‘Confused by multiple deities,ancient Egyptians embraced monotheism’: analysing historical thinking and inclusion in Egyptian history textbooks

Egyptian history textbooks are examined through the prism of historical thinking dimensions and skills, utilizing a critical discourse analysis. The analysis focuses on how the textbooks portray two historically significant events: the advent of Christianity (ca. 33 CE) and Islam (ca. 641 CE) to Egypt. It reveals that the historical narrative presented in the textbooks does two things: first, it essentializes a dominant identity—mainly an Arab Muslim one—eclipsing the multilayered identity informed by the country’s long history. Secondly, the textbooks miss several opportunities to promote historical thinking skills such as ‘cause and consequence’ and ‘change and continuity’. As an entry point to revising the textbooks to include currently missing indigenous minority narratives, a narrative approach that focuses on cultural continuity and change is proposed. The article also calls for further investigation of how these textbooks influence students’ sense of citizenship and historical consciousness, especially that they are increasingly exposed to alternative and competing historical narratives outside the history classroom.     

Globalization,National Identity,and Citizenship Education: China’s Search for Modernization and a Modern Chinese Citizenry

Since the early 20th century, numerous scholars have proposed theories and models describing, interpreting, and suggesting the development paths countries have taken or should take. None of these, however, can fully explain China’s efforts, mainly through education and citizenship education, to modernize itself and foster a modern citizenry since the late 19th century. This article traces and examines these efforts through a reflective and critical analysis of such public texts as official policy documents, curriculum standards, and related commentaries, and reveals three major findings. First, China’s leaders have advanced different views of and approaches to development and citizenship in response to changing domestic and global contexts. Second, the Chinese state determines China’s development course, defines its national identity and citizenry, and selects its nation-building curricula. Third, the Chinese state’s growing desire for national rejuvenation in an increasingly competitive, globalized world in the 21st century mandates an important education mission that its citizenship education be politically and ideologically open and accommodative, and help students develop global, national and local identities and function as active, responsible citizens of a multileveled, multicultural world. This article furthers academic understanding of how China’s education responds to economic, political, and social demands and shapes students’ multiple identities in a global age.     

‘We did see the lapwing’ – practising environmental citizenship in upper-secondary science education

This article explores factors that promote the practice of environmental citizenship in science education and aims to contribute to the development of the concept of practising environmental citizenship. We follow six Norwegian secondary students (aged 16–17) participating in a small-scale intervention study conducting an assignment on a socioscientific issue (SSI) in their local district. Our findings reveal that dealing with an SSI in real-world settings through out-of-school activities set in the students’ local district is important for practising environmental citizenship. This article also addresses the tensions between the practice of environmental citizenship and the cultural issues related to school science. Our findings reveal that tensions exist between working with ready-made-science, as students normally do, to deal with science-in-the-making through an SSI. This research discuss the practical implications of the concept of practising environmental citizenship in science.     

Citizenship education in Mexico: the depoliticisation of adolescence through secondary school

Recent contributions have argued about the depoliticisation of citizenship education (CE), mainly through theoretical and documentary analyses, and based on the European context. Nonetheless, there is a lack of field studies which can provide empirical evidence about how does the depoliticisation of CE actually operate. Based on a mixed-method research in Mexico City’s secondary schools, this paper shows how the contemporary approach to CE, instead of looking at nurturing children’s and adolescents’ politicity, contributes to pupils’ depoliticisation. Among different potential characterisations of political participation (PP), the curriculum of CE circumscribes it within the arena of formal politics, from which students are largely excluded in the present. Additionally, CE promotes a range of practices of participation which are deprived from a political meaning. Students appropriate them discursively, but perceive limited opportunities for perform them, especially in school. Through the depoliticisation of CE, adolescents mostly learn that PP is a promise of inclusion in the future, while the idea of active citizenship becomes reduced to a correct discourse about largely imperceptible practices in students’ everyday life. The article stresses the need of shifting the priority of CE in Mexico from the formal curriculum to the transformation of school practices, in order to develop students’ politicity through participation.     

Climate change and costs: investigating students’ reasoning on nature and economic development

The tensions between environmental protection and economic growth are critical to future well-being, and it is therefore important to understand how young people conceptualize these tensions. The aim of the present study is to explore students’ solutions to the dilemma of economic development and mitigating climate change, with regard to societal responses to the challenge of climate change. The study was conducted in China’s Green Schools. Green School is an international long-term programme with the aim of increasing students’ knowledge of environmental issues, and transferring this knowledge into positive actions to affect the wider community. The data were obtained through semi-structured pre- and post-interviews with 15–16-year-old students in three groups (12 students) from Green Schools in the Beijing area. The results show that students’ discussions focused exclusively on economic growth and social welfare. Students seem to believe that environmental problems are inevitable, nature is a ‘box’ of resources, and economic development is necessary in order to sustain and even improve nature. Therefore, there is no dilemma between economic development and environmental protection. The paper ends with a discussion on research and implications for teaching climate change.     

