This essay introduces a special report from The Hastings Center entitled Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose, which grew out of a project supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This multiauthored report offers wide‐ranging assessments of increasing polarization and partisanship in American government and politics, and it proposes constructive responses to this in the provision of objective information, institutional reforms in government and the electoral system, and a reexamination of (...) cultural and political values needed if democracy is to function well in a pluralistic and diverse society. The essays in the special report explore the norms of civic learning and institutions, social movements, and communal innovations that can revitalize civic learning in practice. This introductory essay defines and explains the notion of civic learning, which is a lynchpin connecting many of the essays in the report. Civic learning pertains to the ways in which citizens learn about collective social problems and make decisions about them that reflect the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Such learning can occur in many social settings in everyday life, and it can also be facilitated through participation in the processes of democratic governance on many levels. Civic learning is not doctrinaire and is compatible with a range of public goals and policies. It is an activity that increases what might be called the democratic capability of a people. (shrink)

Vaccine hesitancy is a major public health challenge, and racial disparities in the acceptance of vaccines is a particular concern. In this essay, we draw on interviews with mothers of Black male adolescents to offer insights into the reasons for the low rate of vaccination against the human papillomavirus among this group of adolescents. Based on these conversations, we argue that increasing the acceptance of HPV and other vaccines cannot be accomplished merely by providing people with more facts. Instead, we (...) must address the pervasive racial discrimination in the United States that undermines trust in social institutions, including the health care system. In the short term, it may be helpful to increase the number of clinicians of color working in the health system, but more fundamental changes are required. The U.S. must adopt and implement policies that dismantle structural racism if it hopes to produce greater trust and community‐oriented thinking on behalf of people who have been exploited for centuries. (shrink)

This essay introduces a special report from The Hastings Center entitled Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose, which grew out of a project supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This multiauthored report offers wide‐ranging assessments of increasing polarization and partisanship in American government and politics, and it proposes constructive responses to this in the provision of objective information, institutional reforms in government and the electoral system, and a reexamination of (...) cultural and political values needed if democracy is to function well in a pluralistic and diverse society. The essays in the special report explore the norms of civic learning and institutions, social movements, and communal innovations that can revitalize civic learning in practice. This introductory essay defines and explains the notion of civic learning, which is a lynchpin connecting many of the essays in the report. Civic learning pertains to the ways in which citizens learn about collective social problems and make decisions about them that reflect the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Such learning can occur in many social settings in everyday life, and it can also be facilitated through participation in the processes of democratic governance on many levels. Civic learning is not doctrinaire and is compatible with a range of public goals and policies. It is an activity that increases what might be called the democratic capability of a people. (shrink)

Nation states in the twenty‐first century confront new challenges to their political legitimacy. Borders are more porous and less secure. Infectious disease epidemics, climate change, financial fraud, terrorism, and cybersecurity all involve cross‐border flows of material, human bodies, and information that threaten to overwhelm state power and expert knowledge. Concurrently, doubts have multiplied about whether citizens, subject to manipulation through the internet, have lost the critical capacity to hold rulers accountable for their expert decisions. I argue that the primary threat (...) to democracy is not the public's epistemic incompetence but a slow dissolution of the deliberative practices that are essential for self‐rule. We need a radical reimagining of the sites, forms, and performances of democratic deliberation. For this purpose, the American state needs to reconstitute a public square open to citizens who are deemed to be epistemically competent and capable of informed judgment. (shrink)

This article explores the civic republican conception of citizenship underlying the Labour government's programme of civil renewal and the introduction of education for democratic citizenship. It considers the importance of the cultivation of civic virtue through political participation for such developments and it reviews the research into how service learning linked to character education can lead to the civic virtue of duty or social responsibility.

The National Council for the Social Studies position statement on “Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies Teaching and Learning” provides a conceptual outline for contemporary social studies curriculum. The purported goal is to “promote civic competence” in order to “help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”1 The statement reaffirms the importance of social studies in the wake of No (...) Child Left Behind—the consequences of which, the statement acknowledges, have led to reduced class time spent on social studies instruction.The NCSS framework asserts that social studies... (shrink)

