civic education. In
democracies, the question is more complex because public institutions may
have to teach people to be good democratic citizens, but they can decide to do
so in ways that reinforce the power of the state and reduce freedom.
What means of civic education are ethically appropriate? It might, for example,
be effective to punish students who fail to memorize patriotic statements, or to
 pay students for community service, but the ethics of those approaches would
be controversial. An educator might engage students in open discussions of
current events because of a commitment to treating them as autonomous
agents, regardless of the consequences. As with other topics, the proper
relationship between means and ends is contested.
These questions are rarely treated together as part of comprehensive theories of civic
education; instead, they arise in passing in works about politics or education. Some of
these questions have never been much explored by professional philosophers, but they
arise frequently in public debates about citizenship.

1. The Good Citizen: Historical Conceptions

o 1.1 Ancient Greece

o 1.2 Classical Liberalism

o 1.3 Rousseau: Toward Progressive Education

o 1.4 Mill: Education Through Political Participation

o 1.5 Early Civic Education in the United States

2. The Good Democrat

o 2.1 Amy Gutmann: Conscious Social Reproduction

o 2.2 William Galston: Civic Education in a Representative System

o 2.3 Robert Putnam and Others: Social Capital

o 2.4 Deliberative Democracy

o 2.5 Public Work

o 2.6 Elinor Ostrom

3. The Good Person

o 3.1 Good Persons and Good Citizens

o 3.2 Spectrum of Virtues

4. Modern Forms of Civic Education

o 4.1 Service Learning

 o 4.2 Action Civics

o 4.3 Civic Education through Discussion

o 4.4 John Dewey: School as Community

o 4.5 Paulo Freire: Liberation Pedagogy

5. Cosmopolitan Education

Bibliography

o Works Cited

o Works to Consult

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

Related Entries

1. The Good Citizen: Historical

Conceptions [2]

As far back as evidence can be foundand virtually without exceptionyoung

adults seem to have been less attached to civic life than their parents and
grandparents. That is not evidence of decline--although it is often read as such--but
[3]

rather indicates that becoming a citizen is a developmental process. It must be taught

and learned. Most if not all societies recognize 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.
Sometimes, civic education is also intended to make all citizens, or at least
prospective leaders, effective as citizens or to reduce disparities in political power by
giving everyone the knowledge, confidence, and skills they need to participate. This
section briefly introduces several conceptions of civic education that have been
influential in the history of the West.

1.1 Ancient Greece

The ancient Greek city state or polis was thought to be an educational community,
expressed by the Greek term paideia. The purpose of politicalthat 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 Agefrom the arts to
politics and athleticswas 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.
Togetherpaideia and arte 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
educationwhich was political life itselfwas 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 externalof 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, 641b710).
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 (643e46).

