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ISSN 1751-1917 (Print)

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International Journal

Citizenship Teaching and Learning


Volume 4 Number 1
July 2008





A journal of citizED
www.citized.info
In collaboration with CiCea


















































Citizenship Teaching and Learning

Editor - Dr. Ian Davies, Department of Educational Studies, University of York,
YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail: id5@york.ac.uk

Book Reviews Editor Professor Mark Evans, OISE, University of Toronto, Canada

Chief Regional Editors:
Africa - Professor Penny Enslin (University of Glasgow)
Asia - Professor Kerry Kennedy and Professor Wing On Lee (Hong Kong Institute
of Education, Hong Kong)
Australia - Professor Murray Print (University of Sydney)
Canada - Professor Alan Sears (University of New Brunswick)
Europe - Mitja Sardoc (Educational Research Institute, Slovenia)
South America - Rosario Jaramillo Franco (Ministry of Education of Colombia)
USA - Professor Judith Torney Purta (University of Maryland)

Editorial Committee:
Professor Bernadette Dean, Aga Khan University, Pakistan.
Professor Kerry Kennedy, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
Professor Wing On Lee, University of Sydney, Australia
Professor Norio Ikeno, Hiroshima University, Japan.
Professor Mitsuhara Mizuyama, Kyoto University, Japan
Professor Murray Print, University of Sydney, Australia
Professor Alan Reid, University of South Australia, Australia
Professor Mark Evans, OISE, University of Toronto, Canada
Professor Yvonne Hbert, University of Calgary, Canada
Professor Will Kymlicka, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Professor Graham Pike, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Professor Carole Hahn, Emory University, USA
Professor Walter Parker, University of Washington, USA
Professor Judith Torney-Purta, University of Maryland, USA
Professor John Annette, Birbeck College, University of London, UK
Professor James Arthur, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
Dr. Ruth Deakin Crick, University of Bristol, UK
Professor Jon Davison, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
Dr. Elizabeth Frazer, University of Oxford, UK
Professor Mrta Flp, Institute for Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Hungary
Professor Cathie Holden, University of Exeter, UK
Professor David Kerr, National Foundation for Educational Research, UK/Birkbeck
College, University of London, UK
Professor Concepcion Naval, University of Navarra, Spain
Professor Alistair Ross, London Metropolitan University, UK
Don Rowe, Citizenship Foundation, UK



About citizED

citizED is funded by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) in the
UK. citizED is a collaboration within higher education organised principally around
citizenship education in primary, secondary, cross curricular, post 16 and community
involvement contexts. It is working in partnership with a wide variety of individuals
and organisations including the Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT).

citizEDs Director is Professor James Arthur of Canterbury Christ Church University.
(Tel +44 (0)1227 782277, email: james.arthur@canterbury.ac.uk). The Deputy
Directors are Dr Ian Davies of the University of York (Tel +44 (0)1904 433460, email
id5@york.ac.uk) and Professor Jon Davison of Canterbury Christ Church University,
email jon.davison@canterbury.ac.uk).
The project administrator is Roma Woodward at Canterbury Christ Church University.
(Tel +44 (0)1227 782993, email: roma.woodward@canterbury.ac.uk).

citizEDs website may be found at http://www.citized.info



About Citizenship Teaching and Learning

Formerly published as The International Journal of Citizenship and Teacher
Education, the Journal is now renamed Citizenship Teaching and Learning
reflecting our interest in citizenship teaching and learning in all contexts, for all ages
within and beyond schools; international, global and cosmopolitan with a
commitment to academic excellence within diverse democracies.

Citizenship and civics education are diverse and contested fields encompassing,
amongst other matters, social and moral considerations, community involvement and
political literacy. The Journal appeals to those large academic and professional
populations within the field of social studies education. The Journal exists as an
international forum in which researchers, policy makers, administrators and practising
professionals in a range of local, national and global contexts and age-related phases
within and beyond formal educational institutions report and discuss their on-going or
completed work.

Previous issues can be downloaded for free from http://www.citized.info/e-journal.

Linked to the Journal is an international conference on citizenship education an
annual conference that takes place at venues across the world drawing together
experts on citizenship education from across the globe.


Citizenship Teaching and Learning

Volume 4 Number 1 July 2008


Contents


Editorial Ian Davies (Editor) page 1


Articles

RUTH LISTER: Inclusive Citizenship, gender and poverty: some
Implications for education for citizenship page 3


DAVID MCCULLOUGH: Moral and social education in Japanese
Schools: Conflicting conceptions of citizenship page 21


KURT W. CLAUSEN, TODD A. HORTON, & LYNN SPEER LEMISKO:
Democracy and Diersity: A content analysis o selected contemporary
Canadian Social studies curricula page 35


LORNA R. MCLEAN, SHARON A. COOK, TRACY CROWE:
Imagining Global Citizens: Teaching Peace and Global Education in a
Teacher-Education Programme page 50


BERNADETTE L. DEAN: Preparing Democratic Citizens in Pakistani
Schools page 65


GARY CLEMITSHAW: A response to Ralph Leightons article -
Revisiting Postman and Weingartners New Education is teaching
Citizenship a Subversive Activity? page 82


Book Reviews page 96

Education for Intercultural Citizenship: Concepts and Comparisons ( 2006 ).
Reviewer: Peter Cunningham
Citizenship, Enterprise and Learning: Harmonising Competing Educational Agendas
(2007. Reviewer: Emery J. Hyslop-Margison
Citizenship and Moral Education: Values in Action (2006). Reviewer: Charlene Tan
Diversity and Citizenship in the Curriculum: Research Review (2007).
Reviewer: Terezia Zoric

Citizenship Teaching and Learning
Vol4, No. 1, July 2008



http://www.citized.info 2008 citizED


Editorial
This edition of Citizenship Teaching and Learning (CTL) is published to
coincide with the 2008 citizED conference held at the University of Cambridge, UK.
This conference brings together the leading figures in citizenship education from
around the world and provides an opportunity for collegial discussion and debate.
The articles presented in this edition of the Journal will contribute to the
development of our understandings about citizenship education in different parts of
the world.

There are 6 articles presented here. Ruth Lister discusses inclusive citizenship
with a particular focus on gender and poverty as she argues for a form of citizenship
education that is pluralist, reflexive and participatory. David McCullogh writes
about moral and social education in Japanese schools. He sketches the history of
moral and social education, explaining that citizenship education is emerging in a
context where internationalisation is influencing debates between traditionalists and
reformers. The outcomes of those debates are not clear at the moment. There are two
articles that emerge from work taking place in Canada. Kurt Clausen, Todd Horton
and Lynn Speer Lemisko explore democracy and diversity through a content
analysis of some contemporary Canadian social studies curricula. They suggest that
despite the good intentions of curriculum developers to include multiple voices, the
values and perspectives of the dominant culture pervade discussions of democratic
notions in these documents. Our second article from a Canadian perspective is
written by Lorna McClean, Sharon Cook and Tracy Crowe. That piece discusses
peace and global education in a teacher education programme. Whilst the authors
recognise the distinctions between peace and global education and suggest that there
are significant challenges in implementing such work, they argue that success can be
achieved by considering gender, disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical skill.
Bernadette Dean also deals with questions of implementing citizenship education
and focuses on Pakistani schools. She discusses an action research project that
shows the constraints of school processes and structures that are felt by teachers.
The final piece that is included here is in the form of a reply to an article written by
Ralph Leighton in a previous issue of CTL. When Ralphs piece appeared I wrote in
an editorial that it had been included as a discussion piece and I hoped that it would
lead to a response. I am delighted that there has been a positive response to this call.
Garys article presents, very constructively, a different view of the meaning and
implications of the work of some of the radical educators of the past for
contemporary citizenship education. I hope the debate continues.

The above articles are a clear indication of the vibrancy of the work of individual
academics and broader citizenship education communities around the world. There
are, of course, no straightforward answers to the issues that we face. But perhaps we
are getting closer to a clearer identification of the challenges. Some of the important
themes that many of the authors have included in this edition focus on the need to
recognise and celebrate diversity and inclusion; the importance of broader social and
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political factors in the development and implementation of educational policy; and
the significance of teachers knowledge and pedagogical skill. The global dialogue
that is facilitated by CTL provides an opportunity to create new knowledge and new
spaces for teachers and learners. The editorial committee, authors and readers of
CTL are playing a part in helping to shape the global community in which these key
issues can be addressed.

Correspondence: IAN DAVIES, Department of Educational Studies, University
of York, YO10 5DD, UK
Articles to be submitted electronically to:
Roma Woodward: roma.woodward@canterbury.ac.uk or
Elizabeth Melville: elizabeth.melville@canterbury.ac.uk




Citizenship Teaching and Learning
Vol. 4, No. 1, July 2008

http://www.citized.info 2008 citizED


Inclusive Citizenship, gender and poverty:
some implications for education for
citizenship
RUTH LISTER, Loughborough University
ABSTRACT This article is divided into two parts. The first discusses citizenship
with reference to the ideal of inclusive citizenship and to the position of two
overlapping groups whose struggle for inclusive citizenship is not yet fully won:
women and people experiencing poverty. The second part draws out some
implications for education for citizenship. It does so from the perspective both of
strengthening the citizenship of marginalized groups and of educating others to
adopt an inclusive and respectful stance towards them. It addresses the
intimate/domestic sphere on the one hand and the global on the other. It concludes
by arguing for a form of education for citizenship which can contribute to the
development of an inclusive citizenship, which is also pluralist, reflexive and
participatory.
Introduction

Underpinning the idea of education for citizenship is typically an implicit or
explicit ideal of citizenship as a force for inclusion. The first part of this article
therefore discusses the ideal of inclusive citizenship both in general terms and with
reference to two groups whose struggle for inclusive citizenship is not yet fully won:
women and people experiencing poverty. They are, of course, overlapping groups,
given womens greater risk of poverty world-wide and their role as the managers
and shock-absorbers of poverty (Womens Budget Group, 2005). However, for ease
of analysis their relationship to citizenship will be explored separately.
The second part draws out some implications for education for citizenship from
the perspective both of strengthening the citizenship of marginalized groups and of
educating others to adopt an inclusive and respectful stance towards them in both a
national and global context. The article uses the term education for citizenship
rather than citizenship education to denote a focus that is broader than formal
citizenship education programmes, which are part of the schools curriculum. It is
written from a UK perspective but draws on a wider literature, including from the
global South.
Inclusive citizenship
One reason why citizenship is a contested concept is that it operates
simultaneously as a force for both inclusion and exclusion. Traditional citizenship
theory tended to highlight the inclusionary side and largely to ignore the
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exclusionary. Feminist and other critical citizenship theorists/activists have in
contrast taken citizenships exclusionary dynamic as the starting point for their
analysis but have explicitly or implicitly used the principle of inclusiveness to
challenge that dynamic. In my own work I have interpreted that principle as a
means of strengthening the inclusive side of citizenships membership coin while
explicitly acknowledging, and as far as is possible challenging, its exclusionary side
both within and at the borders of nation states (Lister, 2003). This approach to
citizenship is framed by a multi-tiered conceptualization: not bound by the
boundaries of nation-states but locating citizenship within spaces and places
stretching from the intimate/domestic through to the global, and embracing
ecological responsibilities and rights (J ones and Gaventa, 2002: 19; Lister, 2007a).
One way of thinking about inclusive citizenship, within the boundaries of a
nation state, is to take the main components of citizenship membership and
belonging; the rights and obligations that flow from that membership; and equality
of status and argue that they should apply to all citizens equally. Much critical
analysis of citizenship has exposed the myriad ways in which marginalized groups
have been excluded from full enjoyment of these different elements of citizenship to
the detriment of their citizenship as both a status and a practice.
Values
Another way to ask what we mean by inclusive citizenship is in terms of the
values that might underpin it. This more normative stance is consistent with T. H.
Marshalls notion of an image of an ideal citizenship against which achievements
can be measured and towards which aspirations can be directed (1950: 29). It is the
approach taken by an edited collection, Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and
Expressions, which draws mainly on accounts of citizenship struggles in the Global
South, particularly those of people suffering poverty and social exclusion, so as to
examine the meanings of citizenship from below (Gaventa, 2005: xiii). To quote
the editor, Naila Kabeer:
Their contributions thus touch on the different mechanics of exclusion
which consign certain groups within a society to the status of lesser
citizens or of non-citizens, and on the struggles by such groups to
redefine, extend and transform given ideas about rights, duties and
citizenship. They therefore help to shed light on what inclusive
citizenship might mean when it is viewed from the standpoint of the
excluded (2005: 1).
Despite the very different contexts within which their understandings of
citizenship are forged and within which their struggles for full citizenship are waged,
Kabeer argues that
their testimonies and actions suggest there are certain values that
people associate with citizenship which cut across the various
boundaries that divide them. These values may not be universal but
they are widespread enough to suggest that they constitute a
significant aspect of the organization of collective life and of the way
in which people connect with each other. And because they are being
expressed by groups who have experienced exclusion in some form or
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other, these values also articulate their vision of what a more inclusive
society might imply (2005: 3).
The four values of inclusive citizenship, which emerged from these accounts
from below, are justice, recognition, self-determination and solidarity. J ustice was
articulated in terms of when it is fair for people to be treated the same and when it
is fair that they should be treated differently (Kabeer, 2005: 3). Demands for
recognition were framed in terms of the intrinsic worth of all human beings, but
also recognition of and respect for their differences (Kabeer, 2005: 4). The value
of self-determination described peoples ability to exercise some degree of control
over their lives (Kabeer, 2005: 5). Elsewhere, this value also emerges particularly
strongly in disability theorists accounts of citizenship, which detail the very specific
barriers to self-determination and also participation faced by disabled people (see,
for instance, Morris, 2005). Finally, the notion of solidarity vocalized a belief in
the capacity to identify with others and to act in unity with them in their claims for
justice and recognition (Kabeer, 2005: 7). This last value reflects a horizontal
view of citizenship, which accords as much significance to the relations between
citizens as to the vertical relationship between the state and the individual. In the
global North, a horizontal view of this kind is more prevalent in the Nordic countries
than in Anglo-American societies.
The values resonate with the principle of participatory parity expounded by
Nancy Fraser: the ability of all (adult) members of society to interact with one
another as peers (2003: 36, emphasis added). Fraser maintains that this requires a
distribution of material resources such as to ensureindependence and voice
and institutionalized patterns of cultural value [which] express equal respect for all
participants and ensure equal opportunity for achieving social esteem (2003: 36).
These values provide a helpful starting point for thinking about the values that
might underpin life-long education for citizenship. However, they are not
necessarily exhaustive (for instance some might want to include the value of an ethic
of care to balance that of justice - see, for instance, Sevenhuijsen 1998; Williams,
2004) and there may be others that emerge from the viewpoints of particular
excluded or marginalized groups.
Women
Citizenship has been identified as an important tool of political mobilization for
women in both the global North and South, providing women with a valuable
weapon in the fight for human, democratic, civil and social rights (Werbner and
Yuval-Davis, 1999: 28). In a development context, BRIDGE (a gender and
development project within the Institute of Development Studies), explains that
womens rights activists, feminist academics and womens social
movements have drawn on ideas of citizenship in order to achieve
greater gender equality. The interaction between development
workers, activists and civil society in promoting the rights of citizens
can be a powerful force (Meer with Shever, 2004: 6).
Feminist scholarship has, over the past two decades, helped to pioneer a more
inclusive theory and practice of citizenship (Lister, 2007c). Its starting point was to
illuminate how, in both theory and practice, despite its claims to universalism,
citizenship had been drawn according to a quintessentially male template and had
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upheld a false universalism. Womens exclusion (and the chequered nature of their
inclusion) operated at two levels. At the surface level, in the classical civic
republican tradition, the active participation of male citizens was predicated on the
exclusion of women who sustained male participation by their labour in the private
sphere. [1] Today, to varying degrees in different societies, the gendered division of
labour means that many women still enter the public sphere of politics and the
economy with one hand tied behind their back. In the liberal tradition, married
womens legal subordination helped define their husbands status as citizen heads of
households. At a deeper level, the exclusion reflected an essentialist categorization
of men and womens qualities and capacities, rooted in the public-private
dichotomy.
The wider feminist challenge to that dichotomy and to narrow definitions of the
political has been central to feminist critiques of mainstream citizenship theory. In
most cases, it has not been a question of arguing for the complete dissolution of the
categories public and private but for the re-articulation of the relationship
between the two within a broad conception of the political. Such a conception is not
confined to any particular sphere of action and it embraces informal forms of politics
in which women are more likely to be active in a wide range of societies.

