As Hungary reshapes its national youth strategy for the coming decade, with renewed attention to civics education, policymakers in the departments responsible for youth affairs and education—as well as the think tanks advising them—should look seriously to the United States. America’s semiquincentennial and the work of the America250 Civics Coalition, which includes organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, AFPI, TPUSA, and Hillsdale College, have also brought new attention to civic formation in the U.S. (Also read the National Association of Scholars’s The Road to the American Revolution).

As Luke Sheahan writes in his review of David Hein’s Teaching the Virtues, “Citizenship requires mastery of a body of knowledge necessary for self-government,” including knowledge specific to a citizen’s own “home democracy.”

In Hungary’s own home democracy, civics education remains a neglected area of youth engagement, especially for students in age groups roughly comparable to K–12 and at the university level outside legal and political science programs. American examples, therefore, offer useful guidance for rethinking Hungarian strategy and policy.

Hungary’s constitution, the Fundamental Law, obliges public institutions to protect the country’s “constitutional identity.” The Hungarian Constitutional Court has defined identity as grounded in individual freedoms—especially freedom of religion—together with separation of powers, the republican form of government, parliamentarism, legal equality, and recognition of judicial authority. For American readers, these principles will sound familiar. They are foundational not only to American constitutionalism but also to many of the strongest American civics programs. They therefore provide natural points of convergence between future Hungarian initiatives and existing American efforts to renew civic formation around constitutional principles and national traditions.

Constitutions serve somewhat different functions in Europe than they do in the U.S. In general, European constitutions establish and limit public power, promote stability, secure legitimacy, protect citizens’ rights, and foster unity and shared purpose. That final function—cultivating unity and consensus—is especially important in the context of civics. The unifying role of a constitution can also stabilize and legitimize a society’s value choices. For that reason, an American-style constitutional framing of Hungarian constitutional identity is particularly relevant.

Although the value statements of Hungary’s Fundamental Law do not command universal domestic consensus, the authority of the U.S. Constitution remains broadly unquestioned in American public life. Its durability across time makes it an especially strong foundation for civic education. American civics models built on and around the Constitution, therefore, offer useful examples for future Hungarian strategies and policies.

In the U.S., the idea that constitutional studies belong at the center of civics education gained traction in the 1960s. Beginning in the 1970s, civil-society initiatives joined the federally supported efforts already in place.

Some of the most prominent initiatives are associated with well-known public figures. Sandra Day O’Connor, a former Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, inspired the creation of the nonpartisan iCivics platform, which now reaches roughly 150,000 educators and 9 million students annually. Privately funded, it remains one of the largest K–12 civics programs in the country.

Congressman Jamie Raskin, a U.S. Representative from Maryland and former constitutional law professor, helped launch the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Program at American University Washington College of Law. The program trains law students to teach constitutional literacy in secondary schools, combining civic instruction with mentorship and practical engagement.

The CloseUp Foundation, which receives federal support for parts of its work, emphasizes experiential learning by giving students direct exposure to the institutions and sites of American constitutional history.

The Heritage Academy, housed at The Heritage Foundation and informed in part by The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, offers another example of constitution-centered civic learning. Its online format also makes participation possible for international audiences.

The Claremont Institute’s John Marshall Fellowship, a program run by a U.S. think tank focused on political philosophy and constitutionalism, provides intensive seminars on American political thought and constitutional theory, grounded in the rule of law and the principles of the American founding. Hillsdale College’s Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum, developed by a private liberal arts college known for its focus on classical education, by contrast, is aimed more directly at K–12 education and teacher training, with a strong emphasis on founding documents, civic virtue, moral formation, and the American tradition of liberty.

Using Constitution Day as its point of reference, the 917 Society promotes youth awareness of constitutional rights, respect for the Constitution, civic participation, and civic pride. It is especially well known for sending pocket Constitutions to students and supporting educational programming designed to make constitutional literacy concrete and memorable.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is another especially instructive model. Established in connection with the bicentennial of the Constitution through the 1988 Constitution Heritage Act, it presents the Constitution’s historical significance and the work of the Founders through exhibitions, educational programs, and extensive online materials. Its open-access resource hub, Constitution 101, provides a wide range of teaching tools on constitutional history and interpretation. The Center’s exhibits also show how hands-on and interactive learning can bring constitutional principles to life for younger audiences.

The James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, created by federal statute in 1986, offers yet another relevant lesson. Supported by both public appropriations and private funding, it finances graduate study in history and the social sciences with a focus on the Constitution. In other words, it invests not only in students but in the future teachers of civics.

Taken together, these examples suggest several U.S. policy priorities that could help orient future Hungarian strategy. Among them are broad-based civic education, cooperation with law schools and other higher-education institutions, experiential and debate-based learning, open access to educational materials, and more innovative approaches to funding.

At the same time, any comparison between Hungarian and American strategy must be made with important caveats.

First, in Hungary, the relevant strategy typically takes shape through a parliamentary resolution based on input from the executive bodies responsible for youth affairs and education. That resolution may later inform legislation adopted either by Parliament or by the Government. In the U.S., by contrast, strategic goals are distributed across many statutes and programs. Congress also plays a more direct role in oversight and follow-up, including the regular appropriation of funds to support implementation. The Hungarian strategy does not have similarly direct or measurable budgetary effects. This difference largely reflects the two countries’ distinct constitutional systems and state structures. Even so, Hungary can still draw useful inspiration from American solutions in this field.

In developing a new Hungarian strategy, policymakers should therefore identify the points where Hungarian and American goals overlap: comprehensive civics education, broad public access to materials, stronger youth engagement in public life, and deeper trust in public institutions. The American examples suggest that the core elements of Hungarian constitutional identity can be integrated into civics education only through a combination of theoretical instruction and practical experience.

The American tradition of Constitution Day is a particularly useful illustration. Constitution Day creates an annual point of contact between the public and the Constitution, while also opening broader discussions about civics and citizenship. It is especially valuable as a tool for engaging young people. My own participation in a 2025 Constitution Day event at the University of Dayton School of Law confirmed the value of such commemorations as platforms for interactive classroom engagement on constitutional questions.

Hungary’s thus-far unsuccessful attempt to establish a similar constitutional commemoration is an interesting parallel. The proposed “Day of the Fundamental Law,” marked on April 25, the date of the constitution’s adoption, was clearly inspired by an American model. Its original purpose was to create a recurring point of interaction between the constitutional text and the citizens subject to it. In practice, however, April 25 remains faintly observed in narrow academic circles and has produced almost no wider social impact.

A further step in this direction—one that would move beyond a symbolic commemorative day—would be the creation of a Hungarian counterpart to the National Constitution Center. Such an institution could offer a broad civic channel for understanding Hungary’s constitutional order, strengthen public identification with the value choices of the Fundamental Law, and foster civil discourse on issues that Americans, following Bruce Ackerman, might describe as belonging to the sphere of constitutional politics. It could also improve younger generations’ access to constitutional literacy and deepen their knowledge of Hungary’s constitutional traditions, principles, and institutions.

Universities and other educational institutions likewise have an important role to play. Beyond transmitting technical knowledge, they have a civic responsibility to help form citizens who understand the workings of their own home democracy.

A final caveat concerns the different structures and funding patterns of American and European civil society. In Hungary, a durable reform of civics education, especially one directed at younger generations, will succeed only if public institutions with constitutional responsibilities and access to public funding cooperate with civil-society actors as well as with public and private educational institutions. Only such cooperation can effectively protect constitutional identity through civics education.

That, ultimately, is the path toward the goal announced in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution: securing “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”