Projects that challenge students to practice service leadership for civic improvement can address the aim of developing civic-mindedness in undergraduates. We conducted two qualitative studies. First, we investigated the learning experiences of four teams of undergraduate business students, who undertook semester-long course-embedded service-learning projects in partnership with four Hong Kong-based social enterprises. The students described five modes of civic engagement as project purposes, mentioned applying six types of service leadership practice for civic improvement, and (...) described eight types of developmental outcome within the domain of civic-mindedness. Comparisons suggested that besides relational support through training and guidance, empowering infrastructure, opportunities to exercise autonomy, and opportunities to demonstrate competence, three project-related features that varied between projects were important in fostering civic-mindedness. These were direct contact with grassroots-based beneficiaries; the experience of making a tangible difference; and linking the campus with the wider community. A second qualitative study indicated that course-embedded team projects with these features that were undertaken in mixed teams that included freshman and senior year business students fostered civic-mindedness for both categories of student. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Learning from Examples of Civic Responsibility:What Community-Based Art Centers Teach Us about Arts EducationJessica Hoffmann Davis (bio)Introduction/QuestionThroughout the United States, beyond school walls, there struggles and soars a sprawling field of community art centers dedicated to education.1 Most frequently clustered on either coast in bustling urban communities, these centers provide arts training that enriches or exceeds what is offered in schools. They serve artists who need space (...) for work or performance, students who crave instruction and direction, and the broader community that enjoys attendant cultural enrichment. At the core, they create safe havens for arts learning that has been marginalized elsewhere.Unfettered by the demands and constraints of school administrations, these self-designed centers have been of considerable interest to arts education researchers over the last twenty years.2 Largely conceived and staffed by artists, they demonstrate artful alternatives to mainstream education: creative visions of teaching, learning, and assessment. Moreover, the positive impact these centers have had on students considered at risk across a number of variables has caught the attention of researchers looking for better ways to serve our youth.3The location of these centers beyond school walls, like their operation beyond the hours of the school day, would naturally seem to cast them as positive opportunities for extending arts learning that goes on in school. But with school art curricula scarce or in danger of elimination, supplementary options can seem threatening to school arts specialists. Administrators have regarded the opportunities that outside artists and centers provide as sufficient substitutes for a school-based course of sequential instruction in the arts. While vital funding sources encourage and sustain collaboration, a tension persists between the autonomy of outsider arts centers and the integrity [End Page 82] of insider school arts programs. For students disenfranchised from schools, the "otherness" of centers has a certain cachet. For centers unable to afford their own space, school classrooms in after-school hours offer a home base for their offerings and easy access for students. The back and forth across school walls raises opportunities and concerns that have resulted in a range of creative solutions.4 But my interest here is not in the cross-wall meeting of services, but rather in the differences in arts learning on either side of school walls. In the pages that follow, I pose the question, What can schools learn from the arts education provided in the community?In addressing this question, I first mark the differences between arts learning in schools and in the community as a need for justification versus an opportunity for demonstration. I then describe the research from which my thinking and discussion draw and offer a brief overview of the history of community art centers as inspired by and illustrative of civic responsibility. With an eye to what educators and advocates can learn from these community-based efforts, I focus next on three common objections to prioritizing the arts in our schools: value, measurement, and autonomy. Each objection is introduced from a school-based perspective and then reconsidered in light of community-based attitudes and activities.5 In conclusion, I delineate the insights derived from a consideration of community arts education as stimulus for the redirection of educational objectives and advocacy rationales for arts learning in schools.Justification vs. DemonstrationIn its struggle for recognition and place in school settings, arts education has sought justification in terms of its potential to serve the broader educational scene. We ask of classes that provide mounting skills in visual arts, music, or theater, "Yes, but what else does arts learning do? Can it improve student skills in reading, mathematics, or any other subjects that are more traditionally valued?" Such demands may seem unfair. When has math ever been defended for its ability to improve arts performance? Beyond a sense of injustice, claims for arts learning's causal impact on measurable extraneous outcomes (such as improvements in test scores in nonarts academic subjects) are at best most difficult to prove.6In community centers where art is the chosen heart of the matter, students come specifically to study the arts and to benefit from their enhancement of more generalized experience... (shrink)

Throughout the United States, beyond school walls, there struggles and soars a sprawling field of community art centers dedicated to education.1 Most frequently clustered on either coast in bustling urban communities, these centers provide arts training that enriches or exceeds what is offered in schools. They serve artists who need space for work or performance, students who crave instruction and direction, and the broader community that enjoys attendant cultural enrichment. At the core, they create safe havens for arts learning (...) that has been marginalized elsewhere.Unfettered by the demands and constraints of school administrations, these self-designed centers have been of considerable interest to arts education .. (shrink)

