Fractured Education Forges Fractured Citizens. A Theoretical Approach to the Competing Pedagogies of Civic Formation

Abstract

This article attempts to describe a theoretical problem from a less definitive and more brainstorming-oriented perspective. The theoretical problem it engages can be posed as a question: Why do investments in formal civic education seem to have little effect on the actual health of a community or even the polis? The straightforward argument is that school, in its formal outline, is not, and it was never the primary forge where the citizen is trained. The influence of formal education can be overestimated, sometimes to a greater extent than it should be, whereas its power is entirely contingent on a much larger, more powerful pedagogical ecosystem that also contains the community and the family. The article does not aim to devalue formal education, but rather to describe ways of integrating the pedagogical ecosystem into the forging of citizens within this formal educational system. The article proposes a brainstorming format, where questions abound, making the interaction more direct but significantly shorter. In this case, the bibliographical sources informed the ideas presented here rather than supporting them.