If schools are to prepare students to participate more productively in civic life, schools will need to ensure that they have opportunities to practice the skills of civic reasoning, argues Carol Lee. Yet schools are challenged by the limits in the curriculum and the difficulty of addressing the different types of prior knowledge that students…

Civic education began wandering in the curricular wilderness in the 1960s, when Vietnam and then Watergate brought disenchantment, rebellion, experimentation, a loss of faith in traditional institutions and traditional leaders, the breakup of consensus, the weakening of the core culture and ultimately the erosion of curricular requirements in…