2008 APSA Teaching and Learning Track Summaries—Track Eight: Civic Engagement I

Extract

Political science has always pondered questions of civic engagement. Socrates described and defended his intimate engagement with Athens in the Apology and Aristotle argued in the Politics that it was only through engagement with the polis that humans could set forth and discuss notions of justice. Stephen Leonard (1999) and Hindy Schachter (1998) pointed out in earlier volumes of this journal that at the end of the nineteenth century the “founding fathers” of modern academic political science were motivated by ideas of improving citizens through civic education. And this has continued to be a focus for the American Political Science Association (APSA) through collaborative efforts such as the 1996 Task Force on Civic Education for the Next Century or, more recently, tracks during the association's Teaching and Learning Conference.