CITIZENSHIP AS SHARED FATE: EDUCATION FOR MEMBERSHIP IN A DIVERSE DEMOCRACY

The diversity of contemporary democratic nations challenges scholars and educators to develop forms of education that would both recognize difference and develop a shared foundation for a functioning democracy. In this essay Sigal Ben‐Porath develops the concept of shared fate as a theoretical and practical response to this challenge. Shared fate offers a viable alternative to current forms of citizenship education, one that develops a significant shared dimension while respecting deep differences within a political community. It is grounded in the social and moral realities of civic life, and it seeks to weave the historical, political, and social ties among members of the nation into a form of affiliation that would sustain and expand their shared political project. Some particular educational contexts are considered through the lens of shared fate, including the resegregation of some schooling systems, linguistic diversity, and patriotic education.     

MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AND EDUCATION FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP

ABSTRACT:  This paper explores concepts of multiple and nested identities and how these relate to citizenship and rights, and the implications of identities and rights for active citizenship education. Various theoretical conceptions of identity are analysed, and in particular ideas concerning multiple identities that are used contingently, and about identities that do not necessarily include feeling a strong affinity with others in the group. The argument then moves to the relationship between identity and citizenship, and particularly citizenship and rights. Citizenship is treated non-legalistically, as one of the locations of belonging. The paper draws on three successive categorisations of citizenship rights: by T.H. Marshall in the 1950s, Karel Vasak in the late 1970s and John Urry in the 1990s, and is illustrated in part by the development of European citizenship in parallel to national identity. This is then linked to how contemporary citizenship education might use the exploration of contested rights as a way of developing practical enactive skills of citizenship.     

EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP

The author looks at education debates on the enrollment increases in secondary education in Germany and France around 1900. In Germany, the theory of ‘Bildung’ was deployed against the threat of meritocratic reform, while in France educationists pleaded for a reform in the ‘spirit of the Revolution’. So the idea of modern democratic citizenship was much more explicitly a concept of French than of German reformers. The latter pleaded for ‘natural processes of social selection’ and stood against educational reform. They avoided the overtly political formulations of liberal conflict, which, in contrast, were almost habitual among French reformists.     

EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN ENGLAND

The author stresses the fact that the English educational system has perpetuated or exacerbated already existing social differences. According to him, the English school system is still denying the possibility of a true and active citizenship. Looking at the basic principles of Education Acts and reform ‘campaigns’ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and at the re‐structuring processes of English education, he states (pointing at his own work and that of Shrosbree and Allsobrook) that differentiation once and again took place along social class lines.     

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION AND CHARACTER EDUCATION: SIMILARITIES AND CONTRASTS

ABSTRACT:  We suggest that there is a need for those who seek to explore issues associated with the implementation of citizenship education in England to clarify its specific nature. This can be done, at least in part, through a process of comparison. To that end we review some of the connections and disjunctions between 'character education' and 'citizenship education'. We argue, drawing from US and UK literature but focusing our attention on contexts and issues in England, that there are indeed some broad areas of overlap between these two fields. Citizens should be of 'good' character and the educational initiatives that we consider both emerge from a concern about current trends in society. However, we suggest that the overlaps with citizenship education principally apply when character education is drawn very broadly. When we examine a particular approach to character education that is often US-based, and titled as 'citizenship', we note many contrasts with citizenship education as formulated in the National Curriculum for England. We suggest that citizenship educators in England need to interpret claims about the similarity between these two fields with caution, or meanings that apply to both character education and citizenship education will be distorted.     

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND PLURALISM IN ZAMBIA

Today, Zambia has a comparatively unified, somewhat exceptional, approach to religious education despite a wide variety of predominantly Christian denominations. This article retraces the history of the development of religious education from when it was entirely confessional to the present time when it has become largely educational. In so doing it identifies some of the difficulties encountered and some of the problems that lie ahead in promoting an even more religiously pluralistic and educational approach to religious education in a country that has been declared a Christian nation.     

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION AND YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN DEMOCRACY

ABSTRACT:  Citizenship education in established democracies is challenged by declining youth participation in democracy. Youth disenchantment and disengagement in democracy is primarily evident in formal political behaviour, especially through voting, declining membership of political parties, assisting at elections, contacting politicians, and the like. If citizenship education is to play a major role in addressing these concerns it will need to review the impact it is making on young people in schools.
  This paper reviews a major national project on youth participation in democracy in Australia set in the context of a national citizenship education programme. The Youth Electoral Study found that citizenship education in Australian schools has at best been marginally successful and substantially more is required to raise levels of democratic engagement. The paper explores many opportunities available to education systems and schools to address these issues through reconceptualising aspects of the formal and the informal curriculum.     

CHARACTER, CIVIC RENEWAL AND SERVICE LEARNING FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

ABSTRACT:  This article explores the civic republican conception of citizenship underlying the Labour government's programme of civil renewal and the introduction of education for democratic citizenship. It considers the importance of the cultivation of civic virtue through political participation for such developments and it reviews the research into how service learning linked to character education can lead to the civic virtue of duty or social responsibility.     

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION,POLICY, AND THE EDUCATIONALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Abstract In this essay, Naomi Hodgson reconsiders the value of Michel Foucault’s normalization thesis to the study of educationalization in relation to contemporary educational policy and research. Hodgson begins by analyzing educational researchers’ response to the recent introduction of citizenship education in England, focusing specifically on a review of research, policy, and practice in this area commissioned by the British Educational Research Association (BERA). She argues that the BERA review exemplifies the field of education policy sociology in that it is conducted according to the concepts of its parent discipline of sociology but lacks critical theoretical engagement with them. Instead, such work operationalizes sociological concepts in service of educational policy solutions. Hodgson identifies three dominant discourses of citizenship education within the BERA review— the academic discourse of education policy sociology, contemporary political discourse, and the discourse of inclusive education — and draws attention to the relation of citizenship education to policy initiatives, and thus to educationalization. She then discusses Foucault’s concept of normalization in terms of the demand on the contemporary subject to orient the self in a certain relation toward learning informed by the need for competitiveness in the European and global context. Ultimately, Hodgson concludes that the language and rhetoric of education policy sociology implicate such research in the process of educationalization itself.