Science education for democratic citizenship through the use of the history of science

Scholars have argued that the history of science might facilitate an understanding of processes of science. Focusing on science education for citizenship and active involvement in debates on socioscientific issues, one might argue that today’s post-academic science differs from academic science in the past, making the history of academic science irrelevant. However, this article argues that, under certain conditions, cases from the history of science should be included in science curricula for democratic participation. One condition is that the concept of processes is broadened to include science–society interactions in a politically sensitive sense. The scope of possibilities of using historical case studies to prepare for citizenship is illustrated by the use of a well-known case from the history of science: Millikan’s and Ehrenhaft’s “Battle over the electron”.     

Education for citizenship and reconciliation in Nicaragua

Original language: Spanish     

我国大学生公民意识教育方法新探

大学生作为社会中的一个特殊群体,是推进社会进步的后备力量,尽管具有较高的思想文化水平,接受、掌握新事物、新观点的速度较快,但他们所特有的那种热情奔放的处事方式往往缺乏理性的群体特征,很容易对社会造成不良影响。因此加强大学生公民意识教育,提高他们的公民素质,是高等院校推动公民道德建设的重要着力点,极具紧迫性及现实性。对大学生这一特殊群体进行公民意识教育,必须要根据他们的自身发展特点,确立合理有效的教育方法。     

Educational policy through service learning: Preparation for citizenship and civic participation

This article describes a course designed to prepare undergraduate students to participate effectively in civic life and in public decisions about education and schooling. The course includes an examination of the theoretical and conceptual basis of civic responsibility and service learning, a review of the process of educational policymaking, and an in-depth exploration of a number of current educational policy issues. The course is taught with service learning pedagogy. Experiences in a service placement yield personal knowledge that has the potential to inform students' critical analysis of theoretical, research, and policy literature and to make students more effective active classroom learners.Susan G. Forman is Vice President for Undergraduate Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She obtained her B.A. and her M.S. at the University of Rhode Island and her Ph.D. in School Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Vice President Forman is responsible for oversight of university-wide curriculum and teaching issues and has substantially expanded service learning courses as a means of increasing students' understanding of citizenship. Louise C. Wilkinson is Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her B.A. is from Oberlin College, her Ed.M. from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. in Human Development also from Harvard. Dean Wilkinson's interests in education span primary through higher education and include a focus on teacher education and how educational policies are formulated and implemented.     

Education for citizenship: The role of progressive education and interdisciplinary studies

Critiques of education from both the left and right conclude that educational institutions hold the key for involving more citizens in the political process. While neither progressive nor interdisciplinary education is sufficient by itself to prepare students for what we identify as the chief requirements for citizenship in the 21st century-civic literacy, critical thinking, social conscience, tolerance and respect for diversity, global citizenship, and political action-a combination of the two can meet all six requirements. We propose an action agenda for high education that includes promoting student involvement in off-campus political projects and on-campus governance, modifying mission statements and promotion/tenure criteria, and offering interdisciplinary general education courses at the beginning and end of college that are progressively taught, and registering students to vote.Newell was the founding president of the Association for Integrative Studies, author ofInterdisciplinary Undergraduate Programs and several articles on interdisciplinary higher education, and a veteran of 19 years of interdisciplinary teaching.Dr. Davis has administered progressively taught institutions for college students, high school students, and the elderly. He is currently Executive Director of the United Way of Franklin County, Massachusetts, applying the same principles to community service agencies.     

Education for citizenship: a model for the future government of education

This paper considers models for the future government of education. It is proposed that choice will reflect dominant values about the future purpose, role and organization of education in a context of structural change in economy and society. Three models are discussed: one seeking to strengthen the government from the centre, another to strengthen the institution, while a further model argues for stronger local government of education. Conclusions propose that while effective government will require the virtues of each model, an extension of local democracy and citizen participation provides the best conditions for a learning society over the next decade.     