In January 2022 the new Dutch Civic Integration programme was launched together with promises of improvements it would bring in facilitating the ‘integration’ of newcomers to the Netherlands. This study presents a critical discourse analysis of texts intended for municipalities to take on their new coordinating role in this programme. The analysis aims to understand the discourse in the texts, which actors are mobilized by them, and the role these texts and these actors play in processes of governmental racialization. (...) The analysis demonstrates shifting complex assemblages are brought into cascades of governance in which all actors are disciplined to accept the problem of integration as a problem of cultural difference and distance, and then furthermore disciplined to adopt new practices deemed necessary to identify and even ‘objectively’ measure the inherent traits contributing to this problematic. Lastly, the analysis displays that all actors are disciplined to accept the solution of ‘spontaneous compliance’; a series of practices and knowledges, which move the civic integration programme beyond an aim of responsibilization, into a programme of internalization, wherein newcomers are expected to own and address their problematic ‘nature’, making ‘modern’ values their own. (shrink)

This article compares case studies to better understand how third grade teachers, serving low-income (including Title I) schools, adapted their instruction in the midst of a global pandemic to better support their students’ learning about locally-relevant civic issues. Civic perspective-taking components were embedded in the unit design with the aim of building deliberative, inclusive classrooms. The team designed lessons drawing from theories of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Using semi-structured interview data, we examined teachers’ reported thinking and perceptions about (...) students’ needs and their own struggles to deliver purposeful, equitable instruction. Findings indicate that as teachers collaboratively designed the lessons they discussed how to balance relevance and sensitivity in relation to content that mirrored students lived realities. This study advances our understanding of what challenges teachers overcome to integrate culturally-sustaining practices in their social studies instruction. (shrink)

History, Geography and Civics provides an in-depth and engaging introduction to teaching and learning socio-environmental education from F-6 in Australia and New Zealand. It explores the centrality of socio-environmental issues to all aspects of life and education and makes explicit links between pedagogical theories and classroom activities. Part I introduces readers to teaching and learning history, geography and environmental studies, and civics and citizenship, as well as issues in intercultural and global education. Part II explores the use of (...) media and sources, values and attitudes, assessment and creative teaching. Each chapter provides links to the Australian Curriculum, including cross-curriculum priorities: sustainability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, and Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia. History, Geography and Civics encourages the reader to consider their own beliefs, values and attitudes in relation to their teaching and includes provocations and reflective questions to foster discussion and engagement. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to investigate appropriate methods for educating students into citizenship within a pluralistic state and to explain why civic education is itself important. In this discussion, I will offer suggestions as to how students might be best prepared for their future political roles as participants in a democracy, and how we, as theorists, ought to structure institutions and curricula in order to ensure that students are adequately trained for political decision making. The paper is (...) divided into six sections. In the first two sections, I argue that community is a learned understanding and that such education,even when it supports liberal commitments,cannot be neutral. I use the social contract tradition as an entrance into the perpetual nature of conflict within a pluralist society. In the third and fourth sections, I develop a pedagogy geared towards educating students into what I call cognitive conflict, and argue that the arts, widely understood, should be privileged over other disciplines. In the fifth section, I examine two difficulties inherent inmy pedagogy — first that it seems to demandthat all perspectives be taught, and second that it seems to promote anxiety among students. In the final section, I ask that political theory reexamine the role of harmony in justice. I conclude that a managed conflictis a more acceptable organizational description of liberal political structures. (shrink)

To better prepare students for active and thoughtful participation in a democratic society, civic education should foster an array of civic competencies. Cultivating student civic agency—an under-studied civic competency—is of particular importance to equip students to authentically use their voice in their communities. But what does it look like to foster student civic agency in a classroom setting? This article leverages a social and emotional learning (SEL) framework to uncover the active curricular ingredients and (...) educational mechanisms through which a student-led civics curriculum has fostered civic agency. In this multi-site case study, we analyze the implementation of an eighth grade student-led civics curriculum in a northeastern U.S. state. We outline how implicit SEL processes in these classrooms, stemming from a pedagogical focus on “changemakers,” supported development of civic agency. We found that the changemakers theme facilitated student exploration of their own civic identity and values, while prompting students to critically examine political power structures. Notably, the theme also helped students to develop a narrative of self as changemakers and to envision themselves actively engaged in civic spaces. This study adds insights to growing evidence on the multi-faceted benefits that civically-oriented SEL may offer to preparing young people to engage in democracy. (shrink)

