The Annals

This special issue features frontiers of scholarship in the political, social, and behavioral sciences that are advancing civic education. The volume begins with an analysis of recent efforts to create a shared agenda for civic learning against a backdrop of politicization in education. Additional articles provide theoretical and empirical support for the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for students to become engaged civic actors and problem-solvers; other contributions offer illustrations of civic learning in action. A cross-cutting theme is the role of environments and cultural contexts that can help ensure meaningful student learning in the United States’ multi-ethnic democracy. The volume concludes with recommendations for research, policy, and practice that advance a type of civic education that can invigorate and preserve our democratic traditions and prepare students to address the political, socioeconomic, and ecological challenges that loom ever larger on the horizon.

In an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 20, 1950, President Truman declared that it was necessary for us to “make ourselves heard round the world in a great campaign of truth.” Calling attention to the vital importance of the psychological front in the present battle for world friendship, the President noted that the task of presenting the truth “to the millions who are uninformed or misinformed or unconvinced… is not separate and distinct from other elements of our foreign policy. It is as important as armed strength or economic aid.  ‘We must,’ he said, ‘pool our efforts with those of the other free peoples in a sustained, intensified program to promote the cause of freedom against the propaganda of slavery.'”