Key to the gendered re-articulation of the public-private divide has been the
status accorded to unpaid care work in relation to the rights and responsibilities of
citizenship, and related to that the gendered division of labour and time. Care is
theorized both as an expression of citizenship and as a barrier to citizenship a
tension, which a number of feminist analysts have tried to address by emphasizing
the importance of mens involvement in domestic care work and of policies that
promote this. It is a position which attempts to give due value to care for the
responsibilities attached to both women and mens citizenship while not losing sight
of the importance of womens access to paid work and politics informal and
formal.
Paul Kershaw makes the case for treating the domestic sphere as a critical
socio-political domain for the purposes of promoting social inclusion and for seeing
time for care in ones domestic spaces as an essential element of social
belonging (2005: 105). From this perspective, which neatly turns conventional
thinking on its head, obstacles to caring are just as much impediments to the
practices of full social membership as are barriers to inclusion in the labour market
(Kershaw, 2005: 105). Thus for men with caring responsibilities, involvement in
caring itself becomes a condition of inclusive citizenship.
However, it is important to acknowledge that in the context of adult care,
disabled feminists have challenged the very language of care as exclusionary. J enny
Morris, for instance, in a paper on citizenship and disabled people, argues that the
common assumption that disabled people are in need of careundermines other
peoples ability to see us as autonomous people (2005: 25). This in turn, she
maintains, represents one of the attitudinal barriers to citizenship participation
(Morris, 2005: 26).
Morris criticism serves as a reminder that inclusive citizenship can have
different meanings for particular groups of women, since womens and mens
relationship to citizenship is mediated not just by gender but by other social
divisions of class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability and also by age. Thus, a
gender-inclusive model of citizenship has to be inclusive of women in their
diversity (Lister, 2003).
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Many theorists have grappled with the tension created between attention to
diversity and particularity on the one hand and citizenships universalist promise on
the other. My own attempt at reconciliation, if not resolution, has been through the
concept of a differentiated universalism in which the achievement of the universal
is contingent upon attention to difference (Lister, 2003). Helpful too (and chiming
with the values listed earlier) is J odie Deans notion of reflective solidarity, which
projects a universalist ideal urging the inclusion of our concrete differences in
order to break through the opposition between difference and universality (Dean,
1996: 142, 10).
People experiencing poverty
Citizenships universalist ideal is of particular importance to people experiencing
poverty, for the last thing they want is to be seen and treated as different.
Traditionally, poverty citizenship politics has been framed as a politics of
redistribution, aimed at raising the incomes and living standards of people living in
poverty. However, contemporary poverty citizenship politics can also be interpreted
as a politics of recognition or a politics of recognition & respect (Lister, 2004:
186-9) to reflect the language used by poverty activists. Here it is not a politics of
recognition of difference, as conventionally understood, but recognition of common
humanity and citizenship (Fraser, 2003).
Such an interpretation is rooted in a conceptualization of poverty as a
relational/symbolic as well as a material phenomenon (Lister, 2004). Poverty
represents not just a disadvantaged and insecure economic condition but also a
shameful and corrosive social relation (J ones and Novak, 1999). Participatory
research and action, particularly in the Global South, illuminate how poverty is
experienced as: lack of voice; disrespect, humiliation and an assault on dignity and
self-esteem; shame and stigma; powerlessness; denial of human rights and
diminished citizenship (Narayan et al., 2000).
Dominant discourses of poverty represent a process of Othering a dualistic
process of differentiation and demarcation by which a line is drawn between us
and them and through which social distance is established and maintained (Lister,
2004). Othering can be understood as a discursive practice, which is reinforced by
media representations. It shapes how the non-poor think and talk about and act
towards the poor at both an inter-personal and an institutional level.
The othering of the poor means that they are typically targets of, at best, the
non-poors pity or indifference and, at worst, their fear, contempt or hostility, to be
helped or punished, ignored or studied but rarely treated as equal fellow citizens
with rights (Katz, 1989: 236). As a consequence, people in poverty can feel
stigmatized, shamed and humiliated and such feelings can be injurious to identity,
self-respect and self-esteem.
In response, participatory research and action against poverty is increasingly
informed by a rejection of such discourses and an alternative discourse, which
demands dignifying treatment and respect as human beings and citizens. Key terms
in the alternative poverty discourses of resistance, which are emerging among
poverty activists in both North and South, are human rights, citizenship, voice and
power.
The UN has been in the forefront of promoting a human rights poverty discourse.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a human
rights conceptualization of poverty:
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leads to more adequate responses to the many facets of povertyIt gives
due attention to the critical vulnerability and subjective daily assaults
on human dignity that accompany poverty. Importantly, it looks not
just at resources but also at the capabilities, choices, security and
power needed for enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and
other fundamental, civil, cultural, political and social rights
(www.unhchr.ch/development/pov-02.html) .
Two key principles inform this statement. First is respect for the dignity of all
human beings. It can be the everyday indignities that make poverty so difficult to
bear. Uma Narayan has put forward as a citizenship ideal a society that is
responsive to the social dignity and worth of all who are members (1997: 54). Her
appeal to dignity chimes with a study of citizenship in deprived communities in Rio
de J aneiro. Participants made it clear that meaningful citizenship cannot exist
without dignity. One woman summed it up: Dignity is everything for a citizen
and we have no dignity. We are treated like cattle in the clinics, on the buses and in
the shops. Only in rich neighbourhoods are people treated with dignity (Wheeler,
2004: 41).
Second, is the notion of the indivisibility or interdependence of human rights
including social and cultural as well as civil and political rights. For example, it is
difficult to exercise political and civil rights to the full, if hungry or homeless. Both
poverty and social exclusion have been conceptualized in terms of the denial of the
enjoyment of the full triad of political, civil and social citizenship rights (and also
cultural rights). Dignified and respectful treatment of welfare state users has been
identified as a procedural citizenship right, which regulates process rather than
outcome (Coote, 1992). Procedural rights also embrace the accessibility of services
and the availability of information and advice, which can be crucial in bridging the
gap between formal rights on paper and their enjoyment in practice, particularly for
marginalized groups. Education for citizenship clearly also has an important role to
play here (see below).
From the perspective of citizenship as membership and participation, at the first
European Meeting of Citizens Living in Poverty, the European Anti-Poverty
Network reports that participants stressed that they were first and foremost
citizens before being people experiencing poverty. Citizenship is something to
which we all stake a claim and means being part of the mainstream of society
(EAPN, 2003: 4, emphasis in original). Being part of the mainstream of society
involves participation in the social, economic, political, civic and cultural spheres.
A key element from a citizenship perspective is political participation. A number of
political theorists have posited the idea of a basic right of participation in decision-
making in social, economic, cultural and political life (Gould, 1988: 212, J anoski,
1998). Draft UN guidelines declare that a human rights approach to poverty
reductionrequires active and informed participation by the poor in the
formulation, implementation and monitoring of poverty reduction strategies
(OHCHR, 2002: 2).
This goes to the heart of the voicelessness and powerlessness frequently
identified as critical to their situation by people in poverty in the global North and
South. Calls for the voices of the marginalized to be heard in policy-making and
campaigning are becoming more vocal (CoPPP, 2000; Cochrane, 2006; EAPN,
2007). In addition to citizenship and human rights arguments, the case is made with
reference to principles of social inclusion and democracy. It represents a demand
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for recognition of and respect for the expertize borne of experience alongside those
forms of knowledge and expertise that have traditionally been privileged.
Education for citizenship
The first part of this article has argued that the ideal of inclusive citizenship
offers a touchstone for the struggles of marginalized groups such as women and
people experiencing poverty. Implicit has been an understanding of citizenship as
an identity and a practice as well as a set of rights and obligations. In an essay on
psychology and citizenship, J ohn Shotter argues that
to be a citizen is not a simple matter of first as a child growing up to be
a socially competent adult, and then simply walking out into the
everyday world to take up ones rights and duties as a citizenIt is a
status which one must struggle to attain in the face of competing
versions of what is proper to struggle for (1993: 115-6).
We are not talking here about the formal legal status of citizen but about how
people are able to fulfil the potential of that status. Education for citizenship has a
crucial role to play in equipping both children and adults to be citizens in the full
sense of the word. How well it equips them for inclusive citizenship depends on the
extent to which it challenges citizenships exclusionary elements and encourages a
critical relationship to citizenship. As Madeleine Arnot warns, if governments are
not alert, citizenship education can become the political device with which to mask
the social stratification and dividing practices in society in their attempt to promote
social cohesion (2004: 6).
The second part of the article therefore begins by describing a template for
education for citizenship, which avoids this pitfall and which offers the kind of
critical approach, advocated here. Using this as a loose framework, the article then
draws on various examples to suggest ways in which education for citizenship, in
the context of both schools and adult learning, can strengthen citizenship as a force
for inclusion and as an emancipatory practice.
Education for inclusive, pluralist, reflexive and active (participatory)
citizenship
The template for an inclusive and critical approach to education for citizenship is
articulated in a collection published by the National Institute of Adult Continuing
Education (NIACE), in the context of adult learning (Coare and J ohnston, 2003a).
The editors use the concept of inclusive citizenship as part of the books basic
framework but rather more narrowly than in this article because they augment it with
the inter-connected notions of pluralistic, reflexive and active citizenship as the
basis for different models of adult learning. These models together clearly embody
three of the values of inclusive citizenship outlined earlier: recognition, self-
determination and solidarity and are consistent with an over-arching principle of
social justice.

In their schema, adult learning for inclusive citizenship engages with the policy
goal of social inclusion but in a critical manner so as to raise questions about the
nature of social inclusion such as on whose terms and in whose interests?
(J ohnston, 2003: 55). One of the editors, Rennie J ohnston, argues that
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a focus on adult learning for inclusive citizenship has the potential to
open the way to a different and positive learning identity for some
disadvantaged groups of learners as well as leading to the
development of social learning, social capital and greater
participation in civil society (2003: 57).

Learning for pluralistic citizenship, he contends, needs to build on but extend
beyond inclusive citizenship to take account of growing social diversity and
pluralism (J ohnston, 2003: 57). It moves between the local and the global and
works with the tension between diversity and commonality as expressed in the
notion of a differentiated universalism. It also provides an opportunity to enable
marginalized groups to develop a voice.
Learning for reflexive citizenship is reflective, self-critical and dynamic
(J ohnston, 2003: 59). It works with a broad understanding of citizenship involving
identity and participation as well as the more traditional rights and responsibilities.
A similar conceptualization is offered by an International Review Panel, which
produced a report on the principles and concepts that should inform education for
citizenship in a global age:
An important goal of citizenship education in a democratic multicultural
society is to help students acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills
needed to make reflective decisions and to take action in order to make
their nation-state more democratic and just. Because becoming a
knowledgeable and engaged citizen is a process, education should
facilitate the development of students civic consciousness and agency
(Banks et al., 2006: 8, emphasis in original).
Key in Johnstons formulation is the problematization of the relationship
between learning and knowledge, with regard to which he suggests that perhaps
both political and practical lessons can be learned from the South (J ohnston, 2003:
60). He refers to IDSs development of the notion of knowledge rights: the right
for different forms of knowledge to co-exist and to carry weight in the decisions that
affect peoples lives (Leach and Scoones,2003: 17). This links back to the earlier
discussion about the importance of the expertise borne of experience for the
participatory citizenship of people with experience of poverty.
J ohnston cites the deployment by the Barcelona Centre for Research into the
Education of Adults of a pedagogy of the maximum which draws on the capacities
and skills of individuals and not their deficits, a pedagogy that fosters peoples self-
esteem (J ohnston, 2003: 61). This is of particular importance for members of
marginalized groups for whom self-esteem can be difficult to maintain in the face of
disrespectful treatment. From a feminist perspective, Susan J ames has underlined
the importance of self-esteem and in particular a confidence that one is worthy to
participate in political life to enabling people to speak out as citizens (1992: 60).
The development of a conscious sense of agency, at both the personal and political
level, is critical to a persons sense of herself as a full and active citizen on her own
or together with others. Indeed, citizenship as a political practice requires that sense
of agency, which in turn is strengthened when acting with others.

The final model identified is that of active citizenship. However, given some
of the connotations associated with the term in the UK, participatory citizenship
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arguably better conveys its spirit.[2] It focuses on the crucial link between learning
and action and involves learning by doing across a wide spectrum of civil society
and as such can incorporate the other three models (J ohnston, 2003: 62). He
concludes that there is clear scope for adult educator involvement in promoting and
supporting an inclusive yet pluralistic, a reflexive but also active citizenship
(J ohnston, 2003: 64). However, he also warns that
in order to avoid any dangers of either colonisation or tokenistic
engagement, any learning initiative should try to be, as much as
possible, on the terms and on the territory of individuals, social groups
or movements and outside the immediate imperialist gaze of
educational institutions (Johnston, 2003: 64).
Inclusive and emancipatory approaches
Osler and Starkey argue that citizenship education must ultimately be judged by
the society it produces. On the one hand the society needs to be inclusive of all its
citizens, and on the other the citizens need to equip themselves with the
competencies to participate in a democracy (1999: 201). This suggests two ways of
thinking about education for citizenship in this context, which will be explored in
turn. First is the education of citizens to be inclusive of others from the domestic
through to the global spheres of citizenship. Second is education for citizenship as a
tool for developing not just competencies to participate but more fundamentally the
self-confidence and sense of agency necessary for reflexive and participatory
citizenship. Here education for citizenship might represent an emancipatory practice
for excluded and marginalized groups. In practice the two will overlap not least
because any one individual may stand in a number of different positions on the
various axes of inclusion and exclusion.
Inclusive of others
In a report on citizenship education and human rights education, the British
Council discusses an inclusive model of education for citizenship, based on a
schema developed by Osler and Starkey (1996). In the context of an emphasis on
critical thinking and critical action, inclusion, it argues, would not just be
introduced in terms of learning about a divided society, but in terms of ones
responsibility to analyse ones own preconceptions, to identify the good society
that one wants, and actively work towards that (Davies, 2000: 9). Elements of
pluralistic, reflexive and participatory citizenship can also be discerned in the model.
Social divisions and the implications of diversity are addressed by the British
Council and are a common theme in writings on education for citizenship. For
example, the first principle enunciated in the International Review Panels report is:
Students should learn about the complex relationships between unity and diversity
in their local communities, the nation and the world (Banks et al, 2006: 11).
However, a curriculum review carried out for the UK government concluded that
issues of identity and diversity are more often than not neglected in
Citizenship education. When these issues are referred to, coverage is
often unsatisfactory and lacks contextual depthIf children and young
people are to develop a notion of citizenship as inclusive, it is crucial
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that issues of identity and diversity are addressed explicitly (Ajegbo,
2007a: 7, 8).
Reflecting the multi-tiered conceptualization put forward earlier, the British
Council explains that a dimension which cuts across the modelis that of
personal-local-national-international (Davies, 2000: 9). The more personal
dimension is particularly important from the perspective of gendered citizenship.
Arnot argues that
citizens should be taught through their educational experiences to
explore their own subjective responses, to empathise with others, to
develop their social commitments, values and communication skills in
the private and intimate spheres not just in public spheres (Arnot,
2004: 7).
She makes the case for
the integration of sexuality education into citizenship programmes, the
recognition of community and family as citizenship spheres to
recognise the contribution of women educators in the development of
citizenship identities as mothers, teachers and teacher educators.
[And for] rethinking the education of boys and developing a critical
engagement with concepts of masculinity in the classroom. The data
from empirical research indicate the conditions for womens inclusion
into public life cannot be separated from the development of male civic
roles/virtues in private and domestic life (Arnot, 2004: 19).
In similar vein, but without Arnots gendered perspective, Andrew Lockyer
maintains that citizenship education also comes to represent a means of influencing
the private sphere through the public, since the tenets of public reasonableness
absorbed at school may come to animate discourse in the domestic arena (2008:
29).
The British Council report observes how, drawing on feminist insights, education
for citizenship will tackle not just gender inequality and the rights of women, but
some of the fundamental ideas in a society over who is a citizen, and what the
rights of those citizens are (Davies, 2000: 17). It gives as examples of issues that
are typically excluded from the terrain of citizenship domestic violence and the
gendered division of labour. Even citizenship education materials addressing the
family do not necessarily take on board a gendered citizenship perspective. For
example a unit on Family and Home Life produced by the Citizenship Foundation
(2006) in the UK talks about parents and carers in a completely ungendered way and
it only obliquely might encourage students to think about parenting as a gendered
activity with implications for citizenship. In contrast a Fawcett Society leaflet on
citizenship education refers to issues such as caring, work-rest-of-life balance and
gender stereotyping. [3]
Although these materials are for use in the UK, the issues raised are as, if not
more, pertinent in a development context. Drawing on analysis of key international
policy documents by Elaine Unterhalter, Dillabough and Arnot observe that she
demonstrates the essentialism and passivity ascribed to womens
citizenship in the developing world and how any investment in female
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education is often constrained by particularly limited notions of stake-
holding, gender and citizenship (2004: 173).
Diversity is often discussed purely in terms of social and cultural divisions such
as race and religion (as well as, less frequently, gender). However, this is to ignore
socio-economic divisions, which emanate from class and socio-economic inequality.
Yet, as Osler observes, poverty also has a huge impact [on]educational initiatives
on community cohesion (2007: 13). Education for citizenship, for both children
and adults, has a potentially important role to play in educating about poverty and in
developing institutions more inclusive of people living in poverty, particularly if
framed within the kind of human rights conceptualization of poverty outlined earlier.
The case for this has been made in a British study of childrens perceptions of
socio-economic difference in which researchers talked to children from deprived and
affluent backgrounds. They found that the childrens perceptions of socio-economic
difference were often antagonistic in tone: other children, from different socio-
economic backgrounds, were discussed most commonly in critical or disparaging
terms (Sutton et al. 2007: vii). One of the policy recommendations the researchers
make is that the treatment of diversity on the citizenship education curriculum
should be broadened out to include socio-economic diversity. While acknowledging
the sensitivities involved in discussing poverty in the classroom, they argue that the
research highlights a real need for non-poor children to be better informed about
poverty so as to counteract the kind of judgemental and hostile attitudes they
uncovered.

Moving to the other end of the British Councils personal-local-national-
international dimension, information and understanding about poverty in the global
South is a key element in education for an inclusive, pluralist and reflexive
understanding of citizenship in a global context. As J ack Demaine writes, global
citizenship education will expose inequalities between citizens rights and resources
both within and between nation states (2004: 211). A human rights framework for
such education will help to guard against the dangers of Othering the poor in the
global South as passive victims, dependent on the charity of the North (Ajegbo,
2007b; Lepkowska, 2007).
Arnot suggests that a gender-sensitive, global citizenship education has the
potential to help women actively contribute to cross-national global
thinking, it provides a space for addressing gender-related issues and
it embraces a pedagogical philosophy that empowers students by
encouraging them to engage critically with contemporary concerns
(2004: 20).
Contributors to an Oxfam collection on gender, development and citizenship
argue that education for global citizenship deserves a strong endorsement if it is
understood as being about exposing people to world issues, and views of the world,
which promotes justice and equity (Inbaraj et al., 2004: 84). Oxfams own guide to
Education for Global Citizenship places considerable emphasis on the kind of values
of inclusive citizenship discussed earlier, as well as the knowledge, understanding
and skills required for effective global citizenship, and it explores how they might be
translated into the curriculum (Oxfam GB, 2006).
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One small study, carried out for the British Department for International
Development, suggested that primary and secondary school children themselves
would welcome such an approach. It found that they:
were keenly interested in the wider world, wanting to know about
substantive issues such as differences in wealth and povertyThey had
concerns about human rights and justice, and wanted more political
education. There was a criticism that the National Curriculum was
insufficiently international in outlook (Davies et al., 2004: 2).
Such concerns about human rights and justice in a global context were reflected
in an initiative reported in The Independent (29 January, 2008). A group of sixth-
formers mobilized to try to prevent the deportation of an asylum-seeking family one
of whose members, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia, attended their school.
According to The Independent, they mobilised thousands of people across the
world, using the social networking site Facebook, and persuaded church ministers,
community leaders, neighbours and fellow volunteers to rally round the family,
demanding a change of heart from the Home Office. The young people were
quoted as planning to carry on helping asylum-seekers more generally.
An emancipatory practice
The young peoples action can be interpreted as global citizenship as a
participatory practice. In this case, the practice was inclusive of marginalized
others. However education for citizenship can also provide the tools for citizenship
as an emancipatory practice for those who are themselves marginalized. The British
National Council for Voluntary Organisations describes education for citizenship
and lifelong learning as building capacity through formal and informal education to
develop the confidence, the skills and the knowledge needed to engage (J ochum et
al., 2005: 16). While this is important for young people in general, it is of particular
significance for those who are marginalized not just by youth and for marginalized
groups of adults. A study of young peoples transitions to citizenship in Leicester,
in the UK, found that the marginalized young people were particularly likely to say
that school had failed to prepare them for adult life (Lister et al., 2001: 54). This
led to the conclusion that citizenship education:
must provide for the needs and priorities of young people whose life
experiences of poverty and deprivation outside school, combined with
their negative experiences within school, have left them with a
jaundiced view of the education they received and of formal
preparation for adult citizenship. Social exclusion and disadvantage
must be recognised as real obstacles to real citizenship. An
inclusionary approach to citizenship educationshould help young
people to negotiate or even challenge these obstacles, to feel
empowered and valued as citizens, and to feel confident and competent
in participating in the public life of their communities (Lister et al.,
2001: 58).