The long-standing vision of universities as the “alma mater” of students and graduates is a demonstration of its role as sustaining the person, the expert/professional, and the citizen. This role has persisted in the face of rising global challenges such as the emergence of new learning spaces, the growing diversity of publics, the call for productivity and performativity, and the hope for a significant engagement with the community and the public good. These sometimes conflicting tendencies have also stimulated higher (...) education institutions to further pedagogical strategies that articulate in novel ways the classical elements of learning: action/experience and reflection/theory. In this context, service learning received a new impetus, particularly in the post-Bologna European Higher Education Area, as universities were looking for ways in which to articulate the social dimension of HEI and their “third mission” as institutions not only committed to addressing and solving societal problems, but also committed to fostering public-minded alumni through powerful experiences of engagement for both the students and the community.This paper is based on the experience of Erasmus+project ESSA, a service earning based project focused on University social responsibility (USR). ESSA engaged four groups of students from three European universities (Edinburgh, Porto, and Kaunas) in conducting a 1-week on-site USR audit based on an ecologic and situated concept of social responsibility. We will consider the perceived impact of ESSA on 44 students through a thematic analysis of focus group discussions and student self-assessment reports produced during and after their participation in the USR audit. (shrink)

We formulate a distinctly 'political liberal' conception of mutual respect, which we call 'civic respect', appropriate for governing the public political relations of citizens in pluralist democratic societies. A political liberal account of education should aim at ensuring that students, as future citizens, learn to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect. While children should be required to attend educational institutions that will inculcate in them the skills and concepts necessary for them to be free (...) and equal citizens, parents should be granted as much freedom as is compatible with the requirements of civic respect to raise their children in accordance with their respective 'comprehensive doctrines' (systems of beliefs and values, including religious doctrines). We consider an objection to our position drawn from the account of upbringing recently advanced by Matthew Clayton, namely, that the conception of civic respect that we advance rests on an implausible view about the limited scope of the requirements of political justice. We develop an account of the 'basic structure of society' as the appropriate subject of political justice that can overcome this objection. (shrink)

Discourse between pupils represents a core element of citizenship education in England. However, as it is currently presented within the curriculum, discourse adopts the form of the rather broad terms of 'discussion' and 'debate'. These terms are diffuse, and in themselves offer little pedagogical guidance for teachers implementing the curriculum in schools. Moreover, there has been little academic reflection in England as to how theoretical ideas on civic dialogue may usefully inform approaches to pupil discourse. For this reason, how (...) pupils experience discursive learning activities is likely to depend on how individual schools and teachers understand the terms 'discussion' and 'debate' and the way in which this understanding is translated into pupil learning activities. This article explores how recourse to deliberative democratic theory, and in particular to the principle of contestatory deliberative democracy found within recent republican writing, may be useful in helping educators to consider critically the capacities needed for effective civic discourse as a well as the outcomes of pupils' dialogical engagement. (shrink)

More than a century ago, John Dewey challenged the education community to look to civic involvement for the betterment of both community and campus. Today, the challenge remains. In his landmark book, editor Thomas Ehrlich has collected essays from national leaders who have focused on civic responsibility and higher education. Imparting both philosophy and working examples, Ehrlich provides the inspiration for innovative new programs in this essential area of learning.

We formulate a distinctly ‘political liberal’ conception of mutual respect, which we call ‘civic respect’, appropriate for governing the public political relations of citizens in pluralist democratic societies. A political liberal account of education should aim at ensuring that students, as future citizens, learn to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect. While children should be required to attend educational institutions that will inculcate in them the skills and concepts necessary for them to be free (...) and equal citizens, parents should be granted as much freedom as is compatible with the requirements of civic respect to raise their children in accordance with their respective ‘comprehensive doctrines’ (systems of beliefs and values, including religious doctrines). We consider an objection to our position drawn from the account of upbringing recently advanced by Matthew Clayton, namely, that the conception of civic respect that we advance rests on an implausible view about the limited scope of the requirements of political justice. We develop an account of the ‘basic structure of society’ as the appropriate subject of political justice that can overcome this objection. (shrink)

It is argued that children need to learn about civic issues intheir education because certain virtues are required for a decently organisedsociety. It is also argued that the school has wide obligations to educate theyoung in civics because it is in their best interests. This is not seen asan encroachment on the privacy of the individual. It is explained that theschool has an obligation to impart knowledge to the young.