1.2 Classical Liberalism

Ancient and medieval thinkers generally assumed that good government and good
citizenship were intimately related, because a regime would degenerate unless its
people actively and virtuously supported it. Aristotle regarded his Politics and
his Ethics as part of the same subject. In his view, a city-state could not be just and
strong unless its people were virtuous, and men could not exercise the political virtues
(which were intrinsically admirable, dignified, and satisfying) unless they lived in a
just polity. Civic virtue was especially important in a democratic or mixed regime, but
even in a monarchy or oligarchy, people were expected to sustain the political
community.
Today, the view that the best life is one of active participation in a community that
relies on and encourages active engagement is often called civic republicanism, and
it has been developed by authors like Wolin (1989), Barber (1992) and Hannah
Arendt.
Classical liberal thinkers, however, saw serious drawbacks to making good
government dependent on widespread civic virtue. First, any demanding and universal
system of moral education would be incompatible with individual freedom. If, for
example the state forced people to enroll their children in public schools in order to
create good citizens, it would hamper parents and young people's individual freedom.
The second problem was more practical. States did not have a very good record of
producing moral virtue in rulers or subjects. Mandatory church membership, state-
subsidized education, and even public spectacles of torture and execution did not
reliably prevent corruption, sedition and other private behavior injurious to the
community.
Thomas Hobbes is sometimes described as a forerunner of liberalism (despite his
advocacy of absolute monarchy) because he held a dim view of human nature and
thought that the way to prevent political disaster was to design the government right,
not to try to improve civic virtue. He also held that a good government was one that
permitted people to live their own lives safely. Another strong critic of the idea that a
good society depended on civic virtue was Bernard Mandeville, who wrote a famous
1705 poem entitled, The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits.
Mandeville argued that a good society could arise from sheer individual self-interest if
it was organized appropriately.
Other classical liberal thinkers typically favored some degree of civic education and
civic virtue, even as they proposed limitations on the state and a strong private sphere
to reduce the dependence of the regime on civic virtue. In other words, they steered a
middle course between pure classical liberalism and civic republicanism. For example,
in his Instructions for the conduct of a young Gentleman, as to religion and
government, John Locke wrote that a gentleman's proper calling is the service of his
country, and so is most properly concerned in moral and political knowledge; and thus
the studies which more immediately belong to his calling are those which treat of
virtues and vices, of civil society and the arts of government, and will take in also law
and history. That was an argument for civic education. But it appeared in a minor,
unpublished fragment. Civic education was not a significant theme in Locke's
important treatise Some Thoughts Concerning Education, which was more about
teaching individuals to be free and responsible in their private lives. Likewise, the
emphasis of his political writing was on limiting the power of the state and protecting
private rights.
James Madison hoped for some degree of civic virtue in the people and especially in
their representatives. He endorsed the great republican principle, that the people will
have the virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue
among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no
form of government can render us secure (Madison, 1788, 11:163) On the other
hand, Madison proposed a whole series of reforms that would make government proof
against the various vices that seemed to be sown in the nature of man (Madison,
Hamilton, and Jay, Federalist 10). These tools included constitutional limitations on
the overall power and scope of government; independent judges with power of review;
elections with relatively broad franchise; and above all, checks and balances.
Madison explained that republics should be designed for people of moderate virtue,
such as might be found in real societies. If men were angels, no government would
be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controuls on
government would be necessary. Unfortunately, neither citizens nor rulers could be
counted on to act like angels; but good government was possible anyway, as long as
the constitution provided appropriate controls.
The main external controul in a republic was the vote, which made powerful men
accountable to those they ruled. However, voting was not enough, especially since the
voters themselves might lack virtue and wisdom. A dependence on the people is no
doubt the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind the
necessity of auxiliary precautions. In general, Madison's auxiliary precautions
involved dividing power among separate institutions and giving them the ability to
check one another.
This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives,
might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public.
We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power; where
the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that
each may be a check on the other; that the private interest of every individual may be
a centinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite
in the distribution of the supreme powers of the state. (Madison, Hamilton, and Jay,
Federalist 51)

1.3 Rousseau: Toward Progressive

Education
Although ancient Athens instituted democracy, her most famous philosophers
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotlewere 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 himselfthat is, only if a man is self-rulingcan he remain free:
[E]ach individualobeys 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 manmeaning, 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 endsthe contrary routesthese 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 itselfno 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 Emilewhether, for example,
the tutor's utter control of Emile's life and environment is not in itself a betrayal of
educationRousseau 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.

1.4 Mill: Education Through Political

Participation
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
educationa 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
concernshabituating 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 conductEverybody
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 ProgressThey 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 participationas on juries and parish officestakes
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 menby 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 voicethat every one should
have an equal voice is a totally different propositionNo one but a foolfeels
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, 3078).
But education was the great leveling factor. Though not his view when he
wroteConsiderations 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, 30809). 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.
1.5 Early Civic Education in the United
States [4]

As noted above the founders of the United States tried to reduce the burdens on
citizens, because they observed that republics had generally collapsed for lack of civic
virtue. However, they also created a structure that would demand more of citizens, and
grant citizens more rights, than the empire from which they had declared
independence. So virtually all of the founders advocated greater attention to civic
education. 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 citizenone 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. Schools would be entrusted to develop this new type of citizen.
[5]

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 century, it came in the form of Horace Mann's common school. Such schools
th

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 religiousnamely Catholiceducation 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 childrenespecially the children of immigrants and of African
Americanslacked 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. As citizens came to share in the interests of others, which they
[6]

