Using Civic Participation and Civic Reasoning to Shape Our Future and Education (Background Paper for the Futures of Education Initiative)

Actualizing a preferred future relies on citizens who are prepared to effectively engage perhaps the most fundamental civic question: ‘What should we do?’ (Levine, 2016; Dishon & Ben-Porath, 2018). It is a question that arises when people face a problem, must reach a decision, or must figure out how to flourish together as a group. This question is closely tied to the key question posed by the International Commission on the Futures of Education: ‘What do we want to become?’ Engaging both questions is a useful way for us to envision education in the future. These questions push us to consider not only what we merely can do, but also what is right for us to do in light of our responsibilities to others.

Civic reasoning is the sort of reasoning we do as we answer the question, ‘What should we do?’ Civic discourse is a means or method by which people engage in civic reasoning. Efforts to envision improved education and futures should foreground civic reasoning and discourse as both a means and ends of citizen participation. They are important for the ways in which they directly engage citizens and for their products, which lead to future civic action and better futures.