The New Golden Age: Citizenship Education and the Liberal Arts

Professors, pundits, politicians, and (college) presidents often insist that schools, including colleges, should produce better citizens. But that well-meaning insistence may be led by fuzzy thinking. Too often, proponents of civic or citizenship education do not think through very clearly what they mean by “civic” or “citizenship,” nor reflect adequately on what education can and should actually “produce.” In this short talk Professor Berger will try to clarify our concepts, thinking with and against conflicting commentators such as Martha Nussbaum and Stanley Fish. When we understand citizenship as a broad and evolving concept, we see that it resides not just in a few departments but across the liberal arts curriculum: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. And when we understand higher education as equipping students with capacities and capabilities rather than “producing” some known end -- whether virtuous citizens or productive businesspeople -- we see that the liberal arts could (with our active stewardship) preside over citizenship education in far more meaningful ways than ever before