What role can civic education play in polarized times? That is the pressing question posed by Civic Education in Polarized Times, edited by Elizabeth Beaumont and Eric Beerbohm.1 As Beaumont’s introduction explains, “as political polarization has intensified across the world, civic education seems more urgent, but it has also become more challenging.” (P. 1.) The volume brings together an eminent group of education scholars, legal scholars, political theorists, and philosophers to consider challenging questions about how to carry out civic education “in a polarized era” and “for a polarized era.” (P. 2.)
The first set of questions includes the impact of polarization on efforts to teach civic education when “schools, administrators, teachers, parents, and teachers are also operating in a divided world.” (P. 2.) Questions about how to prepare students for a polarized world include determining the aims of civic education amidst hyperpolarization, what types of “civic learning” hold the greatest promise to help students prepare to navigate their way in the current political landscape, and whether civic education should seek to “reduce or counteract polarization.” (P. 2.) Continue reading “Meeting the Challenge of Civic Education in Hyperpolarized Times”
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