Good citizens should participate in a national conversation and reflect collectively upon the content and character of their shared national identity. But how are they to arrive at the point of such deliberation? In a liberal polity, the motives of good citizens should arise freely; virtue cannot be the product of state coercion or indoctrination. Nonetheless, a liberal nationalist conception of civic virtue seems to imply some project of institutional design. The state's institutions and practices need to be structured so as to cultivate civic virtue among its citizens. The most obvious realm is that of education. As one scholar observes, ‘“education” is the word that dare not speak its name, lest the entire project of liberal nationalism come crashing down’ (M. Levinson 1995, p. 635). We cannot assume that citizens will fulfil their responsibilities as a matter of course. Good national citizens are more likely than not to be the products of just institutions and of active formation.

In this chapter I consider the task of civic education in a political community. By civic education I mean broadly what others have variously labelled ‘democratic education’ or ‘citizenship education’. This is education (i.e. schooling), mandated by the state, and aimed at developing the skills, capacities and character required for individuals to participate in the life of the political community. My interest in this chapter lies in understanding the principles behind any such attempt to produce citizens who possess the liberal nationalist virtues. This undertaking involves reconciling an interest in the social reproduction of citizens with three important values. First, there is the question of whether civic education might obstruct individual autonomy, by privileging civic conformity over critical self-direction. Second, civic education must account for how parents’ interest in raising their children according to their beliefs and way of life can be accommodated, if at all. And third, any transmission of civic virtue should be consistent with the tolerance of difference and cultural respect; civic education, particularly the content of school curricula, must not involve the oppressive assimilation of cultural minorities.