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

Civic education can occur in all kinds of regimes, but it is especially important in
democracies. 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
(1277a1315). The answer for him is a politea or a mixed constitution in which
persons must know both how to rule and how to obey. In such regimes, the excellence
and virtues of the good man and the good citizen coincide. Democratic societies have
an interest in preparing citizens to rule and to be ruled.
Modern democracies, however, are different from the ancient polis in several
important and pertinent respects. They are mass societies in which most people can
have little individual impact on government and policy. They are complex,
technologically-driven, highly specialized societies in which professionals (including
lawyers, civil servants, and politicians) have much more expertise than laypeople. And
they are liberal constitutional regimes in which individual freedom is protected--to
various degrees--and government is deliberately insulated from public pressure. For
example, courts and central banks are protected from popular votes. Once the United
States had become an industrialized mass society, the influential columnist Walter
Lippmann argued that ordinary citizens had been eclipsed and could, at most, render
occasional judgments about a government of experts (seeThe Phantom Public, 1925).
John Dewey and the Chicago civic leader Jane Addams (in different ways) asserted
that the lay public must and could regain its voice, but they struggled to explain how.

2.1 Amy Gutmann: Conscious Social

Reproduction
Amy Gutmann is one of several contemporary philosophers who argues that citizens
have a relatively demanding role and that they can and should be educated for it.
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 opportunitythe freedom and the capacitiesto 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, 3031). 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 andin the
course of their exposuremust embrace certain values, such as mutual respect among
persons (Ibid, 3233).

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.

2.3 Social Capital

The concept of social capital was introduced by the sociologist James S. Coleman to
refer to the value that is inherent in social networks (see, e.g., Coleman, 1988). The
political scientist Robert Putnam subsequently argued that democracies function well
in proportion to the strength of their social capital (1994) and that social capital is
declining in the United States (2000). In his book Bowling Alone, Putnam explains,
Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to
properties of individuals [such as their own skills], social capital refers to connections
among individualssocial networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness
that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have
called 'civic virtue.' The difference is that 'social capital' calls attention to the fact that
civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social
relations (Putnam 2000, p. 19).
A related idea is collective efficacy, as developed by the sociologist Robert
Sampson and colleagues. It is the use--or ability to use--social networks to address
common problems, such as crime. Sampson finds that the level of collective efficacy
strongly predicts the quality of life in communities (Sampson, 2012).
If governments and communities function much better when people have social
networks and use them for public purposes, then civic education becomes important
and it is substantially about teaching people to create, appreciate, preserve, and use
social networks. A pedagogical approach like Service Learning (see below) might be
most promising for that purpose.

2.4 Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy is the idea that a legitimate political decision is one that
results from discussions among citizens under reasonably favorable conditions.
Proponents debate precisely what qualifies as deliberation, but there is a general
agreement that the discussion should be inclusive, free, equitable, and in some sense
civil. In practical terms, deliberative democracy implies various efforts to increase the
amount and the impact of public discussions. The philosophical underpinnings derive
from the work of influential theorists including Jrgen Habermas, John Rawls,
Michael Sandel, and others of varying views. See Gutmann and Thompson (1996) for
an example of a sophisticated treatment that draws on many earlier works.
For civic education, the implication of deliberative democracy is that people should
learn to participate in discussions, which may be both face-to-face and mediated by
the news media and social media. Concretely, that means that people should develop
the aptitude, desire, knowledge, and skills that lead them to read and discuss the news
and current events with diverse fellow citizens and influence the government with the
views that they develop and refine by deliberation. Practices such as discussing and
debating current events in school seem especially promising.

