The school as a civic institution

In this chapter, we think broadly about schools as civic institutions, and teachers as members of those institutions, and thus conceive of teachers as civic actors in their own right. On this view, we can see teachers’ engagement with colleagues, students and parents as part of the civic life of their communities. This chapter draws together disparate examples of action through the lenses of community organising, experiential learning and a responsive curriculum to present a vision of schools as ‘anchor’ institutions in their communities, playing a vital civic role and, as a consequence, generating a host of opportunities for learning politics across the whole community. In many local areas, schools may well be the biggest single institution having an impact on the local economy, environment, community safety and civic life. This is not, of course, what schools are primarily for, but it is an inevitable consequence of schools existing, and we offer some suggestions for how this broader community role can be better integrated with the school’s core educational mission.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Society, Politics, and Education in Uncertain Times: Rethinking Citizenship and Belonging in International Contexts on September 4, 2025, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781032658247
It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.