Using a new model focused on four core capacities-intellectual complexity, social location, empathetic accountability, and motivated action--Teaching Civic Engagement explores the significance of religious studies in fostering a vibrant, just, and democratic civic order.In the first section of the book, contributors detail this theoretical model and offer an initial application to the sources and methods that already define much teaching in the disciplines of religious studies and theology. A second section offers chapters focused on specific strategies for teaching (...) civic engagement in religion classrooms, including traditional textual studies, reflective writing, community-based learning, field trips, media analysis, ethnographic methods, direct community engagement and a reflective practice of "ascetic withdrawal." The final section of the volume explores theoretical issues, including the delimitation of the "civic" as a category, connections between local and global in the civic project, the question of political advocacy in the classroom, and the role of normative commitments.Collectively these chapters illustrate the real possibility of connecting the scholarly study of religion with the societies in which we, our students, and our institutions exist. The contributing authors model new ways of engaging questions of civic belonging and social activism in the religion classroom, belying the stereotype of the ivory tower intellectual. (shrink)

Service-learning has received a great deal of attention in the management education literature over the past decade, as a method by which students can acquire moral and civic values as well as gain academic knowledge and practice real-world skills. Scholars focus on student and community impact, curricular design, and rationale. However, the educational environment (“context”) in which service-learning occurs has been given less attention, although experienced educators know that the classroom is hardly a vacuum and that students (...) learn a great deal from the non-curricular aspects of their educational experience. Moral values in particular are conveyed by what is not said. Given this, I argue that the contexts in which service-learning takes place are as important as the activity itself. Three perspectives on context will be described and assessed: the “hidden” curriculum, the educational atmosphere, and the university’s orientation towards social responsibility. (shrink)

The myth of generations of disengaged youth has been shattered by increases in youth turnout in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 primaries. Young Americans are responsive to effective outreach efforts, and this collection addresses how to best provide opportunities for enhancing civic learning and forming lasting civic identities. The thirteen original essays are based on research in schools and in settings beyond the schoolyard where civic life is experienced. One focus is on programs for those schools (...) in poor communities that tend to overlook civic education. Another chapter reports on how two city governments--Hampton, Virginia, and San Francisco--have invited youth to participate on boards and in agencies. A cluster of chapters focuses on the civic education programs in Canada and Western Europe, where, as in the United States, immigration and income inequality raise challenges to civic life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This essay explores how bioethics as a field, rather than as a collection of individual efforts by bioethicists working within it, can inform deliberation on matters of bioethical import that, for better or worse, are in the hands of civic processes. It is motivated by the repeal of a constitutional protection of abortion access in the Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which effectively returned abortion regulations to states rather than setting a baseline federal protection of (...) abortion access up to fetal viability. Given the outsized role of local legislators in shaping health-care policy through legislation, about abortion as well as other health topics, the author proposes foundational bioethical education for legislators and considers two potential models for such education: one that operates on a clinical ethics consultation model, and one that mirrors bioethical coursework taught in traditional academic settings but modified for a legislator audience. Although both models present notable challenges requiring further conceptualization and problem-solving, overcoming these hurdles would enable bioethics to provide a service to civic learning and placemaking that would complement advocacy or lobbying efforts by individual bioethicists. (shrink)

This chapter brings together debates in political philosophy and epistemology over what we should do when we disagree. While it might be tempting to think that we can apply one debate to the other, there are significant differences that may threaten this project. The specification of who qualifies as a civic or epistemic peer are not coextensive, utilizing different idealizations in denoting peerhood. In addition, the scope of disagreements that are relevant vary according to whether the methodology chosen falls (...) within ideal theory or nonideal theory. Finally, the two literatures focus on different units of analysis that diverge according to the philosophical purpose behind their investigation of disagreement. Epistemologists analyze the rationality of individuals’ belief states whereas political philosophers focus on the just governance of a diverse society. Despite these differences, political epistemologists can learn valuable lessons by considering these debates side by side in order to provide insights that address a host of different challenges posed by political disagreement. The core lesson to draw from the disanalogies outlined in this paper is that to make progress, careful attention should be paid to specifying the goal of any particular project within political epistemology. (shrink)

