Citizenship through the Humanities

In this article David Lambert argues in support of the humanities in the secondary school curriculum and underlines the contribution that they can make to citizenship education. He emphasizes but does not restrict his arguments to geography and offers a wide view encompassing the humanities as a whole. He explores the links between the humanities, moral education and citizenship and argues against the citizenship-as-subject approach.     

Globalisation and citizenship education

This article discusses the notion of globalisation by reference to several of its proponents and critics. Issues of citizenship education in an era of global electronic communications are examined and the author argues that citizenship education that has a global dimension will necessarily be concerned with economic, social and political inequalities between citizens both within and between nation states. Global divisions involve fundamental inequalities of resources, rights to residence and much else. Since globalisation invokes differing responses from citizens around the world and within nation states it is likely that global citizenship education will have varied effects.     

Pupils in Control: Sex Talk as an Educational Resource

Education for citizenship is now recommended for all primary schools. Whilst primary teachers have long covered social and moral education, they have been less likely to cover teaching about community and political literacy (including the discussion of topical, controversial issues). This paper reports research findings on current practice and identifies key areas for discussion. It argues that there is great scope for enriching and enlivening the primary curriculum through the introduction of education for citizenship, by extending current practice in social and moral education and incorporating the newer themes of community and political literacy into existing teaching.     

'England Expects Every Man to do his Duty': The gendering of the citizenship textbook 1940-1966

This article is based on a pilot study investigating the representation of women in a sample of texts for citizenship education in the immediate post-Second World War era in England. The authors argue that existing research into the field of education for citizenship does not engage adequately with how the subject is taught in schools, and how citizenship education constructs the polity in line with normative and traditionalist assumptions about the role of women and men in society. By studying the texts of citizenship for the period 1940-66, the authors argue that researchers can, if they deploy a more critically engaged approach to the way in which notions of 'citizenship' and 'polity' are gendered, generate new questions and new understandings of how education for citizenship functions in schools.     

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.     

Contradictions of power and identity: Whiteness studies and the call of teacher education

In this review essay, the author situates five recent articles on white identity and teacher education within the emergent fields of whiteness studies and critical race theory. He maintains that while the authors of these articles make a significant contribution to the field of race studies by expanding theories and methodologies of whiteness studies to education that there is a consistent failure to theorize race in the five articles. McCarthy argues instead that any effort to theorize racial identities must address the deep-seated contradictions that are produced in the unequal racial experiences that define modern education and society. He argues, ultimately, that we cannot understand race by studying race alone. It is vital in thinking about whiteness to consider factors of class, gender, sexuality, and nation - dynamics of social and cultural stratification that cut at right angles to narrow specifications of racial or ethnic community. These dynamics take on a particularly poignant quality of overdetermination and coarticulation in the modern context of the rapid movement of economic and cultural capital across borders summarized in the term "globalization."     

Missed opportunities: the IEA’s study of civic education and civic education in post‐communist countries

This article argues that the opportunity in Phase I of the IEA’s Civic Education Study to include the new democracies’ experiences of citizenship education have not been sufficiently exploited. ‘Borrowing’ citizenship education from abroad and citizenship education for ‘civil society’ have been chosen as examples of problems in the new democracies which have not been exploited. The final section focuses on the question of why new and recurring problems in citizenship education, which occurred in post‐communist Europe, have not been identified, described or analysed in the IEA’s publication New paradigms and new recurring paradoxes in education for citizenship: an international comparison. The paper also points to some of the circumstances that seem to have had an impact on which problems were analysed in the study and which problems were largely ignored.     

Dissertation as performance [Art Script] (Take Three)

This paper considers the absence of things queer within the texts of arts-based education theories and narratives of K-12 educators working within / against these reforms. Dancing through the dramatic shifts and movements of his performance-art dissertation,the author questions the limits of standard dissertation protocols. He argues that arts-based education schemes have not confronted or considered arts' complicity in social constructions of heteronormativity, and that the arts should be taught toward the ends of social justice and democracy.     

