| Abstract: | The new Social Studies curriculum recently introduced in Alberta proposes to encourage students to affirm their place as citizens
in a democratic society. Grounded in Biesta’s (2007) argument that regardless of a Program of Studies’ best stated goals and
intentions, if a school is not structured democratically the chances of the program being successful are limited. In this
article, I question what makes a school democratic as opposed to undemocratic by proposing that the new curriculum is grounded
in a representational view of knowledge which leads to a document that is overly conceptualized and presents a view of citizenship
as one that can be achieved rather than one that is practiced (Biesta & Lawy, 2006). I argue that it is the representational curriculum and the public school’s organizational structure
with its emphasis on duties and responsibilities and the virtual absence of freedom and rights that make these schools fundamentally undemocratic places. In order to pursue this line of inquiry, I juxtapose schools in
the public system with a private school which claims to be a participative democracy. This juxtaposition revealed that a school that gives students freedom first and trusts that they will act responsibly with
it, is more likely to lead to a citizenship that is practiced rather than one that is simply achieved. While it is not the
intention of this paper, to recommend that all schools adopt the model of the private school in this study, it does help us
understand why Biesta (2007) is not overly optimistic regarding schools being able to achieve a citizenship that is practiced
as opposed to one that is achieved. |
