Civic Education and Liberal Democracy

Abstract

In terms of normative formation of populations, public education is a powerful but not neutral place of instruction. Nor is it (contrary to com- mon assumptions and affirmative political rhetoric) a particularly suscep- tible domain for successful policy dissemination and identity proliferation by states and stakeholders. Those in control of public comprehensive education are always eager to invest it with instruction on certain specific political–moral–ideological worldviews and good life frameworks, but the direction and content of this instruction rarely unfold in predictable patterns or in keeping with directives. Nor are the directives themselves typically very crisp or coherent. Still, throughout Europe, the politics of normative (which in this study mainly equals civic, religious, and ethical normative identity fostering) education clearly hinges on the ideas that nation-state governments are consolidated political entities, that direc- tives are unequivocal, and adequate civic–normative teaching thus read- ied for conveyance to pupils, that is, citizens-to-be.