A recent report from the Scarman Trust in Britain offers just such an approach,
albeit outside the schools context. It makes the case for a strategy for learning,
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which helps to develop skills for social inclusion, particularly among the
poorest (Alexander, 2008: 1). These include the political skills necessary to take
part in politics through advocacy and campaigning as well as elections (Alexander,
2008: 2). As a democratic principle, the report argues, every citizen should be
entitled to learn political literacy to take part in politics, just as they are entitled to
become literate and numerate (Alexander, 2008: 3). To this end, the report
recommends practical political education or learning how to take part in politics
to achieve specific objectives (Alexander, 2008: 27). One of the principles for such
education is that it should be pro-poor
In similar vein, in the final chapter of the NIACE collection cited earlier, Coare
and J ohnston argue for a:
liberating educational approach which first acknowledges the
structural inequalities that impact on peoples lives, then use these as
critical starting points from which to help learner/citizens explore and
develop any subsequent learning, agency or active citizenship (2003b:
206; see also Arnot, 2004).
They make clear that such learning can be encouraged not just by those classified
formally as educators and that it can take place in a wide range of formal and
informal contexts. One of the fundamental points emerging from the voices in
their book, they claim, is the importance of social learning where citizen/learners
work together in making sense of the world, in developing and sharing knowledge
and skills and in exploring and developing their own individual and collective
citizenship (Coare and J ohnston, 2003b: 208).
A very good example of this is provided by an ATD Fourth World project.[4]
Although it was not formally about education for citizenship, it provided just the
kind of social learning Coare and J ohnston talk about, as well as exemplifying
J ohnstons notion of reflexive citizenship. Over two years, academics, people with
direct experience of poverty and ATD workers came together to explore the themes
of history, knowledge and learning, work and daily activity, family and citizenship.
It was described as an extraordinarily difficult process of partnership and learning
in which different kinds of knowledge gained through experience, action and the
academy were respected and shared in an attempt to produce a new kind of
knowledge (ATD Fourth World, 1999a: 1). People with experience of poverty
were not considered simply as recipients of instruction, but also as a source of
knowledge (ATD Fourth World, 1999a: 3). One of the conclusions reached as a
result of the project was the need to include the most excluded in order to strengthen
citizenship overall.
According to the evaluation of the project by its participants, the experience of
the process of collaborative reflection involved personal transformations.
Particularly, the evaluations show a certain shift of perspective in each
participant...A transformation of entire ways of thinking and frames of
referencecan be seen (ATD Fourth World, 1999a: 26). One of the academic
participants is quoted as saying that it forced us to question ourselves, as a
professor, as a human being, as a citizen, as a person. I think it brings more than
simply a knowledge of poverty, it teaches us another way of working as an
academic (ATD Fourth World, 1999b: 19). Participants with experience of poverty
said the project had given them the power to assert themselves, a greater self-
confidence, whereas at the outset they had felt anxiety and powerlessness
(ATD Fourth World, 1999a: 28-9).
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ATD has subsequently drawn up guidelines for what they call the Crossroads of
Knowledge and Practices and their application to people living in poverty and
social exclusion. This can be understood as a form of lifelong learning and
education for citizenship in which, they emphasize, each and every participant must
feel that they are a co-researcher, co-trainer and co-actor with a role in identifying
and formulating the questions, coming to common understandings and working out
solutions together (2006: 3). The aim is to share and build knowledge:
The process allows each and every participant, from whichever milieu
they come, to get a better understanding of themselves, of the world
around them and their place in it. Sharing, in this sense, means
exposing oneself to the knowledge and experience of others to build
knowledge that is more complete and greater than the sum of its parts
(ATD Fourth World, 2006: 5).
A cross-European adult education project involving low income women,
although very different, similarly emphasized the priority given to encouraging
learners to shape the teaching/learning processes themselves, as an important
pedagogic feature of learning for active citizenship. The project reflected a
feminist citizenship perspective in that it focused on learning to link together
problems and solutions across different life spheres i.e. across public, domestic and
personal domains of experience. And the idea was to link learning with
empowerment, so that women gained both skills and confidence to participate in the
social worlds beyond their households (European Commission, 1998: 32).

From a development perspective, Naila Kabeer (2002: 32) has observed the
importance of informal forms of education as a means by which definitions of self
and others are challenged and transformed. The various ways in which people
acquire knowledge and information about their status and rights, the capacity to
reflect on their situation, to question it and to act on it are all, she suggests, ways
of learning citizenship. She cites the work of a Bangladeshi organization that has
adapted Freirian approaches to conscientisation to its work with landless women
and men She points out that the consequent changes in self-definitions have been
particularly significant for women:
These relate to everyday interactions with their husbands, their ability
to speak up for themselves, to protest if they were treated unfairly.
They also relate to their relationships in the wider community, their
feelings of solidarity with other women in the same position as
themselves and their willingness to speak out at political meetings
(Kabeer, 2002: 32).
As BRIDGE observes, the first step in challenging gender-based exclusion is for
women to become aware that their exclusion is an injustice and that things can
change (Meer with Sever, 2004: 29).
Conclusion
Bridges statement provides an appropriate note on which to conclude, for a key
step in achieving genuinely inclusive citizenship is for those who are excluded to
realise that things can change. Thus a key goal of education for citizenship for both
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children and adults should be to provide that knowledge and the capacity then to
achieve change.
To this end, this article has sketched out some ideas for an approach to education
for citizenship, which promotes the values of inclusive citizenship with which the
article began. Framed by principles of social justice, such an approach aims to help
children, young people and adults to exercise self-determination and to encourage
the development of solidarity and recognition. In turn, this should strengthen the
horizontal ties of citizenship, from the domestic through to the global level. In this
way education for citizenship can contribute to the development of an inclusive
citizenship, which is also pluralist, reflexive and participatory.


Correspondence: RUTH LISTER, Loughborough University, Loughborough
Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, England. Email: M.R.Lister@lboro.ac.uk


NOTES

[1] This is not to discount the contribution of feminism to civic republican thinking both historically
and today (Voet, 1998).
[2] During the years of the New Right Thatcher Government, the notion of active citizenship was
used to encourage top-down charitable action to smooth the harsh edges of the market.
[3] The Fawcett Society is a leading British organization campaigning for womens equality.
[4] ATD Fourth World is an international voluntary organization working alongside people living in
long-term poverty.

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Citizenship Teaching and Learning
Vol 4, No. 1, July 2008







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Moral and social education in Japanese
schools: Conflicting conceptions of
citizenship
DAVID MCCULLOUGH, Kobe College,Japan
ABSTRACT Modern Japan, shaped by the successive upheavals of Meiji period
modernisation, defeat in World War II and post-war economic recovery, is a country
with a deeply ambivalent attitude to the outside world. Moral education for children
and young adults has always been important in Japanese society but was usurped by
extreme nationalists in the pre-war period and was subsequently treated with
suspicion by educational reformers. The needs of modern Japan for
"internationalisation" and for attracting workers from overseas to alleviate the
consequences of a shrinking population have led to a revival of interest in moral and
social education for young people. This revival, however, has been led by a variety
of interest groups including nationalists who hope to strengthen traditional attitudes
and liberals who wish to promote inclusion and an acceptance of diversity. The role
of direct moral education and of experience based education in the classroom is a
source of contention between these competing political philosophies.
This paper outlines the history of moral and social education in Japan and traces
the current debate over how this type of education should develop. The elements of
Japanese education that have emerged to comprise a form of citizenship education
are explained.

Introduction
Japan, like many other developed countries, is currently undergoing an intense
national debate over the meaning of citizenship. Views on the role of a citizen, and
of the function education performs in shaping citizens, are sharply divided between
multiculturalist and traditionalist notions of what a citizen should be. At this time,
citizenship education, if regarded as the preparation of young people for their roles
and responsibilities as citizens (Kerr, 1999), does not exist as a clearly defined area
of the school curriculum in Japan and has not (Willis, 2002) become a focus of
attention for Japanese educational reformers. Japanese educationalists do, however,
view the shaping of productive and responsible citizens as a key goal of their work.
As a result, a number of activities and programmes have evolved within the structure
of Japanese education which have many similarities, and also significant differences,
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with citizenship education in other developed countries. These programmes and
activities are now being shaped by the ongoing process of internationalization in
Japanese society which has deeply affected educational reform and has important
consequences for the type of education that will be offered in the 21
st
century. This
paper will examine the historical background to modern Japanese moral education,
will describe how it is offered in Japanese schools today and will outline the
consequences of the national response to internationalization for the future
development of citizenship education in Japan.

Historical background
Confucianism and Japanese Notions of Citizenship

The very notion of citizenship has distinct historical and philosophical roots in
each society which may lead to differing interpretations of the rights and obligations
of the individual citizen. Kerr (1999) suggests that there are clear differences
between the understanding of citizenship in the context of the Confucian traditions
of Eastern Asia and that which exists in the context of the social democratic and
liberal traditions of Britain and its former colonies. A strong definition of Japan as a
society based on Confucian values may be over-simplistic but it is clear that aspects
of Confucianism, such as ranking social harmony above the freedom of the
individual and giving great weight to age, rank and family, are important
distinguishing features of the Japanese sense of social role. Confucianism, according
to Chen & Chung (1993) is based on four central ideas: hierarchical relationships,
the importance of the family system, concern for the less well off, and a strong
emphasis on the importance of education. These ideas can be seen to have a strong
influence on Japanese education today and on the national approach to citizenship
education.

Citizenship Education in the Edo Period (1603 - 1867)

During the lengthy Edo period, when Japan became isolated from Western
societies and developed a sophisticated feudal culture, the warrior, or samurai, class,
was instituted as the leading class in society. The moral code of this class, known as
Bushido, was based on Confucian and Buddhist ideas and emphasized loyalty,
purity, self-sacrifice and honour. In many ways the moral codes of Bushido
resemble those of European chivalry in the middle ages but, as the Shogun rulers of
the Edo period moved Japanese society away from the constant warfare that had
characterized pre-Edo Japan, Bushido came to have a particular emphasis on self-
control and inner development. The ideas of Bushido were propagated to the entire
population through a series of temple schools (terakoya) that, in the strongly
centralized political system of the time in Japan, passed down the ideas of bushido
and of fixed roles and responsibilities in life. Around 40 percent of ordinary
Japanese are estimated to have attended these schools (Ishikawa, 1995: 195).

Citizenship Education in the Period of Nationalism (1868 - 1945)

After the transition from the Shogunate to control of Japan by the
Emperor and his supporters during the Meiji Restoration, compulsory
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education for all children was introduced. The moral education of this
period was called Shushin, which literally means "self-discipline," and
this was one of the eight subjects taught to all children at elementary
level. Shushin was, in fact, regarded as the pre-eminent subject in
education at the time (Ikemoto, 1996).

The most important document in Japanese education prior to the war was
Kyoiku-chokugo, the Imperial Rescript on Education. The Rescript was prominently
displayed in every school and recited by students before studies. It reflected the
desire of Japans leaders at that time to preserve the moral character of bushido
period Japan while also preparing students for their role in promoting Japan as an
Imperial power:
Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers
and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious, as friends true;
bear yourselves in modesty and modernization; extend your
benevolence to all, pursue learning and cultivating arts, and thereby
develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore
advance public good and promote common interest; always respect the
Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, arise
courageously to the States; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity
of our Imperial Throne coeval with heavens and earth. (Passin, 1965:
151).
Underlying the notions of citizenship in the Imperial Rescript, and particularly
emphasized in the years prior to World War II, was the concept of unswerving
loyalty to the Emperor and the state. Shushin, the moral education of the time,
became the means by which the militarists imposed a strongly nationalistic form of
education in Japanese schools.
Citizenship Education in the Period of Democracy (1945 - present)
Post-war citizenship education in Japan can be divided into three periods,
suggests Ikeno (2005). A distinct feature of educational reform throughout the past
60 years has been a strongly centralized educational system which was initially
imposed by the American occupying forces in order to eradicate the doctrinal nature
of pre-war education. After the war, as Japan struggled to rebuild under the
American occupation, Shushin was outlawed. Proposals for a new type of moral
education were initially presented by the First United States Education Mission, a
panel of prominent American educators who visited Japan for a month and
recommended education which promoted equality and the free give-and-take of
ideas that support a democratic society:

Manners that encourage equality, the give-and-take of democratic
government, the ideal of good workmanship in daily life - all these are
morals in the wider sense. They should be developed and practiced in
the varied programs and activities of the democratic school (The
United States Education Mission to Japan, 1946: 58).
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These ideas were supported by Japanese liberals who had been suppressed during
the war. The new Fundamental Law of Education, established in March 1947,
reflected the widespread desire for a shift towards the promotion of individualism:
Education shall aim at the full development of personality, striving for
the rearing of the people, sound in mind and body, who shall love truth
and justice, esteem individual values, respect labour and have a deep
sense of responsibility, and be imbued with the independent spirit, as
builders of the peaceful state and society (Passin, 1965: 302).
The first period of post-war citizenship education was, therefore, influenced by
the democratizing elements within society. Based on experiential learning
philosophies introduced by American reformers, post-war education often involved
children in non-directed experiencing, and consideration of, social activities. The
aim, according to the Ministry of Education was to enable children to learn about
their own society and to develop the attitude and skills to participate positively in
their society in order to build a democratic society (1948, p.13). This type of
education, where children were expected to draw their own conclusions from
experience, was often criticized as lacking any form of systemization.

The revival of more conservative forces within Japanese society in the 1950s
steered education away from liberal experiments and towards the attainment of
standardized knowledge systems. In 1958 major reforms were instituted in the
Japanese education system, prioritizing the acquisition of knowledge necessary for
economic development and expansion. The prioritization of national aims in
education during the period of rapid economic growth is revealed in a quote from a
Ministry of Education document on elementary education in 1978 which defines the
aim of elementary education as being:
to guide the children to deepen their basic grasp of social life, to
nurture understanding of and affection for our land and history, and to
cultivate the foundation of citizenship necessary as members of a
democratic and peaceful nation and society (Ministry of Education,
1978:31).
In 1958 moral education was reintroduced to the school curriculum as an
independent subject: Dotoku (literally "the path of virtue") was to be taught for one
hour per week to all students in compulsory education. The central aim was
described as being one of ensuring that the "spirit of human respect" should be
supported (Takahashi, 1988). Moral education was separated from social studies
which shifted away from experiential investigations toward academic explanations
of Japanese society and culture

In the 1980s a search began for a type of education that would enable Japanese
students to cope with the more sophisticated global economy and the demands of
globalization. There was a perception that both experiential and academic learning
needed to be transcended so that students could actively participate in society.
According to the Ministry of Education in 1998, new approaches to education were
required that would enable a student:
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to find a problem by oneself, to learn about it by oneself, to think about
it by oneself, to judge it independently, to acquire methods of learning
and thinking, to tackle problem-solving and inquiry activities
independently and creatively, and to deepen ones understanding of
ones own way of life (Ministry of Education, 1998:2-3).
Contemporary educational reform and citizenship education
Japanese society and Japanese politicians have responded to the challenges of
organising a wealthy, aging, internationalising society in several ways. A major
focus has been on education, with a national consensus emerging in the boom period
of the 1980s that Japanese students need to be prepared for the challenges of
internationalisation and the ensuing competition. However, the direction and nuance
of these changes has been, from the inception, a source of controversy.

In the period between the end of the war and the early 1980s Japan progressed
from being an impoverished country, devastated by war, to becoming the worlds
second largest economy. During this period the phrase Amerika ni oitsuke, oikos
(Catch up with America, pass America) reflected the determination of Japanese
leaders to emerge as an important world power. This determination led to the third
great educational reform in Japan of the twentieth century. The reform process
began with the Rinji Kyoiku Shingikai (Adhoc Council on Education) established by
Prime Minister Nakasone in 1982. Prime Minister Nakasone declared his intent to
transform Japan into an international state (kokusai kokka), and the term kokusaika
(internationalization) became popular among all sectors of society. Three important
pressure groups were involved in the push for reform. The first group consisted of
educational progressives whose ideas about education had been influenced by John
Dewey and other Western progressive educators (White, 1987). This group argued
that the centralized, information-heavy style of education stifled the creative
instincts of Japanese children. In addition, the Japanese business community was
strongly in favour of reforming education to reflect the rapidly expanding economic
ties between Japan and the outside world. Finally, the traditionalists saw in
internationalisation an opportunity to restore patriotism and traditional values
which had been greatly weakened in the post-war period. This tension between
progressives, traditionalists and pragmatists has become an ongoing struggle which
continues to shape the kind of citizenship education delivered in Japan today. While
the politicians called for the promotion of Education for International
Understanding, Ishii (2003: 4) suggests that, for many, their:
primary interest lies in the revival of traditional Japanese values and
the development of pride in Japanese culture through moral education
rather than education for better understanding of other countries.

The Council on Educations first report, released in June, 1985, recommended
eight principles for educational reform:
1. Putting emphasis on individuality;
2. Putting emphasis on fundamentals;
3. Cultivating creativity, thinking abilities, and the power of expression;
4. Expanding opportunities for choices;
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5. Humanizing the educational environment;
6. Providing a lifelong learning system;
7. Preparing students for internationalization; and
8. Preparing students for the information age (Ishizaka, 1992: 4-5).

This report, and those that followed, were compromises between reformists
hoping that Japanese children could rediscover the joy of education and who were
suspicious of moral education, with its links to pre-war militarism, and the
traditionalists who wanted a return to direct instruction in 'moral education'
(traditional values and ethics) and whose views were clearly expressed by Prime
Minister Nakasone:
educational reform should aim to preserve and further develop the
traditional Japanese culture which we have inherited and to cultivate
in children lofty ideals, sound physical strength, well-balanced
personalities and creative power, as well as such moral and
behavioral standards as are universally accepted in human society, so
that these future Japanese citizens may be able to contribute to the
international community with a Japanese consciousness... (cited in
Leestrna, August, George, & Peak, 1987: 64).
More recently an official awareness of the need to study and value other cultures
has come to the surface. The 1996 report of the Central Committee on Education
emphasizes the importance of understanding and co-existing with diverse values,
without discrimination. To some extent, consideration of international problems
and international values have been given space with the introduction of the Sogoteki
na Gakushu no Jikan (Period of Integrated Study) to the elementary school
curriculum in 2002. This was a response to the perceived need for children to have
an integrated understanding of modern issues. In some ways, the Period of
Integrated Study marks a return to the experiential learning of the post-war period
with an emphasis on life experiences, field studies and cross-curricular study. It also
provides space for the development of international understanding through
language learning and the study of foreign cultures (Ishii, 2003).

Moral and social education in the current curriculum in Japan
The elements that comprise a form of citizenship education in Japanese schools
come from three areas moral education, social studies and special education.
While these elements are not officially integrated in schools, it is clear that the
development of active citizens is an important part of the official view of what
education is for in Japan. A report from the National Curriculum Standards Reform
Council (MEXT, 1998b), for example, states that one purpose of elementary
education is to enable children to, have a healthy social life as an individual as well
as a member of the society or nation.
Moral Education as an Official Subject
Perhaps the closest equivalent to a direct programme of Citizenship Education
for Japanese children is the moral education programme in schools. Moral education
in modern Japanese schools is described as having six fundamental objectives:
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(1) to foster a spirit of respect for human dignity and awe of life,
(2) to nurture those who endeavour to inherit and develop traditional culture, and
create a culture that is rich in individuality,
(3) to nurture those who endeavour to form and develop a democratic society and
state,
(4) to nurture those who can contribute to realizing a peaceful international
society,
(5) to nurture those who can make independent decision,
(6) to foster a sense of morality (MEXT, 1989a: 105).

