Meira Levinson argues for a robust civics education that models the practices of good citizenship. One of the elements of that civics education is teaching students how to take up the perspectives of others. The question arises: how do we teach students and citizens alike to take up the perspectives of others? Here I argue that we can make sense of perspective-taking by appealing to Rawls’s notion of public reason as an ideal. I conclude by arguing that a commitment to the ideal of public reason can help identify and resist oppression and marginalization.

Meira Levinson’s No Citizen Left Behind addresses how the unequal distribution of economic, cultural, and political power along socioeconomic and racial lines affects civic engagement and democratic participation. In order to address this gap, Levinson develops a critical pedagogy that encourages teachers and students to recognize the ways that identity and ideology are intertwined. After briefly reviewing some of the considerations that frame her book, I suggest that her account of an engaged civic pedagogy could be further strengthened by considering how non-traditional forms of protest make possible new forms of solidarity.