The Office of Citizen: What Does it Ask of Us?

In unit one, I want us to consider what is probably the most fundamental purpose of the social studies: good citizenship.

Few people would argue with the idea that the social studies is about citizenship. For example, the Michigan standards for social studies include this image:

It would seem to imply that the overarching goal of all instruction in the social studies is citizenship. Clearly, it's what we are paid to do! (For an interesting dissenting view, see this article by Grant and Vansledright on the "dubious connection" between social studies and citizenship.)

What, then, is citizenship? And what is "good" citizenship? Getting clear about these issues--especially in an age of polarization and decreasing interest in conventional political participation--is of paramount interest.

To that end, our readings. We start with two pieces by the great American philosopher, John Dewey. Dewey is known by educators for his early work, focusing on progressive, child-centered education and its relationship to social improvement. But Dewey had largely abandoned his focus on education by the time he left the University of Chicago in 1904, turning instead to other aspects of life, such as ethics, politics, and art (among other things).

The two pieces we will read for this course come from Dewey's later years, when he was in his late 70s. During this time--with the looming threat of World War II imminent--Dewey wrote two of his most beautiful pieces. First, his book, Experience and Education, which was published by the educational honor society, Kappa Delta Pi (we will read chapters 2 and 3). Second, his short essay, "Creative Democracy," read as a speech at a party in honor of his 80th birthday.

In these two essays, Dewey challenges us--as he often does--to think of democracy not as a form of government, but as a way of life. Fundamental to this form of life is the idea of communicated, conjoint experience. The goal of all education is to enrich the common fund of experience--to ensure that the human being can go on growing. To do this requires free and equitable interaction. Through such interaction, we come to learn about the joys and sorrows of others. From such learning, social inquiry begins--inquiry that should lead us into the barriers that prevent ourselves and others from maximizing the potentials of our lives.

Jane Addams, Dewey's friend and colleague from his years at the University of Chicago, put this succinctly when she said that democracy is a great journey, where “going forward . . . in the heat and jostle of the crowd,” “we drink at the great wells of human experience,” as we mix “on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another” and “see the size of one another’s burdens.”

I hope you will spend some time with Dewey, and looking deeply at the assigned selections, come to grasp something about his notion of citizenship, a citizenship that is akin to worthy belonging, and see its relationship to education, experience, growth, and democracy.

The other three readings in this unit take up these Deweyan notions of citizenship, and apply them to the field of education in differing ways. First, in this classic piece by Westheimer and Kahne, we dig deep underneath the notion of the "good citizen," and explore how this is defined and operationalized by educators. Second, in the famous IEA study of civic education across the globe, we consider what factors actually increase the likelihood that children will grow up to be civically engaged (we will read chapter 8).* Finally, a more recent piece by Payne uses the examples from the lives of young children to question when and where citizenship actually occurs. 

I hope you find this first unit illuminating. I look forward to reading your thoughts!

* I share with you findings from the 1999 CIVED study. There have been subsequent rounds of data collection and interpretation, in 2009 and 2016. Unfortunately, the United States did not participate in these latter rounds of data collection (despite the generally positive results of the 1999 cycle). To see the most recent report from the IEA on civic education, including issues of social media's impact on civic engagement, go to: https://iccs.iea.nl/home.html.