Japanese students up to the age of 16 receive one school hour (45 minutes in
elementary, 50 minutes in junior high schools) of moral education per week.
Teachers can draw on a series of recommended texts and instruction books and
integrate these with practical stories and examples from the students own lives.
Particularly at the elementary school stage, the emphasis is on encouraging students
to think about how they would respond to real-life moral decisions (Naito, 1990).

Moral education in Japanese schools is divided into four major areas of study.
These are self-awareness, relations with other people, relations with groups and with
society and finally, relations with nature and the universe.

Area of Moral
Awareness
Key Concept Key Concept
Self Awareness Moderation Diligence
Courage Sincerity
Freedom & Order Self-Improvement
Love for Truth

Relation to Others Courtesy Friendship
Thanks & Respect Modesty

Relation to
Group/Society
Public Duty Justice
Group Participation Responsibility
Industry Respect for Family
Respect for Teachers Contribution to Society
Respect for Tradition Love of Nation
Respect for Other Cultures

Relation to Nature and
the Universe
Respect for Nature Respect for Life
Aesthetic Sensitivity Nobility
Table1: Areas of Moral Education in Japanese Elementary Schools MEXT
(1989b)
Social Studies
Social Studies was introduced to Japanese schools as a formal part of the
curriculum following the war and initially followed an experiential, problem-solving
approach to introducing children to social issues. At the end of the 1950s the
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curriculum shifted firmly towards a more academic style of learning. At present
Japanese high school students receive education in Geography, History and Civics
as elements of the subject known as Social Studies (shakai). These elements are
compulsory in junior high school and electives in senior high school. The Civics
(komin) element of the curriculum includes study of modern society (gendaishakai),
politics and economics (seijikeizai) and ethics (rinri). The breadth of the Civics
curriculum has been criticized by Japanese educators. According to Kimura (2005),
many schools are not large enough to employ specialists in each area and, as a
consequence, ethics is being disregarded as teachers struggle to cover the other
elements of the curriculum. These problems have led to falling student participation
in Civics classes.

In elementary schools the social studies programme is more experientially based
with visits to off-school sites and invited speakers forming an important part of the
programme. Social studies classes begin for third year elementary students with an
introduction to the concept of community, fourth year students study community
organisation and Japanese life styles. In the fifth year industrial and environmental
issues are studied and, finally, sixth year students are introduced to Japanese history
and the Japanese political system and also spend some time studying the role played
by Japan in world society. The key aims of the programme are to develop students
understanding of society so they can judge correctly how they should behave in their
particular society (Fukuoka University of Education, 2006).

The tensions in Japanese education are fully reflected in the debate over Social
Studies education. At the elementary school level, the limited number of hours
available for social studies means that time for site visits and problem-solving
exercises is insufficient for those educators who want to train children to think
actively about society. For other educators, the problem-solving approach to
learning prevents children from absorbing important factual information. At the high
school level some attempts have been made to rein the Social Studies curriculum
back from the strongly academic approach that was adopted in the late 1950s but
this shift is unpopular with many teachers who see the acquisition of a solid
knowledge base as the fundamental purpose of education (Fukuoka University of
Education, 2006).
Social Education through Special Activities
In Japanese education there is a strong emphasis on achieving moral and social
education through everyday, practical activities. The Japanese Ministry of Education
described the importance of activities in this way:
Through desirable group activities, to promote harmonious development
of mind and body and develop the individuality, to foster an
independent and practical attitude in order to build a better life as a
member of a group, to deepen the self-awareness regarding life as a
human being, and to nurture the ability to fulfil oneself (MEXT, 1983:
121).
Japanese children are expected to play active roles in various special activities
that occur throughout the school year. These include sports festivals, entrance and
graduation ceremonies, school open days, field trips and activities in the local
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community. All of these special occasions involve weeks or even months of intense
preparations with students becoming actively involved in the planning, organization
and implementation of activities. There is a strong emphasis on teamwork,
communication of ideas, maintenance of school traditions and the handing-on of
experience from older to younger students.
Social Education through Daily Activities
Beyond these special activities, Japanese students are also closely involved in
everyday activities which train them in socially constructive behaviour. Every day
Japanese students are expected to collectively clean their classrooms and also the
communal areas of their schools, including the toilets, washrooms and gymnasiums.

A second example of daily activities, particularly notable in elementary schools,
is training in caring for living things. Every school will have several places where
small animals and fish live, sometimes in the classroom. Students take turns to feed
and water the animals and will visit school during vacations to carry out these tasks.

A third notable feature of everyday life in Japanese schools is the role of clubs.
Almost all students will join a sporting, musical, cultural or academic club and these
clubs are primarily organized and run by the students with the advice of assigned
teachers. Senior students are expected to train, discipline and support younger
students who are expected to give their loyalty to the club. Clubs often meet daily,
sometimes twice daily, and are key venues in developing cooperation, courtesy,
responsibility, diligence, self-improvement and friendship. Through a continuing
emphasis on the importance of everyday activities Japanese schools can be seen,
therefore, to have the overriding goal of the development of their students
characters. This provides practical experience in dealing with the moral issues
discussed more formally in Moral Education classes.
Process and Outcomes of Moral and Social Education in Japan
Moral education can be seen to be transmitted in Japanese schools through
various methods which introduce children to appropriate codes of behaviour and
teach them how Japanese culture operates. There is no religious underpinning to this
type of teaching but rather an attempt to help students consider how their actions
affect others and the world around them. There is rarely a discussion of relative
value systems or a use of Kohlbergian moral dilemmas (Thomas, 1985). Instead,
teachers present a clear set of virtues, which are contrasted sharply with non-
virtuous behaviour (Ikemoto, 1996).

This type of education can be seen to have three chief goals (Ikemoto, 1996).The
first of these goals is to develop a sense of respect for life. Historically, a feeling of
respect for the natural world was reflected in Japanese culture through the Shinto
religion and the association of deities with mountains, rivers and other places of
natural beauty. Japanese schools place great stress on introducing young children to
the concept of caring for living things and to experiencing nature through frequent
field trips. As children develop, these experiences are extended to include
consideration of the personal duty of care for other human beings.

The second key aim of moral and social education in Japanese schools is to teach
the importance of the connection between the individual and the group. Some
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Japanese scholars have related the stress on group membership to the cooperative
effort needed for rice cultivation (Ikemoto, 1996) and to the strong clan loyalties
developed among the warrior class in feudal times (Nippon Steel, 1993). Whatever
the origins, there is no doubt that Japanese education places great weight on group
cooperation and that this training is primarily practical, occurring through group
work in class, involvement in school cleaning and serving school lunches, being
involved in club activities and in organizing special school events. As they take part
in these activities Japanese students are expected to guide those less experienced
than themselves, thereby developing a sense of social responsibility.

Finally, Japanese moral and social education is said to transmit a sense of social
order and hierarchy, stemming from Confucian values of respect for elders and for
those in positions of authority. From the youngest age, schoolchildren are expected
to look up to those with slightly more experience and to follow their instructions.
Conversely, they are expected to take responsibility for the training of welfare of
those younger than themselves. This sempai-kohai (senior-junior) system is
particularly important in school clubs and permeates Japanese society, being an
important feature of business life.
The pressures of internationalisation
The debate over citizenship education in Japan takes place within the context of a
rapidly changing social environment which means that the young Japanese students
of today will graduate from their schooling years into a dramatically different
society from that known by their parents and grandparents. The drive to develop the
economy since the war has left Japan as a relatively wealthy society but a society
that seems unsure of the direction it wishes to follow for the future.

The explosive economic growth between 1945 and 1989 changed the nations
self-image forever. During the Edo Period, also known as the sakoku, or closed
country, period, Japan closed its doors to trade with other countries and to external
cultural influences. The Meiji revival and, to a large extent, the involvement in
World War II, were attempts to shake off isolation by competing on equal terms
with the established Imperial powers. After the war, as the Japanese economy grew
by leaps and bounds, Japanese companies became deeply involved in international
relationships. At first these took the form of exports of manufactured products but,
as Japan emerged as an economic superpower, economic antagonism from other
developed countries forced Japan to develop a strategy of investing in overseas
economies. Tens of thousands of Japanese salary men found themselves living
overseas for extended periods, working hard to integrate Japanese business practices
with those of the local cultures. Japan also, at this time, attempted to become a force
in the arena of international relations, creating the worlds largest Overseas
Development Assistance budget. At the beginning of the 21
st
Century, with the rise
of China as an economic giant in its own right, and with the search for cheaper
sources of labour, Japanese business increasingly looked towards Asia as a source of
investment and markets.

Parallel to this economic development was the beginning of social changes that
had previously been associated with Western countries. Later marriage, higher
divorce rates and the changing role of women in society have caused the birth rate to
plummet. Japan now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world at 1.28 and in
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2006, for the first time since the war, the population actually declined. From a peak
of 127 million now the population is expected to fall below 100 million by 2050 and
to much lower levels in the 22
nd
century. According to Clark (2004), in the year
2000 there were seven people between the ages of 20 and 64 for every two people
65 and over. By 2050 the ratio will be 3 to 2. More than 30 percent of the population
will be over the age of 60.

The consequences of a rapidly aging population, with a shrinking number of
productive workers, are several. A national debate is now taking place in Japan over
the question of admitting several million immigrants to staff the factories and run
the hospitals of Japan.

At present, Japan has a foreign population of just over two million foreign
residents, comprising 1.6% of the total population (Immigration Bureau, 2007). By
the standards of other industrialized nations this is a relatively small group. In the
UK, for example, 8.3% of the population in 2001 had been foreign born (National
Statistics Online) and in the United States the figure was 12.1% in 2005 (Center for
Immigration Studies). Of the immigrant population in Japan, around half a million,
classified as special permanent residents are former colonial conscripts and their
descendants, mainly of Korean origin. Of the remainder, the great majority of
immigrants are economic immigrants from Asia, with China being the source of the
largest group. A further large group in composed of the South American descendants
of Japanese emigrants to Brazil and other Latin American countries in the early 20th
century. The present rate of immigration to Japan, will however, be unable to
replace the decline in the workforce caused by the aging of society. Willis (2002)
reports that in 1999 the Japanese government predicted that there would be a
shortfall of 600,000 workers per year from the early stages of the 21st century. A
UN report (2001) states that, in order to maintain the present working population,
33.5 million immigrants would have to be admitted to Japan by 2050. The scale of
this crisis has been recognized in the business community in Japan and several
significant voices, such as the chairmen of large Japanese corporations, have called
for immigration to be massively expanded and for several million immigrants to be
admitted to Japan over the forthcoming years. However, there does not as yet seem
to be a national consensus that this will be an acceptable change for what is one of
the worlds most monocultural societies.
Internationalization and citizenship education
The debate within Japan over the process of internationalization has had several
consequences for the development of citizenship education. While, on the one hand,
progressive reformers have called for education to reflect the development of a
multicultural society, conservatives have used the uncertainty surrounding
internationalization to demand a strengthening of traditional values.

Educational reformers seeking an outward-looking, progressive citizenship
education have been successful, over the past ten years in creating programmes such
as Education for International Understanding (Kokusai Rikai Kiyoiku), Ethnic
Education (Minzoku Kiyoiku), Education for Newcomers (Newcaama no Kiyoiku),
and Global Education (Gurobaru Kiyoiku). In addition, programmes with a lengthy
history in Japanese schools such as Civics (Komin, or public personhood,), Moral
Education (Dotoku Kiyoiku), Human Rights Education (Jinken Kiyoiku, and
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Returnees Education (Kikokushijo Kiyoiku) have been adapted by some schools and
many individual teachers to offer training appropriate to life in a multicultural
society (Willis, 2002). The implementation of the Period of Integrated Study in the
school curriculum has enabled teachers to experiment with these programmes and to
create a type of citizenship education responsive to the increasingly multicultural
society that their students live in. These experiments have not, however, been
adopted on a national level as state policy.

There is a strong emphasis in almost all Japanese schools in encouraging children
to care for each other and to work cooperatively, to create what Murphy-Shigematsu
(2002) calls an empathetic community. However, the traditional model of
community is one that places severe limits on freedom to behave individually and on
expression of diversity. The stress on homogeneity is also an obstacle to the
acceptance of children from other countries and diverse cultural backgrounds. It is
the progressives in Japanese education who are attempting to develop a citizenship
education that can aid the development of a multicultural society by focusing on the
differences within the Japanese group and the similarities with other groups
(Murphy-Shigematsu, 2002).

These moves are counterbalanced by conservative educationalists who wish to
use citizenship education to promote traditional values. An example of these moves
has been the passing of a controversial Act by the Japanese government in 1999
requiring all schools to display the national flag, the Hinomaru, and to organize
singing of the national anthem, the Kimigayo, at school graduation ceremonies. As
both the flag and the national anthem are regarded by many Japanese as symbols of
wartime excesses, their use in schools is opposed by many teachers. However, the
past few years have seen teachers punished, demoted and even sacked for their
refusal to accept these changes. The previous Japanese cabinet, under Prime
Minister Abe, placed a central emphasis on moving Japanese education sharply
toward the ideals of conservative reformers. A high powered Education Rebuilding
Council was established to promote the educational views of these conservatives,
including the reintroduction of corporal punishment, and a strong emphasis on
patriotism in the classroom (Nakamura, 2007). The work of this Council bore fruit
at the end of 2007 when the Fundamental Law of Education was amended for the
first time since its creation in 1947. The new law stipulates that children be taught
respect for their national traditions and culture (Motohiro, 2007). The subsequent
change of government has been seen as a defeat for the conservatives in the ruling
party but the important position now held by in this party by Ibuki, who as education
minister was the loudest promoter of patriotic education, ensures that the debate over
education and citizenship will continue.
Conclusion
Moral and social education has had a history in Japan that differs in many ways from
the Western experience. It has emerged, nonetheless, as an important factor in the
educational curriculum. Japanese citizenship education succeeds best in involving
students in practical activities which lead them to internalize the importance of being
responsible, caring members of society. It is relatively weak in training students to
vigorously assert their own opinions and argue their own sense of what is right. The
process of internationalization has the potential to move Japanese citizenship
education in a positive direction, widening the definition of citizenship to include all
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those who live in a community. The fears awakened by internationalization have
created opportunities for conservatives to shape citizenship as a fixed, historically-
bound concept. It remains to be seen in which direction citizenship education will
evolve in Japan. What is certain is that moral and social education, together with
Japanese society, is bound for a process of tumultuous change in the 21st century.





Correspondence: DAVID MCCULLOUGH, Kobe College, Japan

NOTES

[1]*The Japanese Ministry of Education has been reorganized several times since the war and has issued
publications under a variety of official names. The Ministry is referred to throughout this paper as
MEXT which is the commonly used acronym at present. The official English title of the Ministry
is the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, Sports and Technology.


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Citizenship Teaching and Learning
Vol 4, No. 1, July 2008




http://www.citized.info 2008 citizED


Democracy and Diversity: A content
analysis of selected contemporary
Canadian social studies curricula
KURT W. CLAUSEN, TODD A. HORTON, LYNNE SPEER LEMISKO,
Nipissing University and University of Saskatchewan
ABSTRACT For more than two decades, Canada has officially embraced a form of
liberal democracy that shows respect for the plurality of voices and values of
citizens within the state. However, Canadian educators still struggle daily with
teaching, learning, and assessment challenges that arise as the state increasingly
acknowledges the diversity of the populace within its borders. As a source, teachers
refer to government-created curricula for guidance in this matter. This study
examines how social diversities (such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
class and ableness) and dissent are represented in conceptions of democracy in the
social studies and history curricula. Using a content analysis approach to examine
examples from two provinces, it was discovered that despite the good intentions of
curriculum developers to include multiple voices, the values and perspectives of the
dominant culture pervade discussions of democratic notions in these documents.

Introduction

Showing his support for the American melting pot concept of democracy, the
reformer Horace Bushnell bemoaned the ingratitude of immigrants given all the
privileges of a free society, who are not content, but are just now returning our
generosity by insisting that we must excuse them and their children from being
wholly and proper American (Ravitch, 1974, p. 37). To him, the common will of a
country was paramount, and as such should surpass any alternative demands made
by religious or cultural considerations. Until fairly recently, this traditional popular
sovereignty concept of democracy dominated the mindset of many curriculum
documents in Canada as well as the United States, with one unified vision of social
progress, democracy and citizenship being transmitted to the students. This image
demanded complete acceptance: if one embraced the freedoms offered by a
democracy, one must also be ready to adhere to the decisions and tastes of its
majority.
Since the Second World War, however, many political philosophers have
recognized the dark side that can lurk behind the common will premise, resulting,
for example, in Nazi anti-Semitism, or in the tyranny fifty-one percent of a country
can exert over the remaining forty-nine. John Rawls (1993) argued that in this form
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of brute consensus, common values held by the majority of a particular society at a
particular time may be enforced through socialization and political manipulation. In
attempting to justify the imposition of their values (which may be racist, gender-
biased, or support other abuses), the majority tends to ignore reasonable resistance
and dominates others using the majority rules notion. As an alternative to this,
Rawls argues for refined consensus and, by extension, a modern political
liberalism that unlike its predecessor will respect the plurality of values in citizens
and affirm their aspiration to perpetuate those values across generations (1993: 49).
Officially, Canada has embraced this refined consensus notion for more than
two decades. However, this has not been without great exertion and adaptation. As
is the case in many countries around the world, Canadian educators still struggle
daily with teaching, learning, and assessment challenges that arise as the state
increasingly acknowledges the diversity of the populace within its borders. At the
legislative level, Canadian educators have been encouraged to recognize the
multicultural realities of Canadian society. The Federal government, for example,
has formalized this position by passing such legislation as the 1988 Canadian
Multiculturalism Act. It could be suggested that such official endorsement of the
multi-identitied citizen might work toward the creation of an atmosphere of equity
necessary to support and strengthen participatory democracy in our nation.
However, in a state as ethnically, linguistically, geographically, and historically
diverse as Canada, and where education is under provincial jurisdiction, it may well
be asked how social diversities and dissent are represented in conceptions of
democracy in social studies and history curricula across the country. Using a
content analysis method, our study addresses this question as it looks at the ways in
which two provinces represent the concepts that encircle the term democracy in
their courses of study.
Perspectives
Our study is informed by the rich dialogue about citizenship education that has
been taking place in Canada for many years. Playing out the dichotomy outlined by
Rawls (1993), this conversation has explored the implications of educating for
uniform, in common, or assimilational citizenship as compared to educating for
pluralistic citizenship (Bickmore, 2006; Young, 1989) in the Canadian setting.
The argument in favour of uniform or common citizenship is that all citizens
could develop a sense of belonging through having and enjoying the same rights
(Marshall, 1950). However, modern scholarship critiques this notion due to its base
assumptions that are deeply connected to the brute consensus notion of democracy.
In Canada, notions of in common citizen identity were first coloured by the views
of the Anglo-Canadian elite who were anxious to create a sense of national unity
while preserving their cultural heritage in the context of a society that was composed
of First Nations peoples and an immigrant population from diverse ethnic
backgrounds. Intellectual historian, A. Brian McKillop (1979, 1987) argued that this
led to the creation and imposition of a nationalist myth based on the criterion of
homogeneity of race, language and religion. Anglo-Canadian educators took up the
challenge to propagate this myth and designed curricula that aimed to inculcate a
sense of belonging among citizens through an assimilationist approach to citizenship
education.
Some of the challenges to this notion arise out of the fact that rights and
responsibilities are not applied or enjoyed evenly or equitably among different
groups within a political community. In their lived experiences, members of these
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groups become deeply aware that they do not benefit equally from legislated
individual rights. Young (1989) argues, therefore, that an emphasis on common
citizenship rights without regard to group differences is actually detrimental to
promoting a sense of belonging among members of these groups. She and others
(Banks, 2004; Kymlicka, 2003; Kymlicka & Opalski 2001; Portelli & Solomon,
2001) support the refined consensus notion of democracy, when arguing in favour
of educating for pluralistic citizenship.
In Canada, the assimilation model of citizenship education receded as the
diversity that always existed in Canadian society was increasing acknowledged.
Joshee (2004) and others (for example, Bruno-Jofr & Aponiuk 2001; Hbert 2002;
Sears et al 1999) have documented the shift in educational policy and practice over
the years, from an emphasis on assimilation, to more contemporary efforts to
promote understanding of, and respect for, diversity. In the latter half of the
twentieth century, much of the focus of these conversations is on issues of identity,
social justice, and more recently, social cohesion. To any contemporary scholars,
citizenship is regarded as fluid, open and negotiated, and the formation of national
identity should not be separated from formation of individual identity (see
Aronowitz & Giroux, 1991, 1993; Giddens, 1990; Kingwell, 2000; Kymlicka, 2001;
Richardson, 2002).
Ideas about how social cohesion should be fostered through schooling have
emerged both as a further challenge to the uniform citizen model of citizenship
education and as a call for increased focus upon educating for active and critical
participation. Bickmore (2006), for example, argues that democratic social
cohesion implies encouragement of both significant diversity of identities and
viewpoints, and significant citizen agency (p. 361). She suggests that while social
conflict is inevitable in pluralistic societies, non-violent conflict resolution
mechanisms are the democratic means by which disagreements should be handled.
But, this involves embracing and handling conflict, rather than erasing differences
(p. 360) and recognizing that students cannot be taught that equity and social justice
have already been achieved. Inevitably, this suppresses the voices of those whose
lived experiences tell them a different story. Bickmore (2006) posits that
acknowledging dissent as fundamental to democracy is a vital component of
citizenship education if students are to become active agents with skills and
understandings necessary for critical democratic engagement. Recent scholarship
(Sears, 1999, Shields and Ramsay, 2004; Clark, 2006) asserts that newly revised
citizenship education curricula in Canada embody an increasingly activist stance as
compared to those developed in previous decades. As we join into the ongoing
conversation about citizenship education in Canada, we wonder about the degree to
which this has occurred.