Education for democratic citizenship in Malawian secondary schools: balancing student voice and adult privilege

In countries that embraced democracy after the fall of communism, education became a particular focus for policy change, particularly within their citizenship programmes. Schools that had been used to inculcate obedience to and unfailing support for authoritarian regimes were now being required to adopt citizenship programmes incorporating democratic values. This paper reports a study in Malawi that explored the school as a location where democratic citizenship is practiced. Using a multiple case study approach in three different kinds of secondary schools to explore students’ participation in school affairs, the study found that different forms of participation were being encouraged, with each school apparently socialising students to distinctive kinds of citizenship roles. The paper highlights a conflict between democratic values and traditional roles of schools leading to new and hybrid school cultures. Providing scope for student voice to be heard can lead to tensions and paradoxical practices.     

We are invited to imagine: using a literary text to encourage cross-cultural dialogue about citizenship

ABSTRACT

Using William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as a stimulus, researchers from Norway, Pakistan and the United Kingdom explored the potential of a literary text to encourage intercultural dialogue. The innovative research method used was to combine Literature Circles and Google Documents to provide a platform for asynchronous online exchange between three cohorts of students in higher education. The authors’ analysis of the data suggested differences between those students who regarded the text as a living document speaking directly to their personal experiences of citizenship issues and those for whom the novel remained a historical document, removed from their lived experience. The authors contend that this research can contribute original and significant insights to the literature on teaching citizenship through literary texts such as the relationship between text choice and context, models of international collaboration at the higher education level and contrasting approaches towards citizenship and reading.     

Social citizenship formation at university: a South African case study

The paper considers citizenship formation at universities, drawing on the example of a student leadership project at the University of the Free State, a formerly White South African university, in a higher education context and society where racialised difference continues to influence peer relationships. The paper proposes a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of social citizenship, as described by T.H. Marshall, enriched by the capabilities approach, which adds specific citizenship dimensions of deliberation, acknowledgment of heterogeneity, and agency goals and activities as core elements of being able to be and to do as citizens. This is operationalised by investigating the student development intervention, based on biographical interview data from 50 of the 71 students who participated in the first iteration of the programme. The data is analysed for the three capability dimensions and for student criticisms of the programme, before an overall judgment is made of the programme’s contribution to democratic values and citizenship formation.     

The Shaping of Citizenship Education in a Chinese Context

The global flow of citizenship education in China has spurred much discussion in Chinese academic circles. This study explores the interaction between citizenship education and China’s the existing political-ideological education and moral education as a space is negotiated a space in the current “ideoscape.” A qualitative approach is adopted to synthesize the literature coming from China on citizenship education from an interpretive and critical perspective. The research findings suggest: (a) The territory of orthodox political-ideological education is being narrowed down as its relationship with citizenship education is configured; (b) citizenship education and moral education are represented using different images to delineate their distinctions; and (c) the introduction of “global citizenship education” includes many new topics and competencies that expands the current ideoscape. This study argues that the ongoing debates on citizenship education are deeply rooted in China’s structural transformation, in which society tends to be separated from state. In negotiating its own territory, citizenship education reshapes China’s ideoscape in the education field. The paper concludes by suggesting that citizenship education should make a unique contribution to facilitating young citizens in a reexamination of the values imbedded in political-ideological education and moral education with a new social consensus being reached through the communication of ideas.     

An Exploratory Study of Chinese University Undergraduates’ Global Competence: Effects of Internationalisation at Home and Motivation

Global competence is categorised into three dimensions: knowledge, skills/experience and attitudes. This study aims to investigate the global competence discrepancies of Chinese undergraduates in universities and regions of different development levels, as well as the effects of internationalisation efforts at home and students’ motivation on global competence. To this end, 2,695 students within nine universities (three 985 project universities, three 211 project universities and three provincial universities) in three Chinese cities (Beijing, Nanjing and Changchun) participated in this survey. The findings revealed that Chinese undergraduates have positive global attitudes, but they seem to lack sufficient global knowledge. Students from 985 project universities reported gaining higher global competence than students from 211 project and provincial universities, and students from Beijing reported higher global competence than students from Nanjing and Changchun. Competence discrepancies concerning fields of study were also found. The results of hierarchical regression analysis suggest that gender, 985 and 211 project universities, Beijing city, social sciences and humanities, experience of contact with foreigners on campus activities, enrolment in courses related to internationalisation and students’ motivation were predictive of Chinese students’ global competence.     

