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Reveals the possibilities and challenges of civic education in circumstances of extreme polarization, and how civic learning and political divisiveness can interact and influence each other
As fears about polarization—and its contribution to democratic crisis and corrosion—rise, many people have posited civic education as a possible remedy. In a time of increasing political polarization, what should the goals of civic education be, and how should they be implemented? In the latest installment of the NOMOS series, Eric Beerbohm and Elizabeth Beaumont bring together a distinguished group of interdisciplinary scholars across philosophy, politics, and law, inviting us to think deeply about the complex promises and pitfalls of civic education.
Contributors raise a variety of crucial considerations not only about how to educate citizens in a polarized era but also for a polarized era. What types of civic learning hold promise for preparing students to navigate their way through a political landscape of escalating hostile factions, distrust, truth decay, and disagreement about basic facts? Could or should civic education attempt to reduce or counteract polarization, or should it focus on other aims?
Beaumont and Beerbohm show us that the dynamics and circumstances of polarization do not stop at the schoolhouse gates, but bring new urgency together with added pressures and constraints to all civic education. As political polarization continues to intensify across the globe, this riveting volume illuminates the significance, the possibilities, and the challenges of civic education in the contemporary era.
Elizabeth Beaumont is Associate Professor of Politics and Legal Studies at University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of The Civic Constitution: Civic Visions and Struggles in the Path Toward Constitutional Democracy and the co-author of Educating for Democracy and Educating Citizens.
Eric Beerbohm (Editor)
Eric Beerbohm is the Alfred and Rebecca Lin Professor of Government and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also the Faculty Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. He is the author of In Our Name: The Ethics of Democracy and co-editor of three NOMOS volumes for the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy: Civic Education in Polarized Times, Reconciliation and Repair, and Policing. Beerbohm received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.