Methodology
Data Source
Because officially-mandated provincial curricular documents are the starting
point for Canadian teachers in the development of their particular classroom
programs, and because assessment/accountability approaches are also based on these
documents, we chose these as our sole object of study. We recognize that the
content and ideals represented in these curricula may be enacted in different ways as
their messages are filtered through textbooks, school boards and individual teachers.
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However, for this study, we decided to begin with the most basic of building blocks
to each young Canadian citizens education.
Contrasting provinces were selected as the focus for examination to provide good
initial insight into the range of ideas about democracy that are being taught in social
studies in Canada. One selection, Ontario, is Canadas most populated and
industrialized province (almost 12 million people, or one-third of Canadas
population reside in this province). The other selection, Saskatchewan, continues to
rely heavily on an agricultural and resource-based economy, and has a population of
approximately one million people. The governments of the two provinces also
provide an interesting contrast. While Ontario is currently governed by the Liberal
party, the curriculum under analysis represents a revision of documents first
developed under a Progressive Conservative administration. The socialist-leaning
New Democratic Party has been in power in Saskatchewan for over 40 of the last 60
years and is responsible for creating the curriculum documents selected for this
study.
To narrow the scope of our study even further, we chose to examine social
studies-related curricula of these two provinces. Because students in Ontario are not
required to take study social studies beyond grade ten, and because we wanted to
ensure a consistent comparison, we decided to limit our study to the examination of
the grade one to ten curricula (See Appendix A for the list of particular documents
under analysis).

Conceptions of Democracy
Our study examines the selected curriculum documents using a typology based
on the work of Sears and Hughes (1996, pp. 127-128). In trying to understand the
meaning of the term citizenship as defined in Canadian educational policy in the
mid-1990s, they pointed out that researchers should be less concerned with the
narrow legal definition of citizenship as with some normative sense of good
citizenship (p. 125). In this way, they maintained that one may discover a more
robust sense of a particular documents philosophical underpinnings, as well as
observing the broad range of roles and utilities seen for the term. While the
classification system developed by Sears and Hughes described the characteristics of
four conceptions of citizenship, we have adapted their scheme to classify and
describe three types of democracy, which embrace varying degrees of diversity:

Elitist Democracy - Those holding this conception argue that, because ordinary
citizens do not have the intellectual capacity to fully or appropriately judge the
workings of a country or province, it is best that experts be chosen to govern.
Rather, citizens have a relatively simple set of duties: they should be loyal and
patriotic; possess a common body of knowledge about the history and political
structures of the country; and become informed about the positions of the various
political parties. They should participate by voting and obeying the law and see
themselves as part of a common national culture with a uniform set of traditions.
There appears to be little to no room for the recognition of diversity among citizens
in this conception of democracy. This would correlate to Rawls (1993) notion of
brute consensus.

Liberal Democracy - This conception is based on the notion that while
sovereignty inherently rests with the people, representatives elected from and by
the people are the most responsible agents for governing. Citizens are expected to
be committed to the public good, to use rational processes to become informed
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about public issues and to actively participate in local, regional and national affairs
in order to work toward resolving such issues. In addition, all citizens should be
committed to and knowledgeable about liberal principles, such as individual rights
and responsibilities. Finally, there is some recognition of diversity among the
citizens of a nation, but it encompasses the belief that social justice can be assured
through protective legislation of individual rights. Accompanying this is the belief
that individuals may have multiple identities in the private sphere, with an
expectation that there will be a relatively uniform face of citizenship exhibited in the
public sphere. Rawls (1993) refined consensus would most closely relate to this
conception.

Global/Social Justice Democracy - This conception is based on the idea that
sovereignty rests with the peoples of the earth and that citizens should exercise
decision-making power in more direct ways than occasional voting. Citizens are
committed to participating in free and equal discourse about issues related both to
the public sphere of politics, and in the private sphere of community, home, and
family. As such, conflict is not seen as a negative aspect to democracy. Indeed,
here there is a need to acknowledge dissent, and to develop critical thinking and
conflict resolution skills. Diversity is built into this notion of democracy: people
within a country can see themselves as citizens of an individual nation, but they are
also open to multiple understandings of national citizenship (e.g., it is possible to
consider oneself a citizen of a First Nation and a Canadian citizen, at the same time).
Accompanying this is a sense of commitment and loyalty to the global community
that transcends national self-interest, going beyond Rawls (1993) two notions.

Keyword Analysis
Using the above typology as a theoretical framework from which to begin, we
employed an analytical methodology based on a text analysis approach devised by
philosopher and historian, R.G. Collingwood (1994, 1940, 1939), and adapted by
Lemisko (1998). This involves regarding the written document as testimony
rather than as authority. In order to uncover the meaning of a document, the
analyst treats it as evidence, cross-examining the explicit statements using a series of
pre-formulated, probing questions designed to address the overall objectives of the
study. Further questions are then framed by the researcher as themes, ideas, and
underlying suppositions emerge. To deal with the analysis of multiple documents
and the comparative nature of our study, we also borrowed an approach from
Clausen (2001). Based on Raymond Williams (1976) technique of keyword
analysis, we selected several terms (and their derivations) connected to the various
conceptions of democracy. After determining the location of each keyword, we
investigated the surrounding written text to identify the context within which the
term was embedded.
To ensure that the analysis and comparison of the documents did not become too
unwieldy, we selected a limited number of terms for the keyword search. First, we
searched for instances of the use of the root term democra- (to locate democracy,
democratic, etc). We then looked for terms that referred to the structures,
components, and procedures of democracy: government, vote, parliament, power,
responsibilities, rules, laws, rights, and citizen. Finally, we searched for terms that
referred to citizen participation: decision, patriot, nationalism, dispute, debate,
disagree, protest, dissent and resist. We selected these keywords due to their
connection to the three types of democracy described above, and thought that the
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places where these terms were situated within the curricula may be prime locations
for revealing underpinning beliefs about the key concepts.

Findings
Based on an analysis of the selected curriculum documents there appears to be a
great deal of consistency between Ontario and Saskatchewan in the topics they cover
relative to democracy. Both provinces make extensive efforts to ensure students
have a thorough understanding of the concept, how the democratic process works in
Canada, and the rights and responsibilities of its citizens. However, within that
consistency, there seems to be some nuanced differences between the two provinces.
To explore the findings more fully, the analysis is divided into three themes that
emerged during our analysis: 1) definitions of democracy; 2) rights and
responsibilities in a democracy; and 3) the active role for citizens and students.

1. Definitions of Democracy
The most explicit definitions of democracy can be found in the glossary sections
of the curriculum documents. In the Ontario documents we read:
Democracy - A form of government in which laws are made by a direct
vote of the citizens (direct democracy) or by representatives on their
behalf (indirect democracy). Indirect democracy involves elections
with candidates often coming from competing political parties (Ont. 9-
10, p. 70)
Citizenship - the condition of being vested with the rights, duties, and
responsibilities of a member of a state or nation (Ont. 9-10, p. 70. See
also Ont. 1-8, p. 78).
The Saskatchewan documents read in similar fashion:
Democracy - A system of government in which the citizens have power
through their elected representatives (Sask. SS7, p. 151. See also Sask.
SS8, p. 75).
Citizenship - The exercising of rights, privileges and responsibilities as
a member of a particular society (Sask. SS8, p. 75).
All of these definitions fall within the Liberal type of democracy as the focus is
on the duties of citizenship as legal contract, with the accent on membership, rights
and responsibilities (albeit Ontario sees citizenship as a condition, whereas
Saskatchewan sees it more as an activity). However, do these conceptualizations
remain stable throughout the body of the curriculum documents?
In the Ontario documents, there is little use of the word democracy (outside of
Grade 10 Civics, it is used only 4 times in the introduction, 5 times in Grade 5, and
once in the glossary), and its definition seems to be by association rather than by
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explicit reference. The introduction states, for example, that students are to learn
about how citizens function in a democratic society (p. 2) which is linked to
Canada, a culturally diverse and interdependent world, and characterized by rapid
technological, economic, political, and social change. (p. 17). However, overt
connections are not drawn. In the Fundamental Concepts section (p. 4),
Democracy is seen as a concept related to power and governance, but, again, the
association remains elusive. Broad hints are made in the introductory passages of
the documents of what type of citizen the Ministry desires: an informed citizen (p.
2); a global citizen (p. 3); one who has a willingness to show respect, tolerance,
and understanding towards individuals, groups, and cultures in the global
community and respect and responsibility towards the environment (p. 17). In
some sections, therefore the document leans heavily on the Liberal conception of
democracy where in others it clearly gives credence to the Global/Social Justice
notion.
Working in a combination of expanding horizons and chronological
approaches, the body of the Ontario curriculum doesnt directly focus on democracy
and citizenship until students reach the grade 5 level, where a specific strand is
dedicated to Aspects of Citizenship and Government in Canada. The bulk of
expectations are devoted to teaching students the major tenets of citizenship. The
examples given fall quite in line with the initial definitions given in the glossary, and
then deals with the more structural procedures of a democratic state: the electoral
process (p. 44); the steps to becoming a citizen (p. 44-5); civic ceremonies (p. 45);
how to become a member of parliament (p. 45); and law making (p. 45). These
concepts are then not explicitly mentioned again until late in the Grade 9-10
curriculum document. Of course, certain areas are included in the Social
Studies/History documents for each year between 6 and 9 that may allow the teacher
to speak towards democracy and its struggles (i.e., the Rebellions of 1837 or
Confederation). However, the explicit link is not made due to the absence of the
word democracy and the minimal use of citizenship.
While teachers could deal with democracy in intermediate History (i.e., in the
Citizenship and Heritage strand), it is made quite clear that one course has been
specifically earmarked to answer any unresolved questions about the terms: The
Grade 10 civics course rounds out students understanding of their role in society by
teaching them the fundamental principles of democracy and of active, responsible
citizenship (Ont. 9-10, p. 4). Here, the terms are considerably broadened from the
more traditional, limited definitions and hints found in the earlier document. While
in earlier pages it appears to be a specimen to be studied with seeming detachment,
there is now a genuine bias towards democracy and diversity. Upon completion of
this half-year course, students are expected to become informed citizens, able to:
demonstrate an understanding of the need for democratic decision
making; explain what it means to be a global citizen and why it is
important to be one [overall expectations]; explain why it is essential
in a democracy for governments to be open and accountable to their
citizens, while protecting the personal information citizens are
required to provide to governments [specific expectation] (Ont. 9-10,
p. 65).
Further, students explore the notion of Purposeful Citizenship, in which there
is an examination of contrasting values, multiple perspectives, and the co-existence
of differing purposes within a democracy. This is especially acknowledged in the
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overall expectations and in the section Diversity of beliefs and values. As well,
the term democratic citizenship is finally explicitly linked to a series of beliefs,
namely: the rule of law, human dignity, freedom of expression, freedom of religion,
work for the common good, respect for the rights of others, and a sense of
responsibility for others. Lastly, the notion of Active Citizenship requires that
students be able to
apply appropriate inquiry skills to the research of questions and issues
of civic importance; [and] demonstrate an understanding of the
various ways in which decisions are made and conflicts resolved in
matters of civic importance, and the various ways in which individual
citizens participate in these processes (p. 69).
It seems, therefore, that this course was created in an effort to bring the student
from a passive knowledge of democracy to a more dynamic role in its processes,
signalling a strong blend of liberal and global/social justice conceptions.
Like the Ontario plan, the Saskatchewan curriculum follows an expanding
horizon method in the first years, gradually extending the students perspective
from family life (Grade 1) to country-wide (Grade 5). However, it also takes a more
spiral approach to curriculum development, reiterating and building upon the
terms and principles of democracy and citizen, year after year, at every grade level.
Throughout the early elementary years, the use of the terms remains attached to the
Liberal conception of democracy. In grade 5, for example, students are to practise
democratic procedures and decision making with an emphasis on the cooperative
and interdependent aspects of the process (Sask, SS1-5, p. 404). As in Ontario,
Saskatchewan also expects its students at this age to engage in a fairly thorough
study of the more formal operations of the federal government, which includes some
exploration of creating legislation, becoming a citizen, and so on.
It is after grade 5 that a real rift appears between the two provinces (perhaps due
to Saskatchewans decision to continue social studies as a course rather than
splitting it up into history, geography, etc). Instead of shrinking into the
background, democracy seems to take a central role in the objectives (in grade 7-8
alone, the term democra- is used 88 times). During the middle and secondary years,
activities and objectives set out for students are expected to further refine their
understanding of democratic attributes, the democratic process in Canada, and how
the Canadian process varies from other democratic systems around the world.
When Grade 7 students explore the concept, power, for example, they study how
Government structures such as democracy, autocracy and oligarchy obtain and use
their power in different ways (Sask, SS7, p. 150). In grade 8 students explore the
nature of Canadian citizenship and develop an understanding of the rights and
responsibilities of Canadian citizens and develop an understanding of citizens in a
representative democracy, and learn about the history of Canadian democracy and
citizenship.
This type of study continues into grade 10, when students are introduced
to the basic decision making organizations of society so that they can
better understand and use them as citizens of a democracy. They will
also examine the concept of power and the ways it is used within the
political structures of social organizations. As part of that process
students will learn the concept of social contract and its role in making
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clear the rights and duties of the members of any social organization.
(Sask, SS 10, p. 103)
Like in the Ontario documents, the Saskatchewan curriculum seems to make a
transition in the ways in which democracy is conceptualized over the grade levels.
The representations in the lower grades seem to fall clearly into the liberal
conception, while by Grade 10, conceptions lean more toward the global/social
justice form of democracy.
It should be highlighted that, when defining democracy, neither sets of provincial
curricula represent the notion of multi-identied citizenship. Apart from
mentioning an exploration of the nature of citizenship and the existence of
multiple perspectives, both only explicitly refer to issues of diversity when
stipulating that democratic principles in present-day Canada are applicable to all
citizens regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or ableness.