Strategic institutional approaches to graduate employability: navigating meanings,measurements and what really matters

ABSTRACT

Despite ongoing efforts by universities, challenges and tensions continue to exist in academic discourse, policy and practice around graduate employability. These factors can militate against the sector’s capacity to prepare learners for life and work, because they promote unclear, and sometimes counterproductive and competing, courses of action. This article suggests that higher education institutions’ approaches to graduate employability reflect at least three aims. The aims relate to: (i) short-term graduate outcomes; (ii) professional readiness; and (iii) living and working productively and meaningfully across the lifespan. The commitment to each of these aims is often tacit and ill-defined and varies within as well as between institutions, and over time. This article attempts to navigate a productive path through the multiple aims and agendas, along with the definitional and measurement challenges, to identify, workable approaches. It suggests some actionable principles to enhance employability that address the tensions between the three employability aims.     

Arresting Decline in Shared Governance: Towards a Flexible Model for Academic Participation

This paper considers tensions between ‘corporate’ models of governance focused on the governing body and more traditional, ‘consensual’ academic approaches. It argues that despite these tensions, a decline in the role of the academic community in matters of institutional governance (‘shared governance’) is neither desirable nor inevitable, and that successful academic participation is possible through a combination of the corporate and consensual modes. Tracing a decline in academic participation from its height in the 1970s, the paper evaluates the problematic nature of more recent corporate approaches to university governance and the work of Dearlove (1997), (2002) and Deem is used to reflect on ‘tensions between the logic of managerial control and the conventions of professional autonomy’ ( Deem, 1998 , p. 52). The paper ends by offering a broad and flexible model for successful shared governance, drawing on the role of academic departments and Clark’s strengthened steering core (1998).     

CITIZENSHIP,EDUCATION AND THE NATION‐STATE. THE INCLUSIVENESS OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE NETHERLANDS

The aim of the author is to estimate the heuristic value of Meyer's (et al., 1985) social theory on citizenship, education and the nation‐state, in relation to F. Ringer's three dimensions of educational systems (i.e. ‘inclusiveness’, ‘segmentation’, and ‘progressiveness'). Rupp's thesis is that the inclusiveness and expansion of educational systems is related to the processes of the formation of nation‐state and citizenship institutions; their progressiveness and segmentation, however, to other socio‐political developments. It is suggested that national differences correspond to differences in centralized or decentralized polities.     

Constructing citizenship in post-conflict contexts: the cases of Liberia and Rwanda

In post-conflict and fragile contexts, one central aim of education is to prepare citizens to rebuild society and manage conflict. In this paper, we discuss the ways that citizenship education, students’ civic attitudes, and student civic practices vary across two post-conflict contexts in Africa: Liberia and Rwanda. First, we consider the historical and current complexities of citizenship education in these countries drawing on a post-colonial framework and Osler and Starkey’s three dimensions of citizenship. Next, we discuss survey and interview data from secondary students based on separate multi-level case studies in the respective countries. We note differences and similarities in student conceptions of good citizenship, civic identity, classroom climate, and civic engagement across the two countries, as well as variation by school type and gender. Some notable findings included less active conceptions of citizenship and openness to discussing controversial issues in Rwanda than in Liberia, and less participation in out of school activities among young women than young men. These and other results highlight differing contextual values of development, security, freedom of speech, and civic action and the overall importance of citizenship education in a post-conflict context.     

The last place to look: the place of pupil councils within citizen participation in Scottish schools

This article critically examines pupil councils as a means of developing pupils’ citizenship participation. It draws on findings across two research projects. The first study is a mixed method study commissioned by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) that reviews the range of participatory activities in Scottish schools and their contribution to Scotland’s major curriculum revision, the Curriculum for Excellence (CFE). The second is a longer ethnographic study examining young people’s experience of participation projects in more detail. The findings lend strength to the argument that pupil councils as a stand-alone approach are not an effective means of citizenship participation. When pupil councils are complemented by other participation activity across spheres of school interaction, young people’s understanding of and interest in participation can be greatly enhanced. The article examines the cross curricular linkages schools are making, the barriers that impede such linkages and the benefits derived from successful coordinated approaches in light of criteria for ‘graduated participation’ developed through decades of work internationally on children’s participation.     

