Law as Civic Education

<p>If a civic education is the essential foundation for a functioning discursive democracy how should it be taught? This book offers an innovative solution arguing that far from abandoning the often- grand promise of civic education as a means of cultivating reasoning skills and democratic character we should embrace it and proposes a reimagined civic education based on teaching students in primary and secondary school law and legal reasoning.</p><p>Drawing on a range of theoretical disciplines— law philosophy ethics sociology psychology and moral educational and child development theory— this monograph justifies the benefits of law learning as a form of character and civic education and offers historical and comparative educational examples to show what is possible. It demonstrates how legal teaching can be incorporated into a K- 12 curriculum and argues that such training can be transformative guiding students to become citizens capable of meeting the demands of democracy: citizens with stronger reasoning skills a motivation to self- examine their values and beliefs and bring them into conversation with social values and an ability to effectively navigate political institutions and participate in public discourse.</p><p>This compelling and deeply original work will be of interest to scholars and educators in the fields of civic education character and virtue education legal studies and philosophy of education.</p>