2. Rights & Responsibilities in the Evolution of Democracy
Both provincial curricula include some exploration of the origins of democracy,
and deal with the extension of rights and responsibilities as part of this evolution.
However, there exist differences in the ways in which this investigation is
approached by the two provinces.
In the Ontario documents, the concept of democracy is generally divorced from
historical context. Certain references are made incidentally to the origins of
democracy (e.g., the use of democracy in early civilizations [Ont. 1-8, p. 30]; and in
relation to the Magna Carta [Ont. 1-8, p. 81]) and to modern events that have shifted
the paradigm somewhat (e.g., the Nuremburg Laws [Ont. 9-10, p. 68]; instances
where the government chose to restrict certain rights and freedoms [Ont. 9-10, p.
60]; and the granting of voting rights to various groups such as women and First
Nation peoples [Ont. 9-10, p. 44]). Of course, there are numerous areas within the
curriculum where a teacher may draw lines to the evolution of democracy
(especially throughout Grades 5, 8 and 10). However, the sections dealing directly
with the term democracy appear to envision it as a relatively stable constant in
Canada, with an expectation that students will familiarize themselves with its rules,
rights and responsibilities.
In studying these ideals of democracy, there seems to be a heavy accent on the
responsible citizen in Ontario (e.g., Ont. 1-8, p. 21). In fact, it is rare that the term
rights is found in the elementary Ontario document in a location where the term
responsibilities is not somewhere nearby. This coupling of the two terms
continues at the Grade 10 level. For example, of the seventeen times the word
rights is used in the Grade 10 Civics course, it appears only four times at a location
where the word responsibilities is absent. This is not a bad thing in itself (although
some verisimilitude is lost when students are to identify rights and responsibilities in
the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). However, this could promote the
idea that democratic rights should be seen merely as a counterbalance to the
responsibilities of citizenship, rather than something inalienable. In fact, in the
glossary, the document opts for the more tempered definition of rights as
entitlements recognized and protected by the law (p. 83).
On a few occasions, broad hints are given concerning the make-up of these two
yin-yang concepts. In Grade 5, examples are given: the right to vote / the
responsibility to become informed; the right of freedom of speech / the
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responsibility to respect the free speech rights of others; the right to freedom from
discrimination and harassment / the responsibility to treat people with fairness and
respect (p. 44). Finally, in Grade 10, the curriculum unequivocally states that the
rights and responsibilities taught to students reside in three bases: the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms (p. 65), the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (p. 66), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (p. 66). These
are all admirable building-blocks for democracy, but what is left out are some of the
more active elements that are also included among citizen rights, such as direct
decision-making. In fact, the word decision is only used seven times in the
expectations portion of the Civics course, and the usage is most often connected to
students being able to explain or compare ways in which decisions are made, rather
than requiring that students engage in decision-making processes, themselves. It
would seem that when changes are made, the curriculum is more likely to defer to
the legitimate channels that have been created for that purpose (e.g., parliament [p.
60], the judiciary [p. 65], and international conventions [p. 66]). With this approach
to the exploration of rights and responsibilities, it appears that the Ontario
curriculum represents the liberal conception of democracy, while at times even
slipping into an elitist conception.
Saskatchewan tends to give a fuller account of the development of democracy
over time. It incorporates explorations of Aboriginal forms of governance into the
story of Canadian democratic origins (Sask. SS4, p. 412; Sask. SS5, p. 225; Sask.
SS9, p. 236). The reasons for this may be connected to the large per capita
Aboriginal demographic in Saskatchewan, and the inclusion of Aboriginal
contributions to curricula in that province. Whatever the reason, the net result is that
Aboriginal people are seen to be part of the democratic tradition and clearly included
in the Canadian democratic narrative in Saskatchewan. This suggests that the
Saskatchewan curriculum leans more toward a global/social justice conception of
democracy than does Ontario. As well, because it is dealt with year after year, a
progression is seen in the story of democracy.
Like Ontario, Saskatchewan also couples the terms rights and
responsibilities at the elementary level. However, these two are often combined
with decision-making, leaving the impression that citizens have a more active role
in democratic processes. For example, Grade 2 students in Saskatchewan are to
understand that groups make decisions to establish rules and may participate in
decision making situations (Sask., SS 2, p. 407), while Grade 5 students are to
know that Canadians have rights and responsibilities, be able to identify and
apply rights and responsibilities and practice decision-making (Sask., SS 5, p.
417).
There exist more instances of the uncoupling of the terms rights and
responsibilities in the curriculum of the upper grade levels in Saskatchewan. For
example, in Grade 7 students are expected to appreciate that the use of power must
respect human dignity and the rights of individuals and societies to be treated fairly
(Sask., SS 7, p. 153), while in grade 10 students are to come to:
Know that power has been used in ways that abuse the rights of other
people (Sask., SS 10, p.114)
Know that ethnic groups often find that their best interests are not
served by the state they find themselves in and to Know that these
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groups will justify their dissent with concepts such as human rights,
tradition, freedom, justice, constitutionality, etc (Sask., SS 10, p. 512)
With this approach to the exploration of rights and responsibilities, it appears
that the Saskatchewan curriculum represents the liberal conception of democracy
more at the elementary level, while leaning toward the global/social justice
conception at the middle and secondary levels.
In tracing the evolution of Canadian democracy, both provinces require
exploration of the extension of rights to various groups (that is, beyond landed white
men to the non-propertied, non-white, and women), suggesting that the curricula
might represent a global/social justice conception of democracy. For example:
Identify the reasons for the exclusion of certain groups from the
political process (e.g., First Nation peoples, women, the Chinese and
Japanese). (Ont. 1-8, p. 59); explain how different groups (e.g., special
interest groups, ethnocultural groups) define their citizenship, and
identify the beliefs and values reflected in these definitions (Ont. 9-10,
p. 67)
Understand that, over time, many women's movements have lobbied for
political change that has given women and other minority groups
greater access to the sources of power. (Sask., SS 10, p. 342)
However, both focus on the extension of individual or citizenship rights
(representing a liberal conception of democracy) and both embed an overwhelming
suggestion of a progressive march forward toward inclusion and tolerance in the
Canadian democratic narrative. This does not encourage understanding that
members of particular social groups may receive unjust and inequitable treatment
despite legislation, while suggesting to students that the evolution of Canadian
democracy is complete that inequities and social justice violations no longer exist.
With this in mind, it is impossible to argue that either province fully embraces the
idea of a global/social justice form of democracy.

3. The Active Role for Citizens and Students
Both provinces emphasize that students should learn to express their views while
working within the existing structures of the democratic system, such as voting (e.g.,
Sask., SS8, p. 83; Ont. 1-8, p. 44), cooperating (Sask. SS5, p. 403) or learning about
forms of conflict resolution (Ont. 1-8, p. 57). This emphasis seems to encourage
political participation while enhancing peace and orderliness within society. The
problem with such an emphasis, however, is that it undermines the capacity to
critique the system, minimizing the options for those who find the system lacking in
credibility and legitimacy. In fact, our search for any discussion about democratic
dissent within the Canadian system proved quite barren. Keywords, such as
debate, disagree, disagreement, dispute, dissent, oppose, and
opposition, were rarely used. Usually, when included, the terms were employed
in a benign fashion for example, in phrases like: hold a class debate; Alaska
Boundary Dispute; and Her Majestys Loyal Opposition). While it may be that
agreement makes life easier in the short run, a vibrant democracy depends on a
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certain amount of disagreement, challenge and debate. To minimize the use of these
terms is to always see them as pejorative and something to be avoided.
Even at the higher grades, there is little emphasis on studying the positions of
opposition parties or on exploration of the media presenting opposing views.
However, the curricula do indicate that students should learn about one path that is
available for expressing opinions and viewpoints that is, lobbying (used nine times
in the grade 9-10 Ontario document). Outside of this, most forms of interaction
between the common citizen and the government are shown in the most benign
fashion. In the Ontario Civics course, if someone disagrees with the central
authority, the only suggestions offered were: finding out information by
communicating with the appropriate elected officials or bureaucratic departments;
by writing letters or e-mails to the media; by organizing petitions; by voting (p. 69).
Other forms of Citizenship Participation were all non-confrontational:
participating in food and clothing drives; visiting seniors; participating in
community festivals, celebrations, and events; becoming involved in human rights,
antidiscrimination, or antiracism activities (p. 69).
The exploration of more radical forms of opposition to the government was
negligible. Extended searches for keywords like demonstration, protest, resist,
resistance, rebel, rebellion, revolt, revolution and strike yielded limited
results. Usually these terms were firmly situated in Canadas past (e.g., Riel
Rebellion; Winnipeg General Strike) or in another country (e.g., American
Revolution). However, from a diversity standpoint these were the means by which
political, legal and social rights were often achieved (e.g., suffrage movement).
Though these historical episodes are inspiring and students may view them as a
model to follow when trying to achieve future goals, there was no evidence to
suggest that Canadian citizens can/do, could/should engage in such activities today.
The maintenance of order appears to have trumped most active challenges to
government policies. As a result, the curricula of neither Ontario nor Saskatchewan
deeply represent the global/social justice conception of democracy when dealing
with this area.
If one compares the two provincial curricula based upon the use of its action
verbs, however, it does become clear that Saskatchewan includes higher
expectations about active citizenship than does Ontario. For example, the
Saskatchewan elementary social studies curriculum lists Citizen Action Objectives
in each for the four units found at each grade level. According to the document,
Citizen action objectives represent a culmination of all the other objectives
(knowledge, skills/abilities, and attitudes/values). Through citizen action, students
may apply and demonstrate their learnings (Sask. SS 1-5, p. 7). Consistent with
this idea, the listing of particular citizen action objectives includes terms like:
participate, select, apply, and plan. Furthermore, the Saskatchewan curriculum is
permeated with the idea of decision-making, implying expectations of active
citizenship. Decision Making is one of the twenty core concepts identified as
being central to the Saskatchewan K-12 social studies program and, according to the
document, demonstration of understanding of the concept involves applying and
reflecting (Sask. SS 1-5, p. 2). In this respect, Saskatchewan leans toward a
global/social justice conceptualization of democracy.
By comparison, the verbs used in the listing of outcomes/expectations in Ontario
curricula indicate that citizen action should involve cognitive activity rather than
participation. For example, of the 600 expectations that are listed in the Social
Studies (Grade 1-6), History (Grades 7, 8, 10 academic/applied), and Civics (Grade
10) courses, the top 10 words used are: Describe (98 times), Identify (82),
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Explain (58), Compare (45), Analyse (44), Use resources (35), Formulate
questions (25), Construct and read maps (24), Use appropriate vocabulary
(22), and Communicate using appropriate media (17). These are all quite
legitimate and varied verbs that reflect the levels of thinking expressed in Blooms
taxonomy (Bloom, 1956; Anderson et al, 2001), but their persistent use seems to
indicate a desire for an informed citizen rather than an involved or participating
one. There are some instances where students may be able to break through to a
different plane of understanding, action, and valuing. For instance, in Grade 5
students are asked to model activities and processes of responsible Citizenship and
identify the relevance to their own lives of individual and group rights (p. 46)
while in the grade 10 Civics class they are asked to articulate and clarify their
personal beliefs and values concerning democratic citizenship (p. 67). However,
these seem rather peripheral to the main thrust of the Ontario curriculum, which, in
this case, leans more toward an elitist conception of democracy.

Conclusions
What does an analysis of the selected curriculum documents tell us about the
stances that these two provinces take regarding democracy? First, there appears to
be some consistency between Ontario and Saskatchewan in the topics they define
and the way they use the term. Within that consistency, however, the Saskatchewan
curriculum generally offers a more thorough, nuanced and layered representation of
democracy using a spiral curriculum method that is not as apparent in the Ontario
curriculum. In Ontarios case, there appears to be huge gaps in the use of
democracy. Rather than threading the term as a major concept throughout the
various grade levels and strands, the bulk of the work seems to have been relegated
to certain sections at two grade levels (5 and 10). Unwittingly, this may allow
teachers of other grade levels to avoid this area in order to deal with more
important expectations in a crowded venue. Unfortunately, it may also have
negative implications for students ability to act critically regarding rights and
responsibilities as they strain to recall what they learned about democracy in what
should have been a formative stage of learning.
It is interesting to note, as well, the differences in the conceptualization of
democracy represented in these examples. In the body of the document, the Ontario
curriculum clearly corresponds to a more liberal conception of the term, while
Saskatchewan has more global/social justice manifestations by including a stronger
emphasis on expectations of active participation in democratic processes. While
there is some evidence that the curricula of both provinces encourage some study of
differences within the democratic system (and Saskatchewan gives greater play to
decision-making within a democracy), neither explores forms of dissent or
opposition that exist outside the established system to any notable degree. The
maintenance of order appears to have trumped most active challenges of government
actions and policies.
In painting a picture of progressive harmony and in leaving the impression that
Canada has generally experienced little social or political conflict resulting from our
differences and diversities, both sets of documents may encourage suppression of
voices of those whose lived experiences tell them a different story. Therefore, while
recent scholarship (Sears, 1999, Shields and Ramsay, 2004; Clark, 2004) is accurate
on some levels in asserting that newly revised citizenship education curricula
embody an increasingly activist stance, we also argue that the documents we
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examined in this study only support activism within particular confined parameters.
As a result, both the Ontario and Saskatchewan examples act (to a greater or lesser
extent) as a mixed type, showing some remnants of the elite conception, a dominant
Liberal conception and only a burgeoning conception of global/social justice
democracy.
If the focus of the two provinces remains mainly on the extension of individual
or citizenship rights, we predict that the curricula of both will continue to largely
represent the liberal conception of democracy. Without a focus requiring
development of deeper understanding of ways in which the protection of individual
rights does not necessarily mean that members of particular groups receive just and
equitable treatment, neither curriculum can represent a conception of democracy that
fully embraces diversity and the idea of multi-identitied citizens.

Appendix A - Documents used for this Study
Province Grades Document Acronym
Ontario 1-8 1he Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to
6, listory and Geography, Grades and 8 ,2004,
Reised,
Ont. 1-8
9-10 1he Ontario Curriculum: Canadian and \orld
Studies, Grades 9 and 10 ,2005, Reised,
Ont. 9-10
Saskatchewan 1-5 Social Studies: A Curriculum Guide or the
Llementary Leel ,1995,
Sask., SS1-5
6
Social Studies: A Curriculum Guide or the
Middle Leel - Grade 6 ,1992,99,
Sask., SS6
Social Studies: A Curriculum Guide or the Middle
Leel - Grade ,1992,1999,
Sask., SS
8 Social Studies: A Curriculum Guide or the Middle
Leel - Grade 8 ,1992,1999,
Sask., SS8
9 Social Studies: A Curriculum Guide or the Middle
Leel - Grade 9 ,1992,1999,
Sask., SS9
10 listory 10: Curriculum Guide ,1992, Sask., l10
10 Social Studies 10: Curriculum Guide ,1992, Sask., SS10

Correspondence: Dr. KURT W. CLAUSEN, Faculty of Education, Nipissing
University, 100 College Drive, North Bay, Ontario, Canada, P1B 8L7
Dr. TODD A. HORTON, Faculty of Education, Nipissing University,
100 College Drive, North Bay, Ontario, Canada, P1B 8L7
Dr. LYNN SPEER LEMISKO, University of Saskatchewan, Faculty of Education,
28 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, S7N 0X1

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Citizenship Teaching and Learning
Vol 4, No. 1, July 2008





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Imagining Global Citizens: Teaching
Peace and Global Education in a
Teacher-Education Programme
LORNA R. MCLEAN, SHARON A. COOK, TRACY CROWE , University of
Ottawa, Canada
ABSTRACT This paper analyzes one teacher-education programmes attempt to
structure a year-long immersion in curricula, activities, readings and discussions to
promote the effective teaching of peace and global education. This multi-faceted
initiative is provided for teacher candidates at all levels, from those intending to
teach kindergarten to the last year of high school. Now in its fifth year of operation,
Developing a Global Perspective for Educators/Dveloppement dune perspective
globale pour enseignants et enseignantes has expanded the type of learning
opportunities annually.
The increasing success in drawing candidates from the anglophone and, to a lesser
extent, francophone teacher-education sectors, graduate students and members of
the teaching community to the varied presentations has led committee members to
explore why students eagerly attend the functions, engage in discussions, endorse
the ready-made curricula materials and, at the same time, remain reticent as to their
abilities and opportunities to teach what they have learned and endorsed. Our
observations of the latter phenomenon has led the authors in this study to explore
the barriers that prevent peace and global education from being taught in
classrooms. Based on our research, we argue that success for the pre-service
candidate in teaching such topics is influenced by gender, disciplinary knowledge
and pedagogical skill. The study addresses which of these barriers can be overcome
through our efforts as instructors in a Faculty of Education to more effectively insert
peace and global education into the mainstream curriculum, with the expectation
that these themes will find their way into the school curriculum.