2.5 Public Work

Harry C. Boyte (1996, 2004) argues for the centrality of work to citizenship. We are
not only citizens when we vote, read and discuss the news, and volunteer after school
or work--which are all unpaid, voluntary activities. We are also citizens on the job;
and even when we perform unpaid service, we should see our contributions as work-
like in the sense that they are serious business. Citizens do not merely monitor and
influence the government (per the theory of deliberative democracy) nor serve other
people in community settings (emphasized in the idea of social capital); they also
literally build, make, and maintain public goods. They do so whether they work in the
public, private, or nonprofit sectors, for pay or not. Of course, they can work either
well or badly, and a good citizen is one who makes valuable contributions to the
public good, or builds the commonwealth.
The theory of public work suggests that civic education should be highly experiential
and closely related to vocational education. Young people should gain skills and
agency by actually making things together. A good outcome is an individual who will
be able to contribute to the commonwealth through her or his work. Albert Dzur
(2008), who holds a kindred but not identical view, emphasizes the importance of
revising professional education so that professionals learn to collaborate better with
laypeople.

2.6 Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on how
people overcome collective action problems, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma and the
Tragedy of the Commons. These problems are endemic and serious, sometimes
leading to environmental catastrophe and war. Ostrom, however, discovered many
principles that allow people to overcome such problems. She wrote,
At any time that individuals may gain from the costly action of others, without
themselves contributing time and effort, they face collective action dilemmas for
which there are coping methods. 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. (Ostrom 1998)
Ostrom believed that these principles could be taught explicitly and formally, but the
traditional and most effective means for teaching them were experiential. She argued
that the tendency to centralize and professionalize management throughout the 20th
century had deprived ordinary people of opportunities to learn from experience, and
thus our capacity to address collective action problems had weakened.
Along with her husband Vincent Ostrom, Elinor Ostrom developed the idea of
polycentric governance, according to which we are citizens of multiple, overlapping,
and nested communities, from the smallest neighborhoods to the globe. Collective
action problems are best addressed polycentrically, not reserved for national
governments or parceled out neatly among levels of government. As president of the
American Political Science Association and in other prominent roles, Ostrom
advocated civic education that would teach people to address collective action
problems in multiple settings and scales.

3. The Good Person

The qualities of the good citizen are not 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 traitsthat is, the absence of characterthat 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. 45). 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.

3.1 Good Persons and Good Citizens

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 a willingness
[7]

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]

3.2 Spectrum of Virtues

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? Can idealized
[10]

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 approachesa prescribed moral content or values clarificationappear 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. At the same time, some will see the inculcation of
[11]

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, but this seems to be a kind of
[12]

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 behaviora 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. Modern Forms of Civic Education

In the United States, most students are required to take courses on government or
civics, and the main content is essentially political science for high school students. In
other words, they use textbooks and other written materials to learn about the formal
structure and behavior of political institutions, from local government to the United
Nations (Godsay et al, 2012). The philosophical justifications for this kind of
curriculum are rarely developed fully, but probably an underlying idea is that citizens
ought to play certain concrete roles--voting, monitoring the news, serving on juries,
petitioning the government--and to do so effectively requires a baseline understanding
of the political system. Another implicit goal may be to increase young people's
appreciation of the existing constitutional system so that they will be motivated to
preserve it.
In the subsequent sections, we examine some proposals for alternative forms of civic
education that are also philosophically interesting.

4.1 Service Learning

Putting students into the community-at-large is today called service-learning. It is a
common form of civic education that integrates classroom instruction with work
within the community. Ideally, the students take their experience and observations
from service into their academic work, and use their academic research and
discussions to inform their service.
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). 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, 1011, 49). [14]

Empirical evidence suggests that experiential education may be most effective for
civic learning. The reason, again, is that students respond to experiences that touch
their emotions and senses of self in a firsthand way (Damon, 2001, 141). Also, 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. 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).
Another influence on service-learning is the theory of social capital, described above.
If a democracy depends on people serving one another and developing habits and
networks of reciprocal concern--and if that kind of interaction is declining in a country
like the United States--then it is natural to encourage or require students to serve as
part of their learning.

