2008 APSA Teaching and Learning Track Summaries—Track Eight: Civic EngagementI

Extract

Political science has always pondered questions of civic engagement. Socrates describedand defended his intimate engagement with Athens in the Apology andAristotle argued in the Politics that it was only through engagement withthe 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 ofthe nineteenth century the “founding fathers” of modern academic political science weremotivated by ideas of improving citizens through civic education. And this has continued tobe a focus for the American Political Science Association (APSA) through collaborativeefforts such as the 1996 Task Force on Civic Education for the Next Century or, morerecently, tracks during the association's Teaching and Learning Conference.