We often speak of the civic purpose of education as though it were something inherited, unchanging from generation to generation, its content permanent and impervious to social change. In reality, however, the civic purpose of education has to be redefined whenever people develop new forms of technology, or new institutions, or when they alter the relationships among existing ones.Although we seek completion and wish to use each new consensus on civic purpose with confidence that it is a settled matter, we have to understand that it is the process of creating consensus that can strengthen or can undermine a democratic society. According to Ann Higgins (1983) a person's moral judgment matures as he or she is encouraged to participate in moral decision-making. Hence, the broader the community that discusses the civic purpose of education, the broader will be the community that understands the moral issues involved in reaching consensus. Every consensus is temporary. Perpetuation of the process for reaching it is what strengthens our democratic institutions.We have been accustomed to defining the civic purpose of education in terms of instr'tutions that currentlu exi,st, as though thEy are bound to continue into the future. We prepare young people for their life work as if they will be able to continue at the same activity throughout their lives.Today, as reported by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1983), &dquo;the world has changed -irrevocably so -and quality education in the 1980s and beyond means preparing all students for the transformed world the coming generation will inherit&dquo; (p. 6). New technologies have the potential to shatter many of our institutions. The postal system, with its honeycomb of town post offices, may soon be replaced by electronic mail. Office buildings may be abandoned as workers, using computers, return to working in their homes. Airports, and the airlines which use them, may fall into disuse as people in business and industry &dquo;meet together&dquo; in video conferences and computer networks. Schools and colleges Bur.rtyn i.r a Professor of Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education and Director of IKbmen 'J Studies at Rutger.r, the State University of New Jer.rey. may serve merely as places where members of learning networks, completing their lessons in their homes, occasionally meet together. Supermarkets may change into huge warehouses for storing and assembling food ordered by customers through their home computers. Many of those jobs which remain in factories and mines may be performed by robots not humans. No longer needed in the workforce, millions of people may have to occupy themselves in new ways, using new societal institutions.At the same time, we live in a world threatened by nuclear destruction, by new forms of air and water pollution, and by changes in the structure of living organisms through genetic engineering. These are issues that affect not only individuals, but local, state, and national governments, small companies, internatio...
