Learning for democracy: The politics and practice of citizenship education

It is now two decades since the Advisory Group on Citizenship, commissioned by the newly elected Labour government, recommended the introduction of statutory citizenship education. On the twentieth anniversary of the eponymously named ‘Crick Report’, this article presents the findings of a rigorous mixed‐methods study of citizenship educators in the UK. This research suggests that teachers continue to lack a shared understanding of citizenship, conceptually and pedagogically, and also reveals an emphasis amongst teachers upon individualistic notions of good citizenship that are reflective of national, and increasingly global, political discourse. The findings are analysed using a new conceptual framework—the declarative–procedural paradigm—which is developed here to understand the relationship between political and normatively driven visions of democratic citizenship and classroom pedagogy. In doing so the article adds, theoretically and substantively, to the specific research pool of citizenship studies and broader debates about political disengagement.     

Global citizenship education: mainstreaming the curriculum?

There has been a resurgence of interest in global education in the UK as global issues are included within the requirements of citizenship education in national curricula. This paper examines the significance attached to global citizenship through Citizenship as a statutory subject at Key Stages 3 and 4 within the National Curriculum for England. Drawing on a web‐based project funded by the UK Department for International Development, the paper analyses a number of secondary school texts designed to support teachers and students in incorporating global perspectives into citizenship education. It seeks to answer the question: in what ways is global citizenship being mainstreamed? It suggests that NGOs and commercial publishers have different but complementary approaches to resources for global citizenship and that there is a strong case for greater collaboration between the two sectors.     

Creating critical‐democratic citizenship education: empowering humanity and democracy in Dutch education

Dutch society and educational policy see citizenship education as being an important task of education. The first section of this paper discusses the concept of citizenship and citizenship education, and analyses educational developments in the Netherlands. Following on from this introduction the second part of the paper puts forward a critical democratic pedagogy of citizenship education. With this proposed democratic pedagogy in mind, the third and final part of the paper goes on to analyse the discourses and developing practices of citizenship education in the Netherlands, and proposes a number of new possibilities.     

From civic to citizenship education: Toward a stronger citizenship orientation in the Ethiopian CEE curriculum

Recent research on Civic and Ethical Education (CEE) in Ethiopia has revealed a need for improvement in a number of areas with regard to the current CEE curricula. These materials are currently oriented to a conservative form of civic education than on citizenship education, whose aims are more progressive. The essential problem identified in the present study is that CEE content does not match the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s stated goals for CEE, including the promotion of global citizenship. An inductive method was used to categorize themes found in the CEE curricula and textbook, which were analyzed with reference to Tawil’s (2013) framework for education for global citizenship. A concept in textual analysis known as ‘internal critique’ was also utilized to identify inconsistencies in the materials between the stated aims of the CEE program and the textbook content itself. The analysis revealed three main characteristics of the CEE textbooks, namely, an emphasis on sovereignty, patriotism, and responsibility; ambivalence to Ethiopia’s independence from/dependence on wealthier nations, and abstraction in CEE content. This content does only partially match the Ethiopian government’s stated aims for CEE. The findings of this study suggest that the content of the ethical dimension of Ethiopia’s CEE curriculum could be greatly improved through the inclusion of content that reflects an emphasis on citizenship education. Such an approach is more progressive than civic education and promotes a more learner-centered and critical orientation to ethical issues on the part of students within the framework of Global Citizenship Education (GCE).     

Critical human rights,citizenship, and democracy education: Entanglements and regenerations

International Review of Education -     

The science curriculum and education for democracy in the risk society

How can the science curriculum make a contribution to education for democracy in 'the risk society'? The characteristics of a 'risk society' are identified and the problematic role of scientific knowledge in such a society briefly reviewed. Kuhn's notion of science as a community of practice is suggested as the most appropriate model if the aim is to teach a view of science which is compatible with the provisional, 'risky' and collaborative nature of all knowledge in the contemporary context. Those features of the model which are particularly relevant to life in present-day society are clarified and the educational implications of this particular model are discussed under three headings: science as a way of knowing; science as cultural communication; and science as an expression of interests.     