4.2 Action Civics

Some critics (e.g., Boyte and Kari, 1996) worry that the service in service-
learning reflects a narrow conception of citizenship that overlooks power and agency
and that encourages an undemocratic distinction between the server and the served.
We can think of civic action as participation that involves far more than serving,
voting, working 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 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 pursuing careers that have public value.
The National Action Civics Collaborative (NACC) unites organizations that engage
students in civic action as a form of civic learning. Service is usually only one form of
action. Some NACC members work in schools, but similar practices are perhaps
more common and easier to achieve in independent, community-based organizations.
Youth Organizing is a widespread practice that engages adolescents in civic or
political activities. Levinson (2012) offers a philosophically sophisticated defense of a
pedagogy that she calls guided experiential civic education and argues for its place
in public schools.
4.3 Civic Education through Discussion
Especially if one's theory of democracy is deliberative (see section 2.4, above), the
core of civic education may be learning to talk and listen with other people about
public problems. That is a cognitively and ethically demanding activity that can be
learned from experience. The most promising pedagogy is to discuss current events
with a moderator--usually the teacher--and some requirement to prepare in advance.
Debates are competitive discussions. Simulations (such as mock trials or the Model
UN) involve discussing issues from the perspective of fictional or historical
characters. And deliberations usually involve students speaking in their own real voice
and trying to find common ground.
Hess (2009) makes an argument for discussing current controversies and explores
some of the ethical dilemmas that arise for teachers who do so. For instance, should a
teacher disclose her or his own views or attempt to conceal them to be a neutral
moderator? What questions should be presented as genuinely controversial? (Most
people would insist that slavery is no longer a controversy and should not be treated as
such. But what about the reality of climate change?)

4.3 John Dewey: School as Community

John Dewey argued that, from the 18 century onward, states came to see education as
th

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 commerceTo 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.
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 youngbeyond 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 schoolstudent
discipline, maintenance of the grounds and buildings, problems with cliques, issues of
sexism and racism, incidents of ostracism, and the likeas well as topics and issues
inside the classrooms.
Dewey thought of schools as embryo communities (1915, 174), institution[s] in
which the child is, for the timeto 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 communitythe 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 expertisea combination of experience and
knowledgethat 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 studentsa 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.
Deweyan ideas about the school as a community live on in several kinds of practice.
First, in some experimental schools, students, teachers, and parents actually govern
democratically. In a Sudbury School (of which the first was founded in Sudbury,
Massachusetts in 1968), the whole community governs the institution through weekly
town meetings.
Much more common is to give students some degree of voice in the governance of a
school through an elected student government, student-run media, and policies that
encourage students to express their opinions.
Another very prevalent approach is to support and encourage students to manage their
own voluntary associations within a school: clubs, teams, etc. Thomas & McFarland
(2010) and others have found positive affects of extracurricular participation on
voting, and a plausible explanation is that adolescents become active citizens by
managing their own mini-communities.

4.4 Paulo Freire: Liberation Pedagogy

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 depositsthat 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 wordas
in ending illiteracyand reading the worldthe 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 leadershipis, therefore, not libertarian
propaganda. Nor can the leadership merely implant in the oppressed a belief in
freedomThe 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. Decoding allows participants to perceive
[15]

reality differentlyby 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 thinkingthinking 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 Aabout 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).

5. Cosmopolitan Education
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-rulethat 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. If we move from the village to the nation, then can't we
[16]

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 citizenshipa 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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Other Internet Resources

Center for Civic Education, home of the educational programs We the People
and Project Citizen. Traditionally funded by the federal government and thus
interesting as an expression of official policies toward civic education

Center for Democracy and Citizenship, affiliated with the University of

Minnesota and engaged in activist democracy through projects involving public
work.
 CIRCLE or the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and
Engagement, based in Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of
Citizenship and Public Service, this center promotes research and projects on
civic and political engagement of the young.

Civic Mission of Schools, dedicated to reviving and enhancing civic education

in the public schools.

Close Up Foundation, which runs a Washington DC experiential learning

program for middle-school and high-school students.

Constitutional Rights Foundation, which focuses on educating America's youth

about the importance of democratic participation.

Public Achievement, a civic engagement initiative that seeks to involve the

young in learning lessons of democracy by doing public work.

Related Entries
character, moral | citizenship | cosmopolitanism | democracy | Dewey, John | ethics:
virtue |Mill, John Stuart | Rousseau, Jean Jacques
Copyright 2013 by
Jack Crittenden
Peter Levine <Peter.Levine@tufts.edu>