Democracy Rising 25: Young Children as Classroom Citizens

All of the participating teachers agreed that their understanding of citizenship changed from one that emphasized following rules and helping others to one that fostered student engagement in making decisions together about shared problems in the classroom community and beyond.

Instituting liberty: Contested, changing, conflicted definitions

The definition of freedom and liberty is always contested (at any given moment, people within a society disagree); always changing (over time, societies’ understandings will shift); and always conflicted (we struggle because there are no simple policies to maximize liberty).