Teaching Civic Attention to Citizens and Non-Citizens: Addressing the Marginalization of Immigrants in the United States through Civic Education.

This essay attempts to provide an affirmative answer to three key questions: Is there a place for "global citizenship" in the political life of the United States? Can we improve our standards of political justice to include a greater voice among non-citizens, specifically immigrants and even more specifically as pertains to the issues of immigration? Can we contribute to this gesture in the direction of global citizenship through programs of non-partisan civic education?In answering these questions, the paper attempts five things: First, we adumbrate a model of good citizenship. Second we show that the model of citizenship can accommodate non-citizens. Third, we identify the major barrier to recognizing non-citizens - civic marginalization. Fourth, we suggest teaching and learning strategies centering on civic hermeneutics and civic staging that promise to yield accommodation. Finally, we ask how a program of civic education using these techniques might include acceptable strategies of assessment.Good liberal citizenship in the United States is liberal citizenship. There are five components of liberal citizenship: rights, interests, affections, duties and virtues. Effective citizenship requires the ability to be seen and heard in public. Good citizenship requires us to pay close attention to those who are unjustly excluded or consigned to second-class citizenship. The main challenge to this civic attention concerns our ability to pay attention to one another and get attention under conditions of diversity. Coming from a variety of backgrounds including class, sex, gender, ethnicity, religion, race and ideology makes it difficult for us to communicate effectively and respectfully.Learning how to teach respectful and effective civic communication between citizens and noncitizens when addressing the issue of immigration is at the heart of this paper. This civic learning must include recognition of the essential tension between the civic and the human. The authors invite readers to try the pedagogy of the excluded as presented here and explore the possibilities of informal citizenship in the United States and elsewhere. Informal citizens have rights and interests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]