The role of Representative Councils for Learners in South African schools: Maximal or minimal participation?

Abstract

In 1999 the South African Department of Education issued guides for the Representative Councils for Learners established in terms of the South African Schools Act, 1996 (Act 84 of 1996). This article examines the usefulness of these guides in promoting democracy and education for citizenship in South African schools. The guides are located in the context of theories of participatory democracy, representation, and education for citizenship, and of the democratic strengths of the People's Education Movement of the 1980s. In this context, it is argued that the main tendency of the guides is to undermine democratic participation, and that their favoured conception of education for citizenship is minimalist. The article emphasises the need for a more maximalist approach to citizenship education, and for more scope for participatory democracy in schools.     

Reviews

At Key Stages one and two, citizenship education is described in terms of non-statutory guidelines along with personal, social and health education. Whilst PSHE and citizenship are no doubt linked, they are not synonymous. Citizenship is concerned with thought and debate in the public arena, and as such has identifiable underpinning discourses. With this in mind, this article seeks to assist primary school teachers in conceptualising citizenship and distinguishing it from PSHE. To facilitate this, two scenarios are highlighted and examined for the way in which they are or are not examples of good citizenship education.     

Young People,Politics and News Media: Beyond political socialisation

This article considers the place of news media-particularly television news-in young people's political socialisation. Following a brief sketch of debates about young people's apparent indifference to politics and to news media, it provides a critical review of previous research in this field. It argues that researchers have often operated with a functionalist notion of socialisation and an unduly narrow conception of political understanding. The second part of the article provides a summary of some key themes raised by the author's own research into young people's interpretations of television news. It focuses particularly on the question of young people's apparent cynicism about politics, and on the characteristics of 'critical viewing'. The article concludes with a call for media education as a crucial dimension of political education and contemporary citizenship.     

Interpersonal communication competence and digital citizenship among pre-service teachers in China’s teacher preparation programs

Abstract

The Internet, new media and social change have created issues requiring digital citizenship education, particularly within the socio-cultural context of Chinese education. Recent digital citizenship standards for education developed by organizations such as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) highlight the importance of this issue. Researchers have explored digital citizenship with some mediated behavioral determinants; however, the critical influence of interpersonal communication competence (ICC) has not yet been explored. To expand understanding of the components needed for improving the appropriateness of digital citizenship among future role models of society, this study investigates the relationship between ICC skills and digital citizenship with a sample of 905 pre-service teachers. The results showed that 10 ICC skills were positively predictive of digital citizenship. Environmental control and immediacy were found to be the strongest predictors of digital citizenship among the skills examined. These results theoretically emphasize the importance of ICC skills in mediated behavior and provide practical direction for improving pre-service teachers’ digital citizenship, which can positively enable the behavior instructors display and convey to their future students.     

Science Education for Citizenship and a Sustainable Future

In this article Jerry Wellington argues very strongly in favour of the role of science in citizenship education. He emphasizes the need for knowledge, skills and action and suggests areas and ways in which pupils can be engaged in the struggle for a sustainable future where interdependence and interconnectedness mesh well with notions of equity and justice.     

Reading at the front: books and soldiers in the First World War

Abstract

This paper focuses on the reading and educational practices of common soldiers during the First World War. It argues that the question of how war libraries were imagined and constructed by civilians needs to be framed in the larger context of pre-war Edwardian debates surrounding the “value of books” in society. Indeed, it was within this debate that “humanities activists” first sought to play a role in times of crisis, confident that the war library operation had the blessing of prominent authors. The paper analyses the experience of British self-improvers at the front, their enduring connections with adult education institutions at home and the opportunities that the war opened up to new Australasian common readers fighting as part of the colonial expeditionary forces.     

Behind the By-Lines

Abstract

This article uses a critique of modernity to examine the perceived relationship between global citizenship education (GCE) and digital democracy (DD). We review critiques of citizenship education in the global imperative and of the relationship of technology to democratic engagement. An analogy expresses the problematic way that GCE and DD are both mutually compatible and complicit in ethical global justice issues. We end with a suggestion of a pedagogical framework through which educators can engage with an ethical approach to GCE and DD.     

