ABSTRACT
Civic education is currently a field of vibrant research and practice that is producing significant pedagogical innovation. However, it is a contested field with intense discussions about its goals and what teaching and learning processes should be privileged. These discussions reflect a transition from “traditional” models of civic education to “new civics” that considerably extends the definitions of civic participation and the purposes of civic education. Underlying this transition is a basic tension between pedagogy that emphasizes the acquisition of knowledge through teacher instruction and pedagogy that emphasizes praxis, interaction with tools, objects, experiences, and people as the means to gain understanding. The former implies a “top-down” model, the latter, a more “bottom-up” model. In civic education they parallel a tension between seeing the purpose of civic education as increasing knowledge primarily about the nation’s political institutions and history, and the purpose being to develop understanding, skills, agency, and motivation through hands-on experiences with civic issues and actions.
