HGSE in Costa Rica to Explore Civic Education

On August 18 and 19 in San Jose, Costa Rica, the Harvard Graduate School of Education will cosponsor a conference to explore best practices in civic education in the United States and Latin America. "Education and the Civic Purposes of Schools" will bring together an international array of academics and policymakers to evaluate theoretical approaches and to compare specific experiences in strengthening the values and skills that enable participation in democratic societies. The conference is being cosponsored by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, with support from Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Academy for Educational Development, and the Costa Rica-United States Foundation.

"The papers that will be discussed at this conference present path-breaking original research and theoretical perspectives. The colleagues convened at this conference are at the forefront of applied and scholarly work in the area of civic education," says Ford Foundation Professor Fernando Reimers, director of the Ed School's International Education Policy Program. "This is a unique opportunity for transnational dialogue to make real progress in the task of advancing the intellectual foundations to educate the children in this hemisphere to be knowledgeable, engaged, and caring citizens."

Among the participants at the two-day conference will be representatives of the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, England, and Colombia.

"This is an unprecedented meeting of scholars and practitioners from North America and Latin America," says Professor Julie Reuben, who will present a historical overview of citizenship and public education in the United States. "Together we will examine ways to better use education to strengthen democracy across the hemisphere, and to move beyond narrow nationalistic notions of citizenship and encourage more inclusive global ones."

Organizers hope that this gathering of scholars and policymakers from across the Americas will serve two purposes: raise awareness of the need for civic education in the region, and result in a generation of research and experiences that strengthen the practice of citizenship. They maintain that civic education across the Americas has been found to sustain democracy by encouraging participation and imparting knowledge, values, and attitudes.

Reimers, who will be presenting a study on the civic education gap of immigrants and Latinos in the United States, notes that the conference should be seen as the beginning of a process, not the conclusion. "We hope that this gathering will be the first step in a journey to continue broadening the purposes of schools so they help all children develop the skills that really matter to deepen democracy in the Americas."