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.     

THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION MOVEMENT AND CHARACTER EDUCATION

If we may attempt a summation of the “progressive” movement as regards character education, we would say that these educators are of the earnest group which is seeking a new discipline for the individual and society. The old control of command and threat of punishment is giving way.

“Europe, like America, is discarding the traditional idea of discipline through coercion or blind obedience, and is looking for a new technique through which children may be helped to become self‐directing personalities using freedom intelligently.” ¹⁴ 14. Sidonie M. Gruenberg, Progressive Education, Vol. 4, p. 126.

It is not merely a question of interest and of project method. It is a problem of developing a new system of control in place of the old paternalistic and militaristic discipline that finds its last resort in the employment of force. In place of the domination by force, the newer “voice of conscience” says to give every individual a chance to develop an inner control. In place of punishment for those who do not abide by the norm of society, it seeks to substitute diagnosis. Seek first for an understanding of the individual, giving to the genius large leeway in working out! his original ideas, and, to the sub‐normal person, treatment such as the doctor gives to his patient.

“Progressive” educators are, of course, not the only ones contending for this new discipline, but they seemingly have taken the lead in working out a process of education to secure it. In this process the work of the teacher is not minimized but greatly exalted. In this undertaking to produce a more finely integrated person, the teacher must enter as a highly skillful guide and friend. What more “religious” conception of the function of the teacher can be found than this given by a “progressive” educator.

“It is the teacher's business to live with the child, as the refreshing shadow of a great rock in a weary land, as a spring of water for a thirsty soul, as an ever‐present help in time of trouble, as a lamp in the darkness, as a guide to little feet that stumble, and to little hearts that err; as a loving local Providence winning their affection and loyalty.”

     

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.     

教育经济学和教育发展的挑战

美国经济学家通过国民生产总值及工人工资的增加,揭示了教育在经济发展中的重要作用.[1]他们的研究在现代社会学科中确立了一门新的经济与教育的交叉学科--教育经济学,并在过去40年中引起经济学界对教育与经济发展的因果关系的兴趣,也推动不同学科重新诠释教育的作用.当然,在不同的社会里采用不同的研究方法进行研究,会有不同的结论.例如寇恩和安帝斯(Cohn & Addison)发现,上百个分析发达国家正规教育的收益率的研究都报告了正相关的结果[2],因此学者们和政界对增加正规教育的投资持积极态度;但对成人教育培训的报告并无规律可循.在发展中国家,对不同层次教育的回报率所作的数据分析,结果却各不相同.学者们试图说明教育投资在不同的社会和经济形态下对发展的影响,但是还没有形成一个被广泛认可的理论.[3]这是极其富有挑战性的研究工作,也是人类对社会发展的理性探索.     

HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE CONCEPT OF LIFELONG EDUCATION

The following article does not give a complete answer to the above question nor does it define the concept of lifelong education, but it shows the place and the role of lifelong education in the system of education.

The article is based on the first chapter of the study written by James B. Ingram, Director of the B. Ed. Course at Bradford College (the United Kingdom) in collaboration with the Unesco Division of Educational Structures, Contents and Methods and the Unesco Institute for Education in Hamburg.