Citizenship and inclusion in the early years: understanding and responding to children’s perspectives on ‘belonging’

This paper argues for, and demonstrates the effectiveness of, including young children in commenting on and improving their learning environments. It reports the experiences gathered from of 16 setting‐based, small‐scale, practitioner‐led projects. Taking a view of citizenship as ‘participation’ the paper shows how practitioner‐research can support the evolution of inclusive environments for all children. Following a critical review of the literature on citizenship, young children, and ‘inclusion’ the paper considers the usefulness of the participant methodology of practitioner action research and the concept of ‘voice’ in educational research and report. Examples of practitioner‐research projects involving children aged three to six years identify and illustrate key themes from the data. Thus, they demonstrate: (1) the range of factors which excited or worried the children; and (2) the ways in which children’s concerns and ideas were listened to and action for change was developed. The children’s ideas and extracts from their comments are included alongside the practitioners’ responses in the cases which are discussed. Four main points are considered in conclusion: (1) children’s views can contribute to the development of inclusive practices; (2) children’s voices are central to studies of their perspectives and the methodological challenges of listening to children’s voices in research must be addressed; (3) identity and self esteem are key to the successful promotion of young children’s positive sense of inclusivity and belonging in their early years settings; and (4) supported practitioner‐research can enhance inclusive early years practices. The paper argues that including children in the identification and exploration of issues important to them promotes a positive sense of inclusivity and that such approaches to developing pedagogies of citizenship and belonging constitute a practical enacting of ‘voice’.     

A tale of two countries: comparing civic education in the Philippines and Singapore

This article provides a comparative analysis of citizenship education in the Philippines and Singapore. Through an analysis of historical contexts, citizenship education policy and curriculum, it examines Makabayan in the Philippines and National Education in Singapore. It identifies particular policy and curriculum trajectories as responses to national and global imperatives to demonstrate how countries are redefining the kinds of knowledge, skills and values deemed necessary for national citizenship in global contexts. This comparative case study illustrates some of the tensions and contradictions facing citizenship education in new global contexts and highlights the different ways countries try to manage these tensions through citizenship education policies and curricula. Findings point to different factors that shape and constrain the implementation of citizenship education programmes in both countries.     

公民教育的进展研究：发达国家的探索

21世纪初，无论是在国家层面还是在国际范围，人们都开始对公民教育产生新的兴趣。越来越多具有多元文化的民主国家对作为民主公民教育基础的人权教育的国际共识、全球化进程所带来的统一性与多样性之间关系的冲突特征、许多民主的民族一国家对公民（特别是年轻人）的政治参与水平以及对种族主义倾向的反民主运动的忧虑等，都被看作是引进和加强公民教育的原因。一个由国际学者组成的研究小组，通过考察、研究为我们确认了多元文化的民主体系中公民教育在教学方面的一些重要原则、概念以及公民教育对学校课程的促进。发达国家在实践方面的经验显示，成功的公民教育要求一个清晰的政策框架和专业的教师培训等。     

Pedagogies of Muslim feminisms: reflections on faith,space and citizenship

In this article, I offer a qualitative study of three spaces created by and for young Muslim women in Toronto, Canada: an after-school drop-in programme for Muslim girls, a Somali women’s group and a Muslim women’s collective. I focus on data gathered from interviews of seven Muslim women in their 20s who created the spaces, which offered refuge from the racism and Islamophobia in Canadian schools and society and from the patriarchal forms of social control in their families and communities. Drawing on feminist and ethnographic approaches to citizenship studies and a critical faith-centred epistemology, I consider how these spaces function as loci for teaching and learning self and community, building communities of resistance and articulating new notions of the political and of citizenship.     

Curricular and instructional influences on early literacy attainment: evidence from Beijing,Hong Kong and Singapore

This study considered curricular and instructional influences on early Chinese literacy attainment in Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. The participants included 198 pre‐school children, their teachers and parents. Children were administered the Pre‐school and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale at the age of either two or three years, and again one year later. Teachers were asked to report on their beliefs and practices related to literacy education, and classroom observations were conducted to determine the extent to which directives issued by the Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore governments were implemented. Investigation showed that there were marked differences across the societies in curriculum guidelines and approaches to literacy teaching. Results indicated that by the age of four, pre‐schoolers in Hong Kong and Singapore had significantly better Chinese literacy attainment than those in Beijing. Although age was the best predictor of attainment, location, teachers’ qualifications and classroom experience also significantly contributed to children’s literacy attainment.