Meaningful interaction: toward a new theoretical approach to online instruction

ABSTRACT

Taking full advantage of the educative benefits of interaction in digital learning environments will require the development of new theoretical frameworks that can contribute to a richer understanding of interaction. Literary theory provides an excellent place to develop such a framework and advanced understanding. Literary theory enables us to reconceptualise online courses as ‘texts’, thereby equipping us with more sophisticated modes of analysis for the teaching and learning process. By rethinking online courses as texts, and better yet as what Roland Barthes has described as ‘writerly’ texts, we can improve interaction in the online classroom. More importantly, we can move toward a more meaningful form of interaction, where learners interact with course content at the level of meaning and meaning making, where interaction becomes a full participation in the production of a lesson’s meaning. Indeed, this aim of co-producing meaning should be the primary objective of all learning.     

Education for citizenship in Key Stages 1 and 2

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the current context and looks ahead to the opportunities that may now exist to develop education for citizenship. The place of citizenship in Key Stages 1 and 2 is discussed in the light of the National Commission's recommendations, the Dearing review of the curriculum and OFSTED's inspection framework. Questions about what is happening in schools are then raised. Answers to these questions were pursued through case‐studies of ten schools. An account of the findings under nine headings is presented and key issues summarized.     

Democracy, citizenship education and inclusion: a multi-dimensional approach

Both democratic citizenship education and inclusion share a common ethos and language based on concerns for human rights, social justice, and a sense of community. Both aim at the building of democratic relationships. But it is fair to say that for a long time citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion have either spoken past each other, or have not communicated or articulated their arguments. This essay offers a multi-dimensional framework under which citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion can share a common agenda, seeking socially just and democratic schools.

Education for future-oriented citizenship: implications for the education of twenty-first century competencies

Globalization and the knowledge economy have opened up worldwide agendas for national development. Following this is the emphasis on the social dimension, otherwise known as social capital. Much of social capital includes “soft skills” and “twenty-first century skills”, which broadly cover critical, creative and inventive thinking; information, interactive and communication skills; civic literacy, global awareness and cross-cultural skills. Proactively, the Singapore government is preparing for Curriculum 2015, a new curriculum that would develop student attributes, embedded in the “confident person”, “self-directed learner”, “active contributor”, and “concerned citizen”. Significantly, a new curricular initiative, Character and Citizenship Education, emphasizes the integrative nature of citizenship and twenty-first century competencies and has been implemented in all schools in Singapore from 2011. This future-oriented approach to citizenship education emphasizes the significance of individual initiatives and the intellectual capital of citizens. This paper analyses features of this particular approach to citizenship education, and its strengths and significance, which may be viewed as an integrative “total curriculum approach” with a “whole-society” perspective. In addition, the challenges of teaching twenty-first century skills will also be highlighted. This departs from the conventional paradigm of socialization, but to help students develop attributes for a future society to come.     

Information Technology in Initial Teacher Education: preconceptions of history and geography interns,with reflections of mentors and tutors

ABSTRACT

The results of a survey of experiences, feelings and preconceptions concerning information technology (IT) that University of Oxford history and geography interns bring to the one year secondary teacher training course are reported. A notable finding was the significantly greater importance attributed to the use of computers in subject teaching by geography interns compared with historians, and the relatively large numbers of the latter ascribing little or no importance to the use of computers in the teaching of history. Analysis of the qualitative data provided by this study provided a range of insights into the ways in which geography and history interns viewed information technology. There was a marked difference between the two groups not only in their feelings about IT but in the degree of sophistication with which they articulated IT issues. The geographers were more positive and were able to support their views with specific examples of software and applications. Their level of knowledge and understanding was often well developed. The historians, in contrast, rarely exhibited the same level of specificity. They viewed IT in a more generalised way. It was often assumed to be ‘a good thing’ and something that might be useful, but there was a marked degree of uncertainty. There was however a distinct group within the historians who exhibited a high degree of anxiety about IT and where views were expressed in very emotive terms. Reflections of a group of school mentors and university curriculum tutors on the findings are also described, and a number of issues and dilemmas for initial teacher education partnership schemes are identified.     

