Civic Education

The term civic education has two distinct but related meanings in U.S. society. It refers narrowly to a specific subject within the social studies, one concerned with teaching the institutions of government, the law, and the U.S. Constitution. More broadly, civic education was both one of the primary justifications for establishing common (or public) schools, as well as the overarching purpose that those schools were intended to achieve. This broader purpose has over time involved the development of individual character and good citizenship, the analysis of society and its reform, and the promotion of a strong work ethic and celebration of free enterprise. Both the narrow and broad conceptions of civic education concern the individual's attainment of the political status of citizen and the national maintenance of a democratic political system. Civic education is directed both toward children in the public schools and toward adult immigrants who seek citizenship. Finally, civic education takes place through classroom study and extracurricular activity, particularly community engagement and participation. Various approaches to civic education have been the focus of educational reform and dissent since the birth of the republic.

Civic education, as perhaps the most ideological subject in any country's curriculum, marks the boundary between what is broadly acceptable to society and what is not. Efforts to reform civic education and to make the category of “citizen” more inclusive (e.g., of African Americans, of women, of immigrants) reflect broader societal debates about the nature of American society, the limits of freedom, and the very legitimacy and preservation of American political institutions. Throughout American history, civic education has functioned [Page 160]as an arena for conflict over the changing nature of society, and prominent officials and thinkers have advanced their ideas and dissented from popular views through debates over the subject, what it should include, and how it ought to be taught. It has been linked to debates over voting, inclusion, religion, industry, freedom, environmentalism, consumerism, and patriotism. In recent decades, civic education has become a tool of foreign policy, a means of promoting American interests around the world.

Civic education spans the inculcation of cognitive or academic elements, such as skills and knowledge—as well as emotional or affective qualities, including values and dispositions. These elements align roughly with the two leading imperatives of civic education: nation building and state building. A sense of national identity and belonging is not intrinsic but learned. The nation-building function of civic education strives to create a strong sense of affiliation among people who share the same language, culture, ethnicity, or religion. Developing nationalism often involves rituals, symbols, language, and patriotism. The Pledge of Allegiance is an example. Generating support for the state—the institutions of government responsible for internal affairs and foreign policy—requires knowledge of these institutions, their arrangement and functions, and the rights and duties of citizenship. Such knowledge may be transmitted through traditional classroom instruction.

The next section of this entry explores the views on civic education of prominent educational figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, and Horace Mann and runs through the beginning of the Progressive era. The following section discusses the National Education Association's formation of the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education in 1912. It institutionalized civic education as it is typically known in the United States today.

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