All Civics Are Global: Decentering the National in Civic Reasoning and Discourse

• In Event: Civic Reasoning and Discourse in a Post-Pandemic World

Abstract

If the COVID-19 pandemic has made one truth tangible, it is that the destinies of people across the world are fundamentally intertwined. Yet, with few exceptions, policies that responded to the global health crisis have remained remarkably national, even nationalistic. Moreover, the pandemic has laid bare the gross inequalities in access to resources that divide the “Global North” from the “Global South.” As we write, the vastly inequitable global distribution of vaccines —distribution based on access to financial resources rather than need—has led to the rapid spread of the Delta variant that devastated India, and has now spread across the world. This is but one example of the far-reaching impact and implications of decisions made at the national level that have deep and broad global impact.
What kind of civic education will prepare young people to recognize and address collectively the social and political challenges of global injustice and inequality of these times? The pandemic is only one example of the need to de-center the national (in this case the U.S.) in civic education, promoting civic discourse and reasoning that is transnational in scope. In our paper for the National Academy of Education’s report on Civic Discourse and Civic Reasoning, we explored the connections between the social and political contexts structuring youth experience globally and opportunities for and enactments of civic discourse and reasoning. We highlighted three interwoven aspects of context that are underexplored in the traditional research on civic education—structural inequality, migration, and conflict—to shine attention on the perspectives of young people whose civic encounters, histories, and practices may not be aligned with the content and approach of mainstream civic education. These experiences of civic disjuncture can lead to important critical perspectives on democratic practice, enriching civic discourse, reasoning and engagement.
In this AERA paper, we hone in on what it means to de-center the U.S. as the primary focus for civic education. We ask two questions:
• What would it mean to conceptualize civics as transnational, rather than local or national?
• How do we forge a civic education that centers transnational justice?

Discussions of civic education in the US (including within the NAE report itself) focus on civic knowledge, learning and engagement as nationally bound phenomena. Yet the current moment, particularly the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented displacement and movement of people across borders, reveals the limitations of a nationally bound view. In this paper we will use these phenomena to explore the possibilities of a transnational understanding of civics as the foundation for all civic learning.

Authors

• Thea R. Abu El-Haj, Barnard College

• Michelle J. Bellino, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Beth C. Rubin, Rutgers University