Civic education "means explicit and continuing study of the basic concepts and values underlying our democratic political community and constitutional order" (Butts 1988, 184). It draws its content chiefly from four disciplines: political science, jurisprudence, history, and economics. Political science and jurisprudence provide an understanding of ideas, institutions, and procedures about law and government that protect individual rights and promote a government based on law, majority rule with minority rights, and the public good. The study of history gives us knowledge of our country's past, who we are as a people, and our successes and failures in realizing our country's political and legal ideals. And economics offers knowledge about how to use scarce resources to satisfy human needs and wants within a constitutional government based on the values of democracy and individual rights. However, language education, too, makes an important contribution to civic education. (Author)