Law Learning for a Shared Civic Life

This book argues that learning law promises a path toward a better character and civic education where students engage in critical dialogue, cultivate key civic skills, and nurture a greater awareness of their own values in a classroom devoted to inclusive and comprehensive roundtable discussion. The argument is set as an approach against a current context of apathy on one hand and radicalization and extremism on the other. A law education, reconceived for primary and secondary schools, meets existing civic competencies and ensures classroom environments where civic virtues can flourish—environments that are inclusive, reflective, contentious, creative. It is in an intervention in favor of cultivating democratic resilience, arguing that citizens emboldened to understand law and legal conversation are better empowered to uphold the rule of law and our democratic institutions.