Over time, the corporate food economy has led to the increased separation of people from the sources of their food and nutrition. This paper explores the opportunity for grassroots, food-based organizations, as part of larger food justice movements, to act as valuable sites for countering the tendency to identify and value a person only as a consumer and to serve as places for actively learning democratic citizenship. Using The Stop Community Food Centre’s urban agriculture program as a case in (...) point, the paper describes how participation can be a powerful site for transformative adult learning. Through participation in this Toronto-based, community organization, people were able to develop strong civic virtues and critical perspectives. These, in turn, allowed them to influence policy makers; to increase their level of political efficacy, knowledge, and skill; and to directly challenge anti-democratic forces of control. (shrink)

This article considers the qualitative concept of place – what it means, how it feels, how it is expressed, and how it is managed across time and space as the appropriate context within which to study and promote local agriculture and the locus of relationships, both cultural and political, that prefigure a local civic culture. It argues that civic as a description of local food and farming is conceptually and practically shallow in the absence of our ability to (...) understand and to practice “being” in place. Using three vignettes from field research in northern Michigan, the article illustrates this interdependence by focusing on the ways in which place provides opportunities for learning, for play, for engagement, for identity formation, and for explicit political and policy initiatives – as prerequisites for civic awareness and action. (shrink)

Understanding within the western tradition of civic virtue can be supplemented in important ways by giving attention to the civic tradition as it developed in classical Chinese philosophy. The western tradition of civic virtue originates in the context of the small city-state political dynamics of Athens and Florence. As a result of this developmental context, the traditional civic virtues themselves are geared to the ends associated with small states. Established wisdom before the foundation of the United (...) States suggested that any republic, of necessity, would have to remain small. With the expansion of modern democratic states, failure to sustain citizen participation has been recognized as a threat to continued sustainability of the large-scale republic. As a result of this realization, the revivalist civic theory has emphasized participatory virtues. The development of these virtues, however, is hindered by political alienation resulting from the bureaucratic structure of the large-scale state. The suggestion here is that civic theory in the modern world can be advanced by learning from the classical Chinese civic theorists what civic virtues they associated with large state dynamics, and it is suggested that these virtues can act as antecedents to the participatory virtues necessary for democracy. (shrink)

Understanding within the western tradition of civic virtue can be supplemented in important ways by giving attention to the civic tradition as it developed in classical Chinese philosophy. The western tradition of civic virtue originates in the context of the small city-state political dynamics of Athens and Florence. As a result of this developmental context, the traditional civic virtues themselves are geared to the ends associated with small states. Established wisdom before the foundation of the United (...) States suggested that any republic, of necessity, would have to remain small. With the expansion of modern democratic states, failure to sustain citizen participation has been recognized as a threat to continued sustainability of the large-scale republic. As a result of this realization, the revivalist civic theory has emphasized participatory virtues. The development of these virtues, however, is hindered by political alienation resulting from the bureaucratic structure of the large-scale state. The suggestion here is that civic theory in the modern world can be advanced by learning from the classical Chinese civic theorists what civic virtues they associated with large state dynamics, and it is suggested that these virtues can act as antecedents to the participatory virtues necessary for democracy. (shrink)

This paper considers the complex relation between migrants’ interest in their host country and their consequent civic or social engagement in the framework of processes of transition following the rupture of international migration (cf. Zittoun 2006). In phases of transition, migrants live processes of identity definition, sense-making of the situation and learning new knowledge and social, cognitive and practical skills. I argue that learning may be considered a precondition for a migrant’s interest and engagement with the host (...) country culture and institutions. In this connection, I use Eade’s (2007) notion of migration strategy to describe migrant profiles based on learning. My case is supported by a qualitative analysis of two paradigmatic case studies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Democracy—as a form of governance, a moral community, and a way of life—is under great stress. The prospects for democracy and bioethics are linked because bioethics relies on an open society and a democratic cultural environment in order to flourish. For its part, democracy can be restored and strengthened by widespread cultural and psychological support for the values of mutual recognition, equal dignity and respect for persons, and solidarity, interdependence, and the common good. Promoting values such as these is in (...) keeping with the founding vision of bioethics, which was a civic vision. At the present time, bioethics can and should continue to be a bioethics for democracy by engaging directly in civic learning and civic place-making. These have a significant impact on health as well as on democracy. (shrink)

