Civic Education Through National Service: Lessons from American History

This study explores the relationship between national service and civic education through an examination of the Civilian Conservation Corps and VISTA, and how to apply lessons learned from the past to the AmeriCorps program. The author looks at citizenship from five perspectives: constitutional citizenship, critical citizenship and citizenship as patriotism, service and work. The author concludes with three lessons gleaned from the past programs to apply to the current AmeriCorps: make civic education an explicit priority, integrate the language of citizenship into existing program elements, and incorporate specific program elements to support the civic mission - carefully.