Social literacy and citizenship education in the school curriculum

This article explores citizenship education's need to focus on both ‘political’ and ‘social’ literacy within a communitarian framework. The Crick Report (1998; see also Lahey, Crick and Porter, 1974), while recognizing that the social dimension of citizenship education was a precondition for both the civic and political dimensions, concentrated largely on ‘political’ literacy. This article examines the social dimension of citizenship education. Concern with the social dimension of the curriculum in schools is not a recent interest, but changes within society have accelerated the social demands made upon schools. At the very least, society expects schools to correct the behaviour of children and to teach them values which usually means insisting on ‘good’ behaviour. The social development of pupils has thus assumed a much greater place in the aspirations of schools. Programmes of personal and social education, together with citizenship education, invariably emphasize a range of social skills and these skills are introduced early and built upon throughout the years of schooling. An individual's sense and ability to make socially productive decisions do not develop by themselves; rather, they require knowledge, values and skills. Above all opportunities are required for children to experience social relations in such a way that they are able to operate critically within value-laden discourses and thereby to become informed and ethically empowered, active citizens.     

From teaching citizenship to learning democracy: overcoming individualism in research,policy and practice

In this article we argue for a shift in educational research, policy and practice away from teaching citizenship to an understanding of the ways young people learn democracy. In the first part of the article we identify the ways in which the discussion about citizenship in Britain has developed since the Second World War and show how a comprehensive understanding of citizenship, which has underpinned much recent thinking about citizenship education, has been replaced by a more overtly individualistic approach. In the second part of the article we delineate the key problems of this individualistic approach and make a case for an approach to citizenship education that takes as its point of departure the actual learning that occurs in the real lives of young people. In the concluding section, we outline the implications of our view for research, policy and practice.     

Teacher counter stories to a citizenship education mega policy narrative. Preparing for citizenship in Chile

The present article focuses on the counter stories of two Chilean social studies high school teachers. Counter stories describe how teachers use their professional experience to confront those mega narratives composed of dominant educational policies that impinge upon their pedagogical practices. The mega narrative described in this study as a citizenship education mega policy narrative is composed by citizenship educational guidelines that have become influenced by other market-driven educational policies, and is not only present in Chile but has also been influenced by policies coming from countries such as England and the US. Therefore, the discussions that emerge from these counter stories on the nature of this mega narrative and the ways through which teachers can confront it through their teaching, and the implications that all this has for the field of citizenship education, do not only fill a gap in Chilean research but also contribute to discussions on counter and mega narratives in the field of citizenship education within a wider international scope.     

Bridging two worlds: special education and curriculum policy

From interviews with seven blind New Zealand adults about their school experiences, this paper discusses how blindness has been constructed by some New Zealand mainstream principals and teachers. The experiences of these participants were not that of inclusion, despite being in ‘the mainstream’. The participants described how principals and teachers were both welcoming and unwelcoming. Inclusive principals and teachers were described as friendly, challenging, helpful and positive. They believed their blind students were like their other students. Principals and teachers who were remembered as excluding blind students were described as unfair, inflexible, unprepared and absent. They believed their blind students were different and did not find a social place for them.     

基础教育课程政策的文化检视

有效的课程政策需要课程政策文化的支持.在目前我国课程改革中,课程政策文化必定要承担课程改革的义务,因此应调整课程政策制定文化,使之适应教育发展的需要.     

Rethinking democracy and education: Towards an education of deliberative citizens

Neo-pragmatism focuses on communication as a democratic form of life. It therefore creates new visions for the relationship between democracy and education. Models for deliberative democracy inspired by neo-pragmatism are explicitly based on the need for education of citizens in deliberative capabilities and attitudes. The idea of deliberative democracy as an educational process is one where individuals bring different perspectives to on-going communication, which is here presented as an important way to interpret John Dewey, specifically his Democracy and Education. This approach to reading his work is compared initially with other and earlier ways of reading his work, i.e., the educational philosophies and movements of progressivism and reconstructionism.     