This paper explores how civic engagement as an important dimension of public engagement in higher education has been slow to develop in the UK, despite an important history dating from the ‘civic universities' in the ninetheenth century. I specifically consider the development of ' service learning ' as an important way in which the values and practices of democratic citizenship can be embedded in the curriculum of higher education. Finally, I examine how the decline of the ideal (...) of ‘public service' in the UK provides some significant barriers to the re-development of the civic university. (shrink)

Educating for Civic Dialogue in an Age of Uncivil Discourse addresses an urgent challenge-to help students learn the skills of civic engagement-by offering a framework for authentic cosmopolitan education. As an invitation to ongoing civil dialogue with diverse voices in the classroom, the book aims to foster the skills of democratic and global citizenship that allow students to find their voice as local, national, and global citizens outside of the classroom. It suggests practical ways that teachers can promote (...) the skills of attentive listening, intelligent questioning, reasonable positioning, and responsible dialogue in order to encourage authentic civic discourse. It also outlines specific pedagogical strategies designed to foster students' cosmopolitan competencies as democratic and global citizens. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the classical Confucian approach to sincerity (cheng 誠) as a political virtue of the governing and a civic virtue of the governed. For Confucian thinkers, sincerity thus understood shapes both the rulers and the ruled in terms of the common good, and guarantees the stability of a just political system. It is shown that for Confucius and the Zuo Commentary one of the key political and civic virtues was reliability (trustworthiness, xin), which later came to (...) be viewed as rooted in an inner virtue of sincerity, described by Mencius as natural, inherently moral, and social. The relation between moral and civic/political sincerity was then examined in the Great Learning and the philosophy of Xunzi. Their ideas were complemented in the later imperial period in the Essentials of Governance with a discussion of the connection between political sincerity and the virtue of loyalty (zhong). (shrink)

Can civic engagement rescue the humanities from a prolonged identity crisis? How can the practices and methods, the conventions and innovations of humanities teaching and scholarship yield knowledge that contributes to the public good? These are just two of the vexing questions David D. Cooper tackles in his essays on the humanities, literacy, and public life. As insightful as they are provocative, these essays address important issues head-on and raise questions about the relevance and roles of humanities teaching and (...) scholarship, the moral footings and public purposes of the humanities, engaged teaching practices, institutional and disciplinary reform, academic professionalism, and public scholarship in a democracy. Destined to stir discussion about the purposes of the humanities and the problems we face during an era of declining institutional support, public alienation and misunderstanding, student ambivalence, and diminishing resources, the questions Cooper raises in this book are uncomfortable and, in his view, necessary for reflection, renewal, and reform. With frank, deft assessments, Cooper reports on active learning initiatives that reenergized his own teaching life while reshaping the teaching mission of the humanities, including service learning, collaborative learning, the learning community movement, and student-centered and deliberative pedagogy. (shrink)

An influential view of education is that it prepares young people for adult life, usually in the areas of civic engagement, leisure and contemplation. Employment may be a locus for learning some worthwhile skills and knowledge, but it is not itself the possible locus or one of the possible loci of a worthwhile life. This article disputes that view by drawing attention to those aspects of employment that make it potentially an aspect of a worthwhile life. The exercise (...) and development of one's abilities, co-operation with others, self-discovery and the pursuit of excellence are all identified as potential components of a worthwhile life. If such an aspect of life is worth striving for then education should prepare one for it. Objections to this argument are reviewed and ultimately rejected. (shrink)

In an address entitled "Democracy and Liberal Education" delivered in 1887, Edward Everett Hale attacked the then President of Princeton University, the distinguished Scottish philosopher James McCosh for his remarks in a lecture to the Exeter Academy. Hale argued, in effect, that McCosh was ultimately "un-American" in his pedagogical purposes. The issues which Hale goes on to address, and the arguments to which he gives vent, show clearly the battle lines as far as liberal education in America was concerned. Hale (...) says that McCosh "encourages the students...to supply our lack of a political body of noblemen by an aristocracy founded on letters and learning." In doing so, Hale explains, McCosh is drawing on analogies "as old as Plato." "They are analogies which come most naturally to a man trained among well-defined classes in social order. But they ought not to be long sustained among people who have been trained in the social order of a democratic republic." For Hale the idea liberal education has no "elitist" or exclusivist overtones. Liberal education does not seek "to make any class of scholars." Indeed, "a true republic expects, in the end, to give a liberal education to all its people...the republic regards a liberal education not as the good fortune of a governing class, but as the privilege, if you please, the necessity of all." When we turn to the man who was the springboard of some of Hale's remarks on education we see that McCosh's concern is whether "America has arrived at a stage at which there is a body of men and women who have leisure and taste to cultivate the liberal arts and advance the higher forms of civilization." But it should be observed that, despite their basic differences of concern and approach, both Hale and McCosh believed that there was such a thing as the truth, that God or the Divine was the ultimate phenomenon for human beings, and that belief in these things helped sustain the good that was liberal society. By recalling the arguments of such men we are provided with a picture which contrasts with the debate between "town and gown" in our own day. If there is still some of Hale's moral seriousness about citizenship in "town" it seems hard to allow there is much of McCosh's moral seriousness about the task of philosophy in the realm of the "gown." To say the least, both civic and intellectual seriousness has declined since Hale and McCosh's time. That is why the kind of discussion in which they engaged should be interesting to us today. It allows us to track both the origins of our condition and the path we have come. The study of American educators such as these can be great value as we face the crisis of education and liberal society of our time. (shrink)

