To enact democracy, which is to live in communication with difference, requires a formative process that involves an education of the whole person for and through civic life. Drawing on Charles Mills's theory of "Herrenvolk" ethics and Jonathan Lear's analysis of psychosocial lapses that ail us, Sheron Fraser-Burgess and Chris Higgins…

How should Deweyan educators teach their students about engaging in efforts to bring about social change in a political context marked by polarization, power differentials, and oppression? In this article, Joshua Forstenzer argues that Deweyan educators must encourage their students to engage in pluralistic and creative experiments rather than…

In this article, James Joshua Coleman and Jon Wargo interrogate the (queer) child as a concept and specter that haunts civic life in the United States. Whereas scholars across a range of fields and standpoints have questioned the value of LGBTQ+ inclusion in public school curricula, and society more broadly, together Coleman and Wargo wonder at…

Recent calls by legislators to exclude "divisive concepts" and histories from our curricula pose a challenge to the development of students' epistemic responsibility and agency in classrooms. In this paper, Martha Perez-Mugg examines the classroom as a space for the development of epistemic responsibility, ultimately suggesting that…

Although education for intellectual virtues, including the virtue of intellectual humility, has received increasing attention in recent years, less focus has been devoted to specific obstacles that can inhibit the cultivation of intellectual virtue. In this article, Kirsten Welch presents one such impediment to the development of intellectual…

In this paper, Caitlin Murphy Brust and Hannah Widmaier begin with the assumption that highly selective institutions of higher education in the United States have a duty to promote civic equality. They employ Wendy Salkin's theory of informal political representation to examine how highly selective institutions should go about promoting civic…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the importance of vaccination and public attitudes toward it firmly to the fore. However, vaccine hesitancy and refusal remain significant barriers to global uptake, with post-pandemic declines in routine immunization contributing to disease outbreaks worldwide. Research shows that education plays a vital role in…

Amid efforts to limit "divisive concepts" in educational settings, this article investigates the obstruction of a civic-focused early childhood curriculum. Joy Dangora Erickson and Winston Thompson analyze the challenges faced by a resourceful kindergarten teacher striving to uphold curriculum goals despite constraints imposed by the…

In the immediate aftermath of the November 2016 election, Mark Lilla argued in the "New York Times" that in order to win, the Democratic party would need to replace identity politics with a unifying vision of citizenship. In this essay, Derek Gottlieb and Amy Shuffelton explore Lilla's use of the two major terms -- identity and…

In light of recent political developments in Western democracies, several political commentators and theorists have argued that encouraging anger in citizens may contribute to social justice and should therefore constitute an aim of civic education. In this article, Douglas Yacek investigates these claims in depth. In doing so, he expands on…

In this article Annie Schultz argues that engaging with narratives of resistance and empowerment in literary fiction makes for an important addition to the practice of political education. She is interested, in particular, in what can be gained from the thoughtful contemplation modeled by the inner monologues of literary narrators. Many writers of…

In this essay John Fantuzzo critiques civic education's current focus on power and turns to James Baldwin's conception of love as offering an alternative approach. Fantuzzo's argument is that Baldwin's understanding of love can contribute to civic education by disclosing the significance of interpersonal solidarity between citizens, a significance…

Inspired by Orwell's chilling account of brainwashing, propaganda, and the obliteration of the lines between fiction and truth, Mordechai Gordon attempts to make sense of the phenomenon of lying in politics as a challenge to deliberative civics education. His analysis begins with a detailed consideration of the distinctions Hannah Arendt draws…

In this essay, Jennifer Morton discusses educators as central examples of agents who engage in ideal and nonideal ways of thinking. The educator, as a representative of the political community, is tasked with two aims. The first is nurturing students with the skills and knowledge they need for the world as they will find it. In pursuing this goal,…

This essay by Suzanne Rosenblith and Benjamin Bindewald is motivated by the question of how do those who value civic liberalism give the religiously orthodox a reason to engage in pluralist democratic deliberations in a manner that does not allow intolerance to undermine the foundations of liberal democracy. Introducing the idea of tolerance as…