Teaching Peace and Global Education in a Teacher Education Programme [1]
Introduction
One of the many promises of teacher-education is the possibility of influencing
the next generation of curriculum and classroom practice, and with that, the
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experiences and understandings of students in the classroom. Individuals who
choose to enter teaching are often idealistic and intent on changing what they
sometimes see as outworn and inequitable features of education which they faced as
students. With todays intensely competitive entry standards to Canadian Teacher
Education programmes, particularly post-degree Bachelor of Education
programmes, these prospective teachers must demonstrate their knowledge
acquisition and diligence with high marks from their undergraduate years. As many
entrance standards also require related experience, these candidates often arrive with
a track record of community activism, organizational skills and clearly defined
understandings of social justice issues. Finding ways to enhance these abilities, to
develop their interests, and to add further to the knowledge base is one of the
challenges confronting teacher candidates and their instructors.
This article analyzes one teacher-education programmes attempt to structure a
year-long immersion in curricula, activities, readings and discussions to promote the
effective teaching of peace and global education. This multi-faceted programme is
directed to teacher candidates at all levels, from those intending to teach
kindergarten to the last year of high school. Now in its fifth year of operation,
Developing a Global Perspective for Educators/Dveloppement dune perspective
globale pour enseignants et enseignantes (DGPE/DPGEE) has expanded the type of
learning opportunities annually. The increasing success in drawing candidates from
the anglophone and, to a lesser extent, francophone teacher-education sectors,
graduate students and members of the teaching community to the varied
presentations has given committee members the incentive to explore why students
eagerly attend the functions, engage in discussions, endorse the ready-made
curricula materials and, at the same time, remain reticent as to their abilities and
opportunities to teach what they have learned and endorsed. Our observation of the
latter phenomenon has led the authors to question the barriers that prevent peace and
global education from being taught in classrooms. Equally important, the study
addresses which of these barriers can be overcome through our efforts as instructors.
The paper begins by defining peace and global education and discussing the
fields relevance for the curriculum. Second, the article considers why we have
chosen pre-service teacher candidates as our target group. Third, it sets out the
general dimensions of the DGPE/DPGEE, including the partners that make it
possible. Through our systematic tracking and research of this programme, we offer
evidence from our teacher candidates that raises several important questions relating
to the proclivities of candidates drawn to such topics and the barriers that they
encounter. Finally, we discuss what faculties of education can do to more effectively
insert peace and global education into the mainstream curriculum, with the
expectation that these themes will find their way into the school curriculum.
Defining our Terms: Peace and Global Education
In the jurisdiction where this faculty programme was initiated (Ontario, Canada),
peace and global education are not designated curricular subjects. However, as in
most educational systems, there are entry points at all levels of formal curricula
where both could be integrated to meet official Expectations or Curriculum
Objectives. Indeed, in 2001 a study on educational policy conducted across Canada
by the Council of Ministers of Education, entitled Education for Peace, Human
Rights, Democracy, International Understanding and Tolerance, suggests that
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citizenship education concepts are fore-fronting a more multi-dimensional and
global character in curriculum documents (Evans, 2003, p. 36).[2] For our purposes,
global education follows closely the definition set out by Graham Pike, which
identifies four threads: the interdependence of all people within a global system; the
connectedness and diversity of universal human attributes, values and knowledge,
curriculum subjects, aspects of schooling, humans and their environment, and the
privileging of multiple perspectives before reaching a view (Pike, 2000b, p. 65). In
the Ontario curriculum, as a case in point, these threads are often clustered within
themes of sustainable development, peace and security, political systems,
citizenship, cultural practices and environmentalism, and are found most often in the
Geography, Science, History/Social Studies and Civics Curricula.
Peace education is at the same time aligned with global education and a distinct
area. On the one hand, peace education fits neatly into global educational
prescriptions stressing equity and fairness in which individual or national desires are
to be subsumed for the common good (Barber, 2000; Reardon, 1988a); both
emphasize tolerance (Tucker, 1983) and the interdependence of all societies (Le
Roux, 2001; Reardon, 1988b). On the other hand, peace education claims to be more
than debates about human rights and social justice, as well as other competing forms
of global inequity. It includes these to be sure, but more: it is concerned with
structural forms of violence and deprivation in war-time and in non-conflict zones;
local violence on school playgrounds and in cyberspace, and very importantly,
violence arising from gendered inequities (Cook, forthcoming). In this study, we use
the combined category peace and global education to include all of these issues, as
they may be addressed in pre-service training and in educational curricula.
Focusing on the Pre-Service Candidate
Our reasons for designing and continuing to refine a programme intended to help
pre-service candidates integrate peace and global education into the mainstream
curriculum are many. First, the student population is varied and reasonably large: all
900 pre-service candidates in the Faculty of Education in both official languages,
and at all Divisional Levels of teaching (Primary [P], Junior [J], Intermediate [I] and
Senior [S]) are invited to participate in the project. All students in the pre-service
programme come with at least one undergraduate degree, and the age range varies
from 21 to 51, although most students are in their mid-to-late twenties. Teachers
entering the I/S Division have a requirement of two teachable subjects or subject
specialities; for the J/I Division, there is a requirement of one teachable; and no
subject specialities are required for the P/J Division, but some candidates come with
degrees in specialized areas. Most students are racialized white and able bodied,
although the population of racialized visible minorities has increased over the last
few years. Some candidates are well versed in global development and peace
education and committed to it from previous experiences; others have little
knowledge or sympathy; and many are somewhere in the middle of this continuum,
knowing of and sympathizing with some components, but concluding that they have
little scope to incorporate this area into their own teaching.
Second, this programme has evolved over four years. During this time the
information, resources and delivery models have been refined specifically for this
one-year, post-degree teaching degree. Our research here, then, continues
development of a programme with a clear, specific constituency that will very
shortly enter active teaching in the school system.
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Third, all of the faculty members involved in the study teach directly in the pre-
service programme and have done so for some years. This direct involvement as
educators within the programme allows faculty members regular interaction with
students and the means to alter the programme as the students needs dictate and as
those needs are revealed by this research initiative.
Finally, it has been our experience that teacher-education candidates are at a
sensitive stage of professional development, making them receptive to information
and pedagogy. At the same time, they effectively critique accepted approaches
because of their heightened alertness to pedagogical knowledge and their own
professional development in this formative period. They are ideal participants in this
research into the programme.
The Programme: Developing a Global Perspective for ducators/Dveloppement
dune perspective globale pour enseignants et enseignantes
Developing a Global Perspective for Educators/Dveloppement dune
perspective globale pour enseignants et enseignantes (DGPE/DPGEE) is a year-long
programme of some 14 stand-alone events organized for pre-service candidates.
Included in the roster of activities are weekend retreats, a full conference, film
festivals, resource fairs, discussion groups, Global Education and Social Justice
elective courses, a variety of outreach projects in local schools and in-class
workshops. The programme is made possible through a partnership across a broad
spectrum of non-governmental organizations. Included are such groups as CHF,
formerly known as Canadian Hunger Foundation (sustainable development and
cultural practices); the United Nations Association in Canada, UNA-Canada (global
citizenship, peace and security); WaterCan (environmental); CODE (literacy
development); OXFAM (social justice), Engineers Without Borders (sustainable
development and environmental) and many other groups, as well as the local
educational community, community activists such as E4P (Education for Peace) and
a core group of professors in the Faculty of Education. Within the Faculty of
Education core group is a seconded professor from a local Catholic school board, a
professor who teaches at the P/J Division and a third professor who teaches at the I/S
Division. There are also several graduate students who support and work as research
assistants on the project.
The concepts underpinning the components of the DGPE/DPGEE Programme
are that peace and global education promote an awareness of the responsibilities of
global citizens in Canada and throughout the world, that education of this type can
be introduced into any subject area and at any level of instruction, that a distinctive
pedagogy which emphasizes interaction and decision-making is recommended, and
that classroom-ready resources are available for teachers at all of these levels and in
all subjects. As such, this year-long programme for pre-service candidates offers
multiple and varied pedagogical opportunities for our research.
Peace and Global Education: Why Students Are Attracted
Since their inception in the 1890s, the fields of peace and global education have
both acknowledged a strong moral and social-activist orientation. This inclination
was also apparent in global education as it developed in the 1970s (Holden, 2000;
Pike, 2000a), following a philosophy in which individual or national desires were to
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be subsumed for the common good (Barber, 2000; Reardon, 1988a). As well,
tolerance was emphasized (Tucker, 1983), and interdependence of all societies
assumed (Le Roux, 2001; Reardon, 1988b). Pedagogically, as well, both peace and
global education have developed teaching strategies which bear testimony to their
social-activist and progressive roots. Global education arose in the United States at
the same time as experiential learning and values clarification, open schools and
child-centred education (Hendrix, 1998). Peace education too overlaps and shares
theoretical and practical ground with other types of progressive educations (Toh &
Floresca-Cawagas, 2000, p. 368). Part of this tradition has been the claim that
content and process should be fused or at least interdependent (Le Roux, 2001, p.
71). As the fields have evolved in Canada and Britain especially, strategies have
been developed to encourage activity-based learning (Selby & Pike, 2000) and
especially perspectivistic analysis (Pike & Selby, 1988; Global Citizen Project,
2005), cooperative learning and role-playing (Holden, 2000), story-telling (Calder,
2000; Moore, 2003), simulations (Gautier & Rebich, 2005), student projects and
community surveys (Tye & Tye, 1993), community service (Willinsky, 2005) and
web-based research (Risinger, 1998). New approaches to assessment encompassing
cognitive, affective and participatory domains have also been suggested (Diaz,
Massialas & Xanthopoulos, 1999). At its most radical, strategies rooted in
postmodernism and the democratic pedagogy of Stanley Aronowitz and Henry
Giroux (1991), who stress power differentials, the disabling authority of hegemonic
structures, and the possibilities of empowering discourse (Preece, 2002; Wells,
1996) have offered much-needed emancipatory approaches to give the field renewed
direction and edge. Thus, there is substantial agreement, in content and process,
between peace and global education, with a good deal of this falling into left-
leaning education. We hypothesize that one attraction for pre-service teachers is the
commitment to equity and social justice.
A second reason why some pre-service teachers are drawn to peace and global
education concerns their subject specialization. A study in New South Wales,
Australia, which examined the relationship between pre-existing knowledge
schemas of primary and secondary pre-service teachers, concluded that subject
specializations (e,g., History) affect how students integrate global education into
their knowledge frameworks (Horsey et al., 2005). The implications of this study
suggest both an attraction and a barrier to integrating peace and global educational
materials into the mainstream curriculum. Students in a discipline such as History
often find the pedagogy, knowledge and values compatible with other components
of this teachable subject, and yet they question the silence in the formal
curriculum guidelines about questions of peace and global education.
A survey of the literature of peace and global education demonstrates, therefore,
a significant degree of analysis and interest in pedagogy and activism, and especially
so in certain subject areas or teachables. With few exceptions, the theoretical
literature is silent about the barriers or perceived obstacles for teacher-education
candidates to infuse a peace and global education perspective in the classroom. [3]
This study seeks to explore some of the deterrents to teaching from a peace and
global studies perspective in a variety of educational expressions: in the literature
which discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the field; in the content-based
curricula developed to teach the principles of peace and development education; in
the pedagogy suggested to transmit this content; and, specifically, in the personal
qualities, experiences, education and responses of teacher candidates.
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Methodology
To better understand the factors that encourage and discourage integration of this
domain into the mainstream curriculum, we set out four research questions. In each
instance, we follow the research question with a brief explanation as to why each is
important to the study. All of the respondents were pre-service teacher candidates,
both anglophone and, to a lesser extent, francophone in one of the three certification
divisions offered at our institution. These candidates were surveyed through
questionnaires at a variety of events and at different times of the academic year. The
student populations were analyzed separately (by linguistic group) and then
combined for review. To better understand the gender and discipline-based learning,
the results were scrutinized accordingly.

1. What features of peace and global education attract teacher education
candidates in the twenty-first century?
To comprehend pre-service teachers initial perception of peace and global
education we asked an open-ended question: In general, what does peace and
global education mean for you?


2. What personal qualities and experiences seem to characterize candidates
who are drawn to this field?
First, we sought to understand the teacher candidates perceptions, experience
and knowledge, and the meanings they attached to peace and global education when
they entered the programme. In addition, we wanted to know what authority
candidates attached to learning about peace and global education in a teacher-
education programme and how gender subjectivities and teaching division
influenced the identity of pre-service teachers as peace and global educators. Gender
is a key component of the study because teacher-education programmes are
progressively becoming more feminized. To take one teacher-education programme
as a case in point, between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of female students ranged
between 77% and 80.9%. Likewise, the peace and global education events and
optional courses also attracted a greater percentage of women than men in the
Education programme. Finally, we pursued the students subject knowledge because
other studies have concluded that there is a relationship in the way subject specialists
view subject knowledge issues (Horsley, Newell, and Stubbs, 2005).
The data collected for this component of the study is based on initial sample
questionnaires which consisted of three types of questions: a check box for profile
(gender, teaching subjects); open-ended questions regarding perceptions on teaching
peace and global education, integration into curriculum, and possible deterrents; and
a third section listing various topics (human rights, food security, etc.) and asking
the respondents to match the topics with curriculum areas or courses to identify the
students understanding of the relationship between curriculum and issues associated
with peace and global development.

3. What barriers prevent these candidates from acting on their knowledge
and stated desire to change educational practices?
Our anecdotal discussion with teacher-education candidates over the course of
several academic years has made us aware that despite these novice teachers
support of peace and global education concepts and pedagogy, rarely were these
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topics or strategies used in their practicum classrooms. Thus, we sought to identify
the barriers which limited implementation of peace and global education at all
levels. To address this research question, we used data from questionnaires, a focus
group, workshops and classroom discussions.

4. Which of these barriers are ones that teacher-education programmes
have some authority to change?
Our examination of disabling challenges faced by teacher candidates forced us to
discriminate between systemic factors in the broader political or educational context,
with which we could do little, and factors in our own educational setting over which
we had direct control. Those factors in the latter category could be acted upon in our
own classrooms, conferences, retreats and workshops. To act effectively, however,
we needed to be clearer as to the dimensions of the problem as understood by
teacher candidates. Data sources for this research question were drawn from the
same roots as for the previous question: questionnaires, a focus group, workshops
and classroom interactions.
Thus, the data sources for our examination of these four questions included the
literature on peace and global education, sample teaching materials developed by
non-governmental organizations, questionnaires and a focus group completed by
pre-service candidates, and assessments completed after instructional sessions by
this same group of teacher education candidates.
The process of gathering this data unfolded in several stages (see tables I and II).
[4] First, sets of questionnaires were distributed during the first month of classes
and after two main events, the two-day Peace and Development Education Institute
in September and the two-day retreat in February. Questionnaires were also
distributed after a number of film nights and workshops offered throughout the year.
These research tools helped us to better understand the students attitudes and their
views of the content-based curricula and their reception of particular pedagogical
approaches presented at each event.

Table I. Programme Events by Gender and Division
Gender D|v|s|on Lvent]Data
Source
1|me of ear 1ota| # of
kesponses
Iema|e Ma|e ]I I]I I]S
September
Inst|tute]
uest|onna|re
SepLember 73 38 13 24 9 34
ketreat]
uest|onna|re
lebruary 64 39 3 33 10 1
Workshops]
uest|onna|re
1hroughouL
Lhe year
117 88 27 64 11 42
I||m N|ghts]
uest|onna|re
1hroughouL
Lhe year
99 92 7 27 72 0
Iocus Groups]
D|scuss|on
Aprll 22 19 3 20 2 0
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Another component of the research involved a focus group discussion late in the
academic year. The transcripts from this event provided evidence for measuring and
evaluating the students learning of content and pedagogy and very importantly,
their attitudinal changes (Wholey, Hatry & Newcomer, 1994). As recommended, the
focus group was small and the conversation was limited to a restricted number of
topics (usually 3 to 5 topics, lasting 90 minutes). Rather than seeing focus groups as
representative of the larger group, their importance lies in offering a way to explore
a topic in depth with a small group of participants drawn from an often narrowly
defined target population (Dean, 2002, p. 340). In this sense, conversations are seen
to develop naturally to provide an opportunity for new dimensions or insights to
arise (Dean, 2002, p. 340; see also Wiggins, 2004).

Table II. Responses to In-Class Questionnaire
Language Gender D|v|s|on Lvent]Data
Source
1|me of
ear
1ota| # of
kesponses
Irench Lng||sh Iema|e Ma|e ]I I]I I]S
In-C|ass]
uest|onna|re
SepLember 120 68 32 83 37 47 17 36

By employing these strategies, we sought to identify students views of the types
of pedagogy, knowledge and values best suited for elementary, intermediate and
senior grades, and the barriers that prevented these candidates from acting on their
knowledge and stated desire to change educational practice. Through this approach,
we hoped to better discriminate between barriers over which we, as professors, have
some influence, those which we have the potential to reduce, and those that remain
beyond our prerogative as educators in a teacher-education programme.
Results and Findings
1. How do teacher education candidates understand peace and global
education in the twenty-first century?
Students identified peace and global education in a variety of ways, but always with
issues related to social justice, (in)equality, human rights and their responsibilities as
global citizens. Some included peace and conflict in their description; others, mostly
female students, noted gender inequalities within the definition. As well, women
related peace and global education closely to certain values and attitudes: empathy,
diversity, respect and tolerance. Francophone women in our sample were especially
clear about the value base of this field. Secondary-level anglophone student teachers
understood peace and global education to be primarily concerned with
interdependence of nations. At the same time, it was striking that few teacher
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candidates identified environmental issues or sustainable development as part of the
definition of the field; nor was there mention of peace as a particular dimension of
global education.

2. What personal qualities and experiences seem to characterize candidates
who are drawn to this field?
The data were explicit in identifying the type of teacher-education candidate
interested in peace and global education. Put succinctly, the profile is predominantly
a woman with some previous background study (or experience) in one of the
subfields encompassed by peace and global education (e.g., volunteering or working
in developing countries or with nongovernmental organizations, or taking
undergraduate courses in international development). She likely has a background in
History, Geography, Science or Literary studies. This is not to argue that no
candidates who were outside this profile attended sessions or attempted to
incorporate peace and global education into their curriculum; we found examples of
candidates with different profiles who were devoted to the principles of peace and
global education. We do claim, however, that candidates with this profile were
attracted to peace and global education. By far the greatest numbers of our students
involved in the DGPE/DPGEE initiative conformed to this biographical profile.
Women participated in far greater numbers and proportions in all aspects of the
Faculty of Education initiative. To take a case in point, the 2006 Fall Institute which
was held in September for two days attracted one male student for every seven
female P\J students; at the J\I division, the ratio was one male for every three
females; and at the I\S division, the ratio was one male for every two females. In all
instances, despite womens predominance in the teacher-education programme,
womens participation rate was greater than their proportion in the programme. This
gender disparity in favour of women remains true in all components of the initiative.
A second characteristic of teacher-education candidates attracted to peace and
global education is their background experience. For example, the data resulting
from the fall Institute show that 64% of the females in P\J had experience in peace
and global education; at the retreat, 69% of the women had taken advantage of
previous events and were seeking to advance their knowledge and understanding of
issues.
Previous academic training as reflected in the subject orientation of the teacher-
education candidate appears to predispose some candidates to peace and global
education. Candidates in History, Literary Studies, Science and Geography were
especially enthusiastic about peace and global education. In part, candidates
attraction is because their curricular guidelines offer many opportunities for them to
teach these materials. In part also, these candidates arrived with a higher level of
knowledge, experience in the field, or personal contacts, and with the confidence
and interest to pursue more education of this type.

3.What barriers prevent these candidates from acting on their knowledge
and stated desire to change educational practices?
An understanding of the challenges faced by student-teacher candidates, as
reported by those same candidates, suggests that the major barriers to their
effectively incorporating peace and global education into their classrooms are
multiple and complex. Students report lack of support by teacher mentors
supervising their practica, a lack of confidence in the pedagogical demands of
successfully teaching issues of this type, and difficulty in inserting peace and global
education into their curriculum guidelines. This is not to say that these candidates
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did not attempt to teach topics related to peace and global issues. Evidence was
given that candidates who attended our events and or who had experience with these
issues integrated such materials into their curricula. Among one group of 13
respondents, 8 indicated that they had used some of the material during their
practicum into Social Studies, Mathematics and Science. However, among another
group of 16 candidates without previous knowledge, only 1 claimed to have
integrated peace and global issues in her teaching.
Candidates in practica often feel disempowered by the new structures they are
struggling to understand, by their obvious early pedagogical development, and by
the personalities of the mentor teachers whose task it is to supervise their
professional development. Hence, when a mentor teacher expressed a lack of
enthusiasm about peace and global education topics, or worse, cautioned against
teaching these materials, student-teacher candidates found it difficult to advance
their case. Changing this view is a lengthy process, and not one which a student
teacher can hope to engage during a busy practica.
A second barrier for many candidates lay in the pedagogical demands of teaching
peace and global education. Student teachers expressed concern about the
complication of these issues, the required level of knowledge to present them fairly
and with a sense of hope. Further, they worried that their students would feel that the
problems giving rise to inequity are so ingrained and so enormous that they could
not find a way to take an active role as global citizens. Some candidates went
further, noting that the simple statistics are sometimes frightening, both for
themselves and their students. Others thought of peace and global education as an
extra during a time when they were struggling to conquer questions of classroom
management and basic planning, to say nothing of increasing the demands on their
time with peace and global issues. They felt chronically short of time. On a
pedagogical front, many students expressed surprise and distress at the
sophistication required for an interactive pedagogy to be effectively taught.
A third barrier for many candidates was their view of the curriculum guidelines
underpinning their subject area as incompatible with peace and global education. We
heard from Music and Mathematics teacher candidates, for example, that they could
not easily discern how to integrate peace and global education into those subject
areas. Even Geography and History students who had completed integration
assignments found this process a difficult one.

4. Which of these barriers are ones that teacher-education programmes
have some authority to change?
Our research has led us to recognize that some of the barriers are beyond our
control, while others are well within our range of capabilities. Teacher mentors
resistant to global education or appearing to be resistant are not technically
within our mandate. However, a new component of this programme involves
outreach, where our student candidates take over local classrooms to teach peace and
global issues, allowing the regular teacher to observe and discuss with the student
candidates and professor. We hope that eventually this approach will offer
pedagogical opportunities. Ultimately, however, we concede that our efforts must be
focussed on the teacher-education programme on campus.
Our data generated large numbers of recommendations from the students as to
how they could be better prepared to engage these materials in the classroom. They
recommended that student teacher candidates have more time to practice articulating
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their social goals with pedagogical and curricular knowledge, thereby developing
confidence and skills. They highlighted the need to teach critical thinking strategies
about social justice, and to hear from people who have successfully implemented
peace and global education programmes in their own classrooms. They requested
examples of how teachers have dealt with the seeming hopelessness of todays
world, how gender plays a role in inequity, abroad and at home, and how to catch
the attention of students without terrifying and disabling their efforts to effect
change. With regard to the relationship between traditional disciplines and peace and
global education, the candidates noted that curriculum links to web-based resources
would enhance their understanding of some of the complex issues, for example
international trade, which they could incorporate into their subject area.