In this essay, we describe a form of civic engagement for ethics classes in which students identify a community problem and devise a project to address that need. Like traditional service learning, our civic engagement project improves critical thinking and expressive philosophical skills. It is especially effective in meeting pedagogical goals of engaging and expanding student agency and independence while connecting class materials with individual students’ interests. The project can be adapted to a variety of ethics classes (...) and institutional settings. We demonstrate its effectiveness by examining student projects and class evaluations, as well as reporting our own observations, with emphasis on the skills that students develop. We also address details of implementation and answers to theoretical and practical objections. Although students often find this project challenging, they also see it as deeply rewarding; they have been impressed with their own performance and the skills they develop. (shrink)

Democracies are calling on schools to respond to a rise in extremist ideologies and actions. In this article Sigal Ben-Porath situates the rise in extremism within the broader context of political polarization. She suggests that the latter is a more appropriate target for school intervention than the former. She further suggests that addressing polarization can result in a reduction in extremism, and that polarization can be addressed by refocusing the use of existing teaching and learning tools, rather than by (...) instituting new forms of intervention such as the Prevent strategy used in the UK. Tackling polarization through media literacy and the development of democratic habits can help rectify false beliefs, which contribute both to broad political polarization and to individuals' slide toward extremism. Focusing on strengthening knowledge as well as social ties can fortify individuals' and communities' resilience against extremism, as well as build bridges and connect people to a sense of shared fate across political divides. These practices are more effective and more justified than targeting individual students who are suspected of holding radical beliefs. (shrink)

This semester-long research project examined the use of social studies trade books to thematically teach about six individuals who served as change agents in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Three of the individuals were African American men, Robert Smalls, Frederick Douglass, and John Roy Lynch, who took civic action to address racial discrimination faced by the Black community in the half century following the U.S. Civil War. The other three indivduals were women (...) women, Ida B. Wells, Clara Lemlich, and Jane Addams, who challenged social inequities and injustices within their communities. Over the course of the semester-long research project, sixth-grade U.S. history students read selected trade books, examined primary sources, completed graphic organizers, and crafted writing assessments about each of the six individuals. Students demonstrated complex historical thinking, integrated economic and civic thinking, and communicated thematic ideas of systemic oppression of minorities, women, and the poor. They struggled to make connections between examples of historic oppression and contemporary examples of societal oppression. (shrink)

As an aspect of civic humanism, the liberal arts comprehended the skills necessary to realize the common good of free citizens within a free society, the mental habits basic to citizenship as preached and taught in the classical, medieval, and Renaissance worlds. The liberal arts formed people with the virtues proper to civic life. The Church has never been quiet about these issues. In every age Christians have addressed themselves to what the human animal is that such a (...) being can be trained in civic virtue, and how this can best be done, why Christians should care, and what Faith has to say on such matters as profane learning. This book's essays explore how the various Christian Traditions have taken up the question of liberal learning by setting it within the context of their own peculiar idioms and histories."--from back book cover. (shrink)

This volume offers a crucial resource for those interested and involved in linking schools and higher education with communities to foster justice-oriented curriculum and instruction. Noted scholars explore the connections, limits, and possibilities between service-learning and social justice education. Exemplary models, unexpected hurdles, and synthesis of justice-oriented research are some of the important topics explored. This is a critical addition to the literature for teachers, teacher educators, and scholars committed to community-based teaching and learning that truly grapples with (...) and engages issues of diversity, democracy, and civic activism. (shrink)