Education,skills and citizenship: an emergent model for entrepreneurship in Tanzania

Educating for citizenship is most often associated with a discourse of liberalism in which knowledge, skills and values of equality, rights, justice and national identity are taught. A competing neoliberal discourse with values of self-improvement, responsibility and entrepreneurialism is now quite pervasive in educational policies and practices, shifting goals and processes of education for citizenship. In Tanzania, neoliberalism's influence is evident in the private provision of schooling and pedagogy and curriculum oriented toward skills development. Neoliberal policies have created an opening for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to fill a need by providing secondary education as well as technical and entrepreneurial skills in efforts to make graduates more employable. This paper examines how an NGO entrepreneurship education programme integrated into formal secondary education in Tanzania articulates new goals and values of citizenship. In this model, learning is tied to markets; becoming a successful citizen includes acquiring business skills; and citizenship values include economic sustainability and self-reliance. This model of entrepreneurship education produces a paradox in educational goals for citizenship in that it aims to secure rights to education and provide for material needs while it also subjects young people and schools to economic and social risks tied to flexible and unstable markets.     

Pedagogies for active citizenship: Learning through affective and cognitive domains for deeper democratic engagement

This paper reports on a two-year study that explored teachers' pedagogical approaches when implementing an active citizenship curriculum initiative in New Zealand. Our aim was to identify pedagogies which afforded potential for critical and transformative citizenship learning. We define critical and transformative social action through a fusion of critical pedagogy and Dewey's notion of democratic education. Data included teachers' classroom-based research as well as classroom observations and interviews with students. Our study suggested that citizenship learning through both affective and cognitive domains can provide for deeper opportunities for students to experience critical and transformative democratic engagement.     

Linking theory and practice: teacher research in history and geography classrooms

The impact of scholarly research in education on the educational practice in secondary school is low. Academics examine problems that teachers in school perceive as irrelevant, want to publish in peer-reviewed journals instead of disseminate their work, and aim at generalizing insights rather than improving school practice. Teacher research might be a way to link educational academic research and teaching practice aiming at furthering professionalism in teaching, improving teaching practice and extending the knowledge base on teaching and learning. Four experienced secondary school teachers systematically investigated their classes, guided by a supervisor. Their materials as well as formal and informal communication with their supervisor and with each other were analysed. Related to their research projects, these teachers reported significant changes in their understanding of student learning and their teaching. They took different perspectives on teaching, looked at alternative solutions for problems, and reflected more deeply on their own teaching as well as teaching of their colleagues. Although each of them published an article in a peer-reviewed journal, they reported difficulties with extending the knowledge base on teaching and learning. Not only did they rarely share results with their colleagues in school because they were perceived as external researchers, they also struggled with writing journal articles and coping with peer reviews. We discuss the value of situated generalization as one of the implications and discuss how teacher research could lead to a new in-between research practice, linking theory and practice, and researchers and teachers.     

Building Intercultural Citizenship through Education: a human rights approach

This article analyses the challenges posed by traditional ethnic and linguistic minorities in multicultural states and more specifically the problems faced by indigenous peoples and communities. Their educational and cultural needs and demands are increasingly being framed in the language of human rights, based on the expanding international legal and institutional human rights system. The United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993, endorsed a rights-based approach to development, human rights education is a growing field in educational practice, respect for cultural diversity is now enshrined in international and domestic laws, and the right of every person to education and to culture has become a mainstay of international human rights principles to which a majority of the world's states has subscribed.     

Education for citizenship: the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the educational settlement movement

David Reeder was one of the most important conservers of the traditions of urban history scholarship established during the 1960s at the University of Leicester under the leadership of Professor H. J. Dyos. Among Reeder’s major achievements were the application of the skills and objectives of such scholarship to the history of education, and in turn his reminding of urban historians of the importance of the educational dimension within their studies. Reeder was also a key figure in the international diffusion of teaching and research in urban educational history, and in promoting an interdisciplinary perspective that drew together past and present studies of urban educational policy and related social issues. This tribute article places his work in the context of changing attitudes to the history of urban education from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, and focuses by way of illustration on collaborative work between its writer [BM] and David Reeder in national conferences and in contributions to publications on the subject.