The aim of the National Academy of Education (NAEd) Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse report is to better prepare students to examine and discuss complex civic, political, and social issues by ensuring that the curricula, pedagogy, and learning environments that they experience are informed by the best available evidence and practice. This includes identifying opportunities to learn from well-established areas of interdisciplinary research on human learning and development, as well as current exemplars of instruction.

Under the direction of an expert steering committee of researchers and other leaders in civic learning and student engagement, working panels each examined a specific theme, including: (1) philosophical foundations and moral reasoning; (2) learning sciences and human development (covering cognition and its relationship to identity, development across the life course, and implicit bias); (3) history of education for democratic citizenship; (4) agency and resilience in the face of challenge as civic action: lessons learned from across ethnic communities; (5) ecological contexts; (6) learning environment, school climate, and other supports for civic engagement; (7) digital literacy and the health of democratic practice; (8) pedagogical practices and how teachers learn.

The report concludes with an extensive set of recommendations for practice, policy, and further research, which were carefully developed by the steering committee and reflect a synthesis of the chapters in this report. These recommendations were also developed with insights from key stakeholders and educators who participated in public forums and provided invited comments.