Good Citizens and Community Service: AmeriCorps and the Democratic Management of Inequality

• In Event: Capitalism, Knowledge, and Democracy

Abstract

In recent decades, community service has assumed a privileged place in the progressive theorization of pedagogy, citizenship education, and democratic learning. At the core of these educational innovations is the assertion of a necessarily progressive learning relationship between participation in civil society and democratic learning. This assertion is shared by the American federal government and institutionalized in the Corporation for National and Community Service, which operates AmeriCorps, among other national service programs. This paper theorizes from the findings of an institutional ethnography on the organization of civic engagement and democratic learning within the AmeriCorps State program. Drawing from a theoretical framework of Marxist-feminism, this paper explores the implications of the politics of citizenship promoted through the AmeriCorps program.

Author

• Sara Carpenter, OISE/University of Toronto