Community College Civic Education and Hannah Arendt

ABSTRACT

In 1947, the Truman Commission recommended that American colleges and universities recommit themselves to civic education. Community colleges accepted this responsibility and today they offer a wide range of programs and activities designed to educate students and prepare them for the life of an engaged citizen. Still, overall, the data show that Americans are disengaged, especially when compared to their counterparts in other nations. Some have argued the nation is suffering from a civic malaise. In this article we discuss Hannah Arendt’s notion of worldliness and explain why and how it might be used to strengthen community college civic education. We close by identifying four Arendtian insights that might be used to enhance community college civic education and then we use these as the basis for recommendations for practice and research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).