Possibly brought up in public (5)
I believe the answer is:
civic
'public' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
I cannot understand how the remainder of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for civic that I've seen before include "Numbers of Romans" , "concerned with town administration" , "This centre of town" , "Relating to a city or town" , "Relating to a town/city" .)