Useful citizens,useful citizenship: cultural contexts of Sámi education in early twentieth-century Norway,Sweden, and Finland

Abstract

This article investigates Sámi elementary education in early twentieth-century Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The main focus lies on cultural contexts that frame and limit language use. The key analytical concepts are useful citizen and useful citizenship. Through these concepts the article probes the ways in which governmental educational authorities and Sámi teachers talked about education and citizenship. Studying these concepts and the cultural contexts behind them sheds light on the formation phase of Nordic citizenship. Full-scale citizenship was not offered to all individuals inside the nation state. Where it was, it had certain conditions that excluded cultural elements of minority populations. Sámi teachers defined citizenship mainly within the Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish nation states. However, some tendencies towards a more cross-national notion of Sámi identity can be discerned.     

Reviews and Update

Jonathan Long suggests that current interpretations of values education are dominated by a number of ideas that appear to make attempts to achieve clarity and consensus extremely difficult. He argues that ‘essential to the successful development and promotion of values in a secular state educational system is a shifting of emphasis which enables us to see the context as an opportunity rather than a problem’. He goes on to suggest that schools should focus on what he describes as the ‘roots’ of values. In his view, these roots involve the questions ‘What is it to be human?’ and ‘What counts as human flourishing?’. Thus, schools must engage with issues of identity and direction.     

Educators’ Perceptions of Student Digital Citizenship Practices

Abstract

Digital citizenship, defined as exhibiting appropriate and responsible behavior with digital technology use, is an essential component of technology education. The purpose of this study was to examine K-12 educators’ perceptions of their students' digital citizenship knowledge and practices as they relate to cyberbullying, digital footprint, digital privacy, digital netiquette, and digital identity. One hundred and seven educators responded to a survey on digital citizenship practices. Based on the educators' perceptions, student understanding and practice of digital citizenship were rated as not well for most of the items on the survey. While educators' perceptions of their students' digital citizenship practices did not vary among school levels or based on their roles as teachers or technology coaches, educators who taught digital citizenship had higher perceptions of their students' digital citizenship practices.     

‘But What’s the Use? They Don’t Wear Breeches!’: Montaigne and the pedagogy of humor

Abstract

By virtue of his Essays Montaigne is rightly regarded not only as a radically modern philosopher but also as a transformative educational innovator. He confronted the extent to which pedantry and acculturation can justify cruelty by developing a conception of liberal arts education as the arts of liberation, and at the core of this education he placed the practice of essaying. This article argues that in easing us into essaying practices Montaigne qua educator makes reflexive use of three specific modes of didactic humor: incongruous comparison, subversive superiority, and leveling embodiment. Humor thus emerges as a cognitive disposition and communicative mode especially appropriate to the pedagogical engagement with difference today.     

Students positioned as global citizens in Australian and New Zealand universities: A discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

Higher education plays a critical role in producing society’s leaders by preparing graduates with the knowledge, capabilities and disposition to appreciate diversity and address social injustice. Many higher education institutions within and beyond Australia have aimed to internationalise their curricula to ensure students achieve capabilities that enable them to contribute to an evolving global knowledge economy. However, the inclusion of global citizenship as a graduate attribute embedded in internationalised curricula, and the processes to achieving this, are highly contested. Guided by a discourse analysis approach, this study explored how Australian and New Zealand universities position students as global citizens in public web pages. Publicly available policy and other text documents on university websites relating to internationalisation and/or global citizenship were collected and screened. Those that met inclusion criteria were analysed to identify discourses and to further understand how higher education institutions describe their plan to advance and achieve global citizenship agendas. Two key themes were generated: expressions of internationalisation policy and global citizenship as an obscured educational intention. These findings are further elaborated, providing an outline of the possible implications for higher education policy and practice relating to the internationalisation of curriculum for global citizenship and its potential impact on educators and students.