As we expected, many of the features of a progressive pedagogy which are
linked to peace and global education were intimidating for our candidates. This
pedagogy is one which strives to be student-centred, interactive and productive of
affective as well as knowledge goals. As interactive and affective strategies of this
kind are known to match young womens preferred learning styles in education
(Gilligan, 1982), it became clear that more instruction in this enriched pedagogy was
needed, and that if it were used effectively, the entire programme would be more
gender-sensitive. However, student teachers are not alone in finding this interactive
pedagogy difficult to implement. It remains questionable how prepared teachers
generally are to teach peace and global education using these pedagogical strategies.
Earlier studies in the United States, for example, reported that although most
teachers believed that global education was important in Social Studies, only a
minority considered that classroom teachers had the necessary knowledge base for
the task (Tucker, 1983, p. 67; Merryfield, 1990). Moreover ideological concerns also
play a role in discouraging new teachers from addressing controversial or potentially
sensitive material. As Kenneth Tye argues for the United States, in the 1990s the
global education movement worked hard to avoid controversial issues, largely due to
attacks from the political Right that encouraged what was euphemistically labelled a
balanced approach, teaching about other peoples and countries but doing so
patriotically (Tye, 2003, p. 18). As well, in Britain and Australia studies have
identified particular pedagogical practices and obstacles for teachers in teaching
global education (Holden, 2000; Horsley et al., 2005). In Canada, although
educators have identified the need to study global issues in the classroom (Burnouf,
2004), and the lack of ready-made teacher resources for use in the classroom
(Schweisfurth, (2006), few studies have examined the influences of pedagogy and
content-based knowledge, specifically as they pertain to pre-service teachers. A
project conducted with teachers, for instance, demonstrates the lack of consensus
regarding pedagogical models for teaching peace and global education. In this
example, 41% of the sample teacher population favoured the infusion model, which
integrated a global perspective in all areas of the curriculum, 33% wanted global
education to be a separate course, and 25% argued for a combination of the two
(Tucker, 1982, p. 71).
Discussion
1. Gender
We found that amongst the teacher-education population, regardless of the range
of options for participating in events, the Institute, Retreat, film nights, a
professional development workshop or focus group discussion, to which all teacher
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candidates were invited, the majority (80-90%) were women; yet the few men
attending these events enthusiastically discussed the topics and offered extensive
positive feedback on their evaluations. On knowledge-based content of materials
there were both similarities and differences observed by the teacher candidates with
regard to gender. At the Institute, the first event of the year, the male students
generally attended sessions on the War Museum, banning weapons, Mines Action
Canada and Engineers Without Borders: these topics could be seen as areas where
men traditionally have more interest or are seen as subject areas where men play a
more active role than women. The women, in contrast, selected options traditionally
seen as the domain of women: protection of children or organizations with a focus
on womens issues that were presented by agencies such as Kids Who Care,
UNICEF and CHF. Males and females were not limited to these themes as areas of
study, however. At the second major event of the year, the Retreat, the focus was on
environmental issues; here, participation in workshops was less marked by gender
than at the Institute. Both women and men teacher candidates selected similar topics
referencing fair trade and climate change, for example.
Likewise, in discussions with pre-service teachers after their second practicum,
there was general agreement that although both male and female mentor teachers
were engaged with teaching about peace and global issues, a gender division around
choice of topics was evident in the classrooms. Based on their experiences in the
classroom, teacher candidates flagged gender differences in the choice of topics
preferred by teachers. Male teachers were seen to privilege elements of study linked
to politics, economy or human rights, whereas women teachers were seen to favour
elements of study connected to gender issues, child protection, and peace.

2. Disciplinary Knowledge
As with the Australian study (Horsley et al., 2007), we identified differences in
approaches to integrating peace and global issues based on candidates subject
specialties. While prior subject knowledge may be a feature in the candidates
approaches, we concluded that current curriculum requirements also played a key
role in determining their understanding of how to integrate peace and global
education into the curriculum.

3. Pedagogical Practice
The question of pedagogical practice is ambiguous, and like the anecdotal
comments on classroom practice cited above, will require further study as the
research component of the project continues to explore some of these observations
on curriculum and pedagogy in the upcoming year. Within the range of comments
around pedagogy, a number of questions have emerged. In particular, three insights
gleaned from the questionnaires and focus group discussion will inform our ongoing
study. First, do male and female teacher-education candidates learn about how to
teach peace and global education differently? Second, why do teacher-education
candidates consider gender inequality an issue that is difficult or sensitive to teach
given differing global cultural norms and attitudes towards citizenship in the
classroom? Finally, what current understandings of pedagogy will help us to
understand these perceptions?
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Conclusion
Clearly, equipping new teachers with the rationale for addressing questions of
peace and global education, the knowledge base to effectively do so, and the
pedagogical skills required to teach the issues in an engaging and critical manner is a
complex process. Like all difficult change, it cannot be done by faculties of
education alone. In our case, our NGO partners are essential to the process of
education, and very importantly, to disseminating classroom resources. Tucker
argues that [t]eacher education should be conceived as a broad and long term
change process.... For example, since global education requires the development of
networks in the community, teachers should acquire these skills and attitudes.
(Tucker, 1982, p. 213). With our students and the communitys help, we are
working toward accomplishing this task.

Correspondence: LORNA R. MCLEAN, SHARON A. COOK, TRACY
CROWE Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Canada


NOTES

[1] The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Agence canadienne de
dveloppement international/Canadian International Development Agency through its Global
Classroom Initiative program.

[2] For an historical perspective see Alan Sears and Ian Wright, eds., Challenges and Prospects for
Canadian Social Studies (Vancouver, British Columbia: Pacific Educational Press, 2004); Yvonne
Hbert and Lori Wilkinson, eds. Citizenship in Transformation in Canada (Toronto, Ontario:
University of Toronto Press, 2002); Rosa Bruno-Jofr and Natalia Aponiuk, eds., Educating
Citizens for a Pluralistic Society (Calgary, Alberta: Canadian Ethnic Studies 2000).

[3] To a large extent the international literature has identified problems such as lack of knowledge,
necessity of appropriate materials, lack of leadership and support in school districts, lack of
interest or topics that are seen as threatening. See, for example, M. Merryfield (1991) Preparing
American Social Studies Teachers to Teach with a Global Perspective: A Status Report, The
Journal of Teacher Education, 42 (1): 11-20; C. Holden and D. Hicks, Making Global
Connections: The Knowledge, Understanding and Motivation of Trainee Teachers, Teaching and
Teacher Education, 23 (2007): 13-23. Yet, within this literature, little is written about pedagogical
strategies. For exceptions to this comment see David Hicks, Learning about Global Issues: Why
Most Educators only Make Things Worse, Environmental Education Research 7 (2001):413-425.

[4] Since there were few completed francophone questionnaires for these events we have not discussed
these results separately in Table 1.
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Citizenship Teaching and Learning
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Preparing Democratic Citizens in Pakistani
Schools

BERNADETTE L. DEAN, Aga Khan University

ABSTRACT The paper reports an action research study with social studies teachers
aimed at facilitating democratic citizenship education in Pakistani classrooms. The
findings indicate that teachers who desire to teach for democratic citizenship are
constrained by school structures and processes. Action research facilitates more
democratic teaching practices and changes in the material conditions and practices
of school.

Introduction
The raison d'etre of social studies education in a democratic society is the
preparation for citizenship (Kaltsounis, 1994; Osborne, 1997; Print, 2000; Sears,
1996). This means preparing students with the knowledge, skills and dispositions
required for informed participation in a democracy. However, the literature (Apple
& Beane, 1999, 2007; Cotton, 2001; Dean, 2000, 2005, 2007; Freire, 1999; Nayyar
& Salim, 2004) shows that the goals of democratic citizenship education cannot be
realized given our current education practices and suggests changes in school
structures, curriculum, and teaching practices to make them more democratic.

This paper begins by delineating a model of democratic citizenship education. It
then describes the action research process used with two social studies teachers to
facilitate education for democratic citizenship. The paper concludes by showing how
action research can serve the creation of more democratic classrooms and schools.

Democracy and democratic citizenship education
According to Resnick a modern democratic state has three essential elements:
First it recognizes the equality of legal rights of citizenship, disdaining
special privileges or powers for some, whether based on heredity,
wealth, and social and political position. Second, it recognizes further
the need for citizens to be able to participate in some ongoing manner
in political affairs. Third, and no less important, it sees equality of
condition (or something approaching this) as the prerequisite for the
practice of democratic citizenship (1990: p.31).
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The creation of such a state requires that citizens be knowledgeable about how
institutions and structures privilege some individuals and groups and become skilled
at uncovering and challenging them so as to ensure greater equality for all (Apple,
1999; Giroux and Penna, 1988; Banks, 1995; Osborne, 1991). It also means that
citizens must be prepared to actively participate in political and social affairs at the
local and national level.

Education aimed at preparing democratic citizens requires three important school
conditions: democratic structures, a democratic curriculum and democratic teaching
practices (Apple & Beane, 1999). Democratic structures are required at both the
policy making and classroom level, ensuring genuine participation of stakeholders in
policy making and governance. The school curriculum has usually emphasized
official knowledge. It is essential that the curriculum includes information
encompassing voices of those outside the dominant culture (Apple & Bean, 1999,
p.15) and facilitates analysis of the society and ways to make it into a genuinely
democratic society. In classrooms students must actively collaborate in selecting
what and how they will learn (Apple and Beane, 1999; Chilcoat and Ligon, 1998;
Sehr, 1997; Volk, 1998). There must be a more equal relationship between teachers
and students. Moreover classroom interactions must serve to empower students to
understand their world and take action for social change.

Teachers are the key to changing schools. If they are to create democratic schools
they cannot be seen as technicians implementing other people's ideas (Apple,
1990; Giroux, 1983, 1988). They must be seen as active, reflective practitioners who
have control over their work (Giroux, 1988). This means viewing teachers as
potential creators of curriculum, teaching and learning experiences and agents of
transformation in schools and society.

The Research Methodology
A study concerned with facilitating teachers to educate for democratic citizenship
in social studies classrooms must use a democratic research methodology. The study
therefore employed action research.

Kemmis and McTaggart (1983) describe action research as a
collective self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social
situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own
social or educational practices, as well as their understanding of these
practices and the situations in which these practices are carried out
(p.152).
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Action research was chosen as the inquiry would allow teachers to understand
themselves, their practice and their schools and make their teaching and learning
practices more democratic.

The research began with conversations about democracy in Pakistan, envisioning
a more democratic Pakistani society and the education needed to create such a
society. The teachers then chose to teach a syllabus topic integrating an aspect of
democratic citizenship. The action research process entailed working with each
teacher to plan lessons, observe actions and facilitate reflection over a three month
period.

The Action Researchers

Anila
Anila began teaching in 1992 after completing a Masters in economics from
Karachi University. The only professional education she had was an eight-week
course in social studies teaching. At the time of the study in 1999 she was teaching
12-13 year olds at a private school.

Malik
Malik began teaching in 1992 with a Bachelors of Education from Karachi
University in Urdu and Pakistan Studies. At the time of the study he was teaching
social studies to 12-14 year olds at a government school.

Democracy and Democratic Citizenship Education: Teachers' Views

Teachers' Understandings of Democracy
Initially, our conversation focused on democracy in Pakistan which the teachers
referred to as electoral democracy as citizens' only voted in elections. Anila desired
participation in all major decisions.

Democracy is a system of government in which people choose their
representatives so that their opinions and desires are taken into
account when decisions are being made. I think, each time a decision
is to be taken the people must be asked their opinion.

Malik agreed, and emphasized freedom of thought and expression:

Democracy is a system of government in which people make decisions
about things that will affect them...in order to do this effectively they
must have the freedom to think and express their opinions

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Anila felt change would only come when the feudal system -- the taken-for-
granted belief that people are unequal because of the circumstances of their birth --
was brought to an end. She said

Nothing will change until we get rid of the jagirdari nizam (feudal
system) and the jagirdari (feudal) mentality. Things have not changed
because of the jagiradari nizam. Economic, social and political power
are in the hands of the jagirdars (feudal lords).

Malik thought education would bring about the required change. Anila observed
that education was not enough, structural change was required.

I felt it was important that this critique be followed by a visioning exercise, as a
vision of a desired and possible future would provide the hope to drive and sustain
their efforts.

Envisioning an Egalitarian and Just Society
To facilitate envisioning the society they wanted, I shared the gist of the chapter
"On Disruptive Daydreams," from Roger Simon's Teaching Against the Grain. I read
the quote of Ernst Bloch:

Dreams come in the day as well as at night. And both kinds of dreaming
are motivated by wishes they seek to fulfil. But daydreams differ from
nightdreams; for the daydreaming "I" persists throughout, consciously,
privately, envisaging the circumstances and images of a desired, better
life. The content of a daydream is not, like that of a nightdream, a
journey back into repressed experiences and associations. It is
concerned with as far as possible an unrestricted journey forward, so
that instead of reconstituting that which is no longer conscious, the
images of that which is not yet can be phantasied into life and into the
world (p. 7)

I explained how Bloch sees daydreaming not simply as wishing for a better
society, but a envisioning of a society that one is willing to struggle for and work to
realize. I asked them to envision the society they wanted. The long silence was
broken by Malik, who said

I dream of a society where there is peace and security and an educated
society in which people respect each other.

Anila argued that peace could only be attained if there were equality and justice.
She then pointed out that equality and justice must be practiced in the home and
society, for in experiencing justice, one learns to be just. However, recognizing that
people will often, fall short of the ideal, Anila proposed a strong and independent
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judiciary. Malik agreed adding, Justice is needed if people are to feel free to speak
the truth, to express their point of view to others.

Implicit in the teachers' vision for Pakistani society is the desire for a democratic
society based on freedom, equality and social justice for all. A society in which
citizens behave democratically in both their private and public lives. By thinking this
way, the teachers seem to share Aristotle's view (quoted in Barber, 1984) that
democracy is "not an ideally perfect constitution, but first a way of living" (p. 117).
Anila expressed it well when she said

If we are talking about citizenship in a democratic society then we must
look at the culture, the values. Are they democratic? Is the government
structured democratically?...Is there a culture of democracy in the
family? It is insufficient to have an elected government. Democratic
behaviours and attitudes must be developed and they must be seen
everywhere, in our families, in our schools then democracy will
follow.

Education for Democratic Citizenship
The teachers believed that democracy requires citizens who have the knowledge
and skills to understand and address the problems of society. Malik stressed the need
for students to develop deliberation and decision-making skills:

The first thing is knowledge of their rights and the rights of others. Then
their speaking power and ability to listen to others... After this there is
the need for decision-making skills.

Anila felt students should undertake a comparative study of political, economic
and social systems to identify the strengths and limitations in the present system and
work to improve it:

I think students must learn about the present political structure, how it
has developed, what alternative systems there are, how they are
different, how power is distributed in each. The relation between the
social, political and economic structure. There are many social and
current issues students are aware of but do not understand. They have
a lot of questions, We must ask students what they want to learn.

An animated discussion followed between Malik and Anila about where teachers
would get the information required to teach social issues.

I then posed the question relating to the attitudes and values required. Anila
responded:

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Equality. Equality in the distribution of resources. Tolerance. For
example, Muslims and Christians live together peacefully. Justice.
Understand injustice and raise their voice for justice.

The teachers had many ideas about democratic citizenship education but they
expressed concern about translating this vision into classroom reality. I pointed out
that teaching, like democracy, is not an ideal state to be realized but is built
through continual efforts at making a difference (Apple & Beane, 1995, p.13).




Teaching For Democratic Citizenship Through Action Research

Malik's Project
During our conversations, Malik stated that citizens in a democracy must be
aware of their rights and responsibilities. For him an important right was freedom of
expression which resembled what Barber (1984) calls "strong democratic talk". It
entails thinking, expressing one's ideas, listening to the ideas of others and making
decisions.

Freedom of Expression
Malik decided to teach students about rights and responsibilities through
discussion to allow students to express their views. The lesson, however, was
unsuccessful because Malik only got short answers to his questions. Malik, however,
expressed satisfaction, interpreting students' lack of response as "shyness" and lack
of "familiar[ity] with the style of teaching." He expected their participation to
improve the next day. I agreed and suggested another reason may be students' lack
of knowledge about the topic. Malik thought the suggestion plausible, but wondered
where he would get the required information.

I suggested I could provide a copy of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It was in English so we translated it. Malik decided to teach the rights of the child
discussing three questions: What did the rights entail? To what extent are children
receiving these rights? and Whose responsibility is it to ensure children their rights?
In keeping with his belief that the right to express oneself entailed the responsibility
to listen, Malik wanted students to learn the social skill of 'listening attentively.'
Unsure of how to teach the skill, he asked me to demonstrate.

The next day Malik shifted from his small classroom to the science laboratory to
facilitate discussion. Following the teaching of the social skill, Malik again tried to
elicit the rights through questioning. Receiving no response, he began explaining
each right.

The following day he started what became an animated discussion on the three
questions. Students argued that they were not receiving their rights, because the
government built schools but did not ensure quality education, built hospitals but did
not supply medicines. Malik asked, "Who is the government?" followed by "What is
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our role as citizens in a democracy?" Students responded, "to vote for the candidate
most likely to win".

Malik found it difficult to engage in self-critical reflection about his classroom
actions. His reflections were a description of his teaching and his perceived
successes in promoting students' learning. We, therefore, engaged in reflective
conversation after his lessons.

I asked Malik why he asked the same questions. He explained that during a
professional development programme, teacher educators elicited participants' ideas
through questioning, so he did the same. He did not realize that this model
presupposed students' and teachers' (to a greater extent) prior knowledge about the
topic. He was aware that he did not have the required knowledge but was relying on
his questions to provoke discussion.

Malik believed that democracy requires citizens to make decisions about issues
that affect them. In an electoral democracy like Pakistan, the main decision is who to
vote for. Malik was concerned when a student suggested one should vote for the
likely winner. He believed, lack of conscious choice by citizens during elections was
responsible for the political crises in Pakistan:

The Waderas rule the people under them. They order the people to vote
for them and the people do because they have taken money from them.
The Waderas are given tickets by the political parties because the
parties know they will win. The lack of careful selection by the people
is the reason for the political instability in Pakistan.

In the next lessons, students developed criteria for the selection of a candidate
and applied it when voting. Malik asked students what had helped them make their
decision. On the response, "education helped he started discussing the right to
education. During the discussion Malik raised questions, asked students to clarify
their ideas and moved the discussion forward.

During the end-of- cycle conversation, Malik was ecstatic about his lessons. He
had met his objectives as students understood their rights and had expressed their
ideas:

Children found it very easy to understand their rights and
responsibilities because it concerned their personal life, it is part of
their reality. When they were asked to give their opinions they
replied very well. That's how I concluded the children understood very
well what I taught them.

He also acknowledged his learning. He had followed my example of modelling
attentive listening, raising questions and challenging ideas during discussions.

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When Malik finished teaching rights and responsibilities in January, he was
faced with the dilemma of preparing students for the examinations in February or
teaching for democratic citizenship. He chose the examinations. He selected the
chapter "Pakistan and the Muslim World," incorporating map skills. Acknowledging
the importance of preparing students for the examinations, I asked Malik to consider
how he could simultaneously prepare students for democratic citizenship. He
suggested he spend four days a week teaching the chapter and Saturdays discussing
a social issue. Accepting it as a way of dealing with the dilemma, I challenged him
again. He reminded me "everