## 1. The Good Citizen: Historical Conceptions



"As far back as evidence can be found--and virtually
without exception--young adults seem to have been less attached
to civic life than their parents and
 grandparents."[2]
 That is not evidence of decline--although it is often read as
such--but 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.[3]



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



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



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



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


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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


### 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 education--a mode of strengthening their active
faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar
knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal. This
is a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial; of
free and popular local and municipal institutions; of the conduct of
industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary
associations" (1972, 179). Thus, political participation is a
form of civic education good for men and for citizens.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


### 1.5 Early Civic Education in the United States



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.[4]
 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 citizen...one who would accept the
attenuated relationship with power implied if voting and elections
were to serve as the main link between citizens and those in
 power."[5]
 Schools would be entrusted to develop this new type of citizen.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


## 2. The Good Democrat



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"
(1277a13-15). 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 (see *The
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 The State, Parents, and Children in Liberal Democracies



Several contemporary philosophers argue that citizens have a
relatively demanding role and that they can and should be educated for
it. Gutmann (1987), for example, argues that democratic
society-at-large has a significant stake in the education of its
children, for they will grow up to be democratic citizens. At the very
least, then, society has the responsibility for educating all children
for citizenship. Because democratic societies have this
responsibility, we cannot leave the education of future citizens to
the will or whim of parents. This central insight leads Gutmann to
rule out certain exclusive suzerainties of power over educational
theory and policy. Those suzerainties are of three sorts. First is
"the family state" in which all children are educated into
the sole good life identified and fortified by the state. Such
education cultivates "a level of like-mindedness and camaraderie
among citizens" that most persons find only in families (Ibid,
23). Only the state can be entrusted with the authority to mandate
and carry out an education of such magnitude that all will learn to
desire this one particular good life over all others.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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.



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.


### 2.2 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 individuals--social 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.



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.


### 2.3 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 Jurgen 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. 


### 2.4 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.


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


### 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[7]
 a willingness among our future citizens to sacrifice their
self-interests for the sake of the common good. Participation on this
view is important both to stabilize society and to enhance each
individual's human flourishing through the promotion of our
collective welfare.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


### 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?[10]
 Can idealized character types speak to all of our students and to the
variegated contexts in which they will find themselves?



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


## 4. 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.



Michael Rebell (2018) argues that both the United States Constitution
and most states' constitutional provisions regarding public
education provide support for a *right to adequate civic
education*. Specific policies should result from a deliberative
process to define the educational opportunities that all students must
receive and to select appropriate outcomes for civic education -
all overseen by a court concerned with assessing whether civic
education is constitutionally "adequate."



State standards are regulatory documents that affect the curriculum in
public schools. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have
adopted standards for civics as part of social studies (Godsay et al,
2012). The  *College, Career, and Civic Life ("C3") Framework for
Social Studies State Standards* (National Council for the Social
Studies, 2013) provides a general framework for states to use as they
design or revise these standards. It organizes civics - along
with history, geography and economics - into one "Inquiry Arc"
that extends from "Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries," to
"Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools," to "Evaluating Sources and
Evidence," to "Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action."
The Arc is presented as applicable from kindergarten through high
school, but with increasingly demanding content. The logic of moving
from question-generation to (ultimately) action suggests an implicit
theory of civic engagement.



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, 10-11,
 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 2.3, 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. 



Considerable evidence shows that moderated discussions of current,
controversial issues increase students' knowledge of civic
processes, their skills at engaging with other people, and their
interest in politics. See, e.g., Kawashima-Ginsberg and Levine
(2014). 



Hess (2009) and Hess & McAvoy (2014) argue for discussing current
controversies and explore 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?)


### 4.4 John Dewey: School as Community



John Dewey argued that, from the 18th century onward,
states came to see education as the best means of perpetuating and
recovering their political power. But "the maintenance of a
particular national sovereignty required subordination of individuals
to the superior interests of the state both in military defense and in
struggles for international supremacy in commerce...To form the
citizen, not the 'man,' became the aim of education"
(1916, 90).



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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.


### 4.5 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
deposits--that is, containers for what the teacher has deposited
in their "banks."



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


## 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-rule"--that
is, American liberal democracy--it nevertheless also
"entails a sense of responsibility to outsiders and insiders
alike...." (Ibid, 198).



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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