Being in Community with Children and Engaging Their Full Range of Civic Capabilities. A Response to "Learning to Talk and Listen in Elementary Social Studies: Exploring a Third-Grade Teacher’s Decision to Use Classroom Talk for Community Building"

Early childhood social studies should open opportunities for children to make sense of their social world; the civic question of how we live together is central to the social world. Elementary classrooms are uniquely positioned to support democratic civic education given the amount of time children and adults spend together, the emphasis placed on cultivating a positive classroom community, and children’s capabilities to cultivate relationships full of care and concern for people from outside their close familial relations. In response to Lo’s (2025) examination of a third-grade teacher’s use of discussion to engage in contentious topics while cultivating a sense of mutual concern within her classroom community, I consider how we engage the full range of young children’s civic capabilities and the role of the teacher within the classroom community.