The culture of education policy making: curriculum reform in Shanghai

This paper explores the culture of education policy making in Shanghai using the conceptual tool of a ‘global assemblage’. A global assemblage is essentially a collection of ideas and practices that arise from the interplay between a global form and situated sociocultural elements. Focusing on the global form of curriculum reform, this paper explains how the Shanghai municipal government justifies the introduction of the ‘Second Curriculum Reform’ using the global imperative while maintaining its socialist ideology and central control on high-stakes exams. This paper highlights the active roles played by the municipal government and other local educational stakeholders in assembling their own logics, tactics and counter-measures in the contested space of the assemblage. It is argued that the success of the curriculum reform is mediated and vitiated by the sociocultural elements of a dominant exam-oriented culture and the traditional approaches of memorisation, repeated practice and didactic teaching. The complex and unpredictable process of implementing curriculum reform in Shanghai illustrates the culture of education policy making against a backdrop of globalisation as a problem space.     

The nature of citizenship education provision: an initial study

While compulsory citizenship education has apparently been accepted and, in some quarters, regarded as overdue, in schools there has been little opportunity to discuss the meaning of ‘citizenship’. This article reports an initial study of four schools, with a focus on one of them. From this study it was evident that teachers and students have different views about what they are offering and being offered. Some implications of the spaces between these differences are aired in the conclusion of the article.     

Social justice intents in policy: an analysis of capability for and through education

Primarily developed as an alternative to narrow measures of well-being such as utility and resources, Amartya Sen’s capability approach places strong emphasis on people’s substantive opportunities. As a broad normative framework, the capability approach has become a valuable tool for understanding and evaluating social arrangements (e.g. education policies and development programmes) in terms of individuals’ effective freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings. This paper explores the recent emergence of ‘capability’ in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. We explore capability as a framing device and reveal how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen’s conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education. The analysis shows that the social justice intent of a capability approach appears to be overtaken in the White Paper by an emphasis on outcomes, performance and functionings that seek to serve the nation’s economic interests more than the interests of students, especially the disadvantaged.     

Educating for citizenship—the emerging relationship between religious education and citizenship education

The introduction of citizenship education to school in England (and Wales) in 2002 has generated interest and concern among religious educationalists, some of whom welcome the opportunities this new educational territory opens up for religious education and some of whom suspect it augurs religious education's demise. This article reports findings of a school‐based study of the early implementation of citizenship education and its impact on religious education. It discusses those findings in the context of the current debate about the future relationship between the two subjects, noting a similar ambivalence toward citizenship education among religious education heads of department, as there is among religious educationalists. The discussion includes an examination of the Crick Report, noting its lack of interest in religious education, and argues that its conceptualization of citizenship leaves it open to two quite different broad interpretations of what might be meant by an education for citizenship, one of which religious education practitioners appear to endorse and associate with religious education, and one of which they reject and associate with citizenship education.     

Economic aspects of citizenship education: an investigation of students' understanding

In 2002 education for citizenship will become a statutory requirement in English secondary schools for the first time. Broad guidelines which have been issued to schools include some elements of economic understanding, although this aspect of citizenship has attracted little attention in public debate. Moreover, relatively little is known about students' current thinking on these aspects of citizenship. Our article addresses this gap in current knowledge through reporting results from a large-scale (over 1000 responses) survey of 15- and 17-year-old students. A draft survey was trialled in May 2000 and revised in the light of students' responses and discussion at a research seminar in July 2000. The questionnaire focuses on students' understanding of, and attitude towards, aspects of taxation, government spending, employment and inflation. These results may usefully inform planning for programmes of citizenship education and they can also provide a point of reference for subsequent evaluation of those programmes.