ABSTRACT
Among the most interesting questions to ask of democratic citizenship education is the curriculum one: What outcomes are desired, and what is the plan for reaching them? Put differently, what kind of citizens do we want schools to cultivate, and how might these organizations go about that work? The question is at once philosophical (e.g., Dewey, 1985a), historical (e.g., Crocco, 1999), cultural (Ladson-Billings, 2004), sociological (e.g., Counts, 1932), critical (Cherryholmes, 1988), and pedagogical (e.g., Banks, 1997). It is deeply contextual-particular to time, place, and circumstance-and it goes to the heart of the purposes of schooling. Instructional questions are subordinate to it, as are organizational and developmental questions. In the simultaneity of school practice, where everything happens at once, these cannot be separated neatly, of course. But they can be asked one at a time, and doing so affords a degree of clarity, avoiding what Dewey (1927, p. 83) called “the great bad.” By this he meant “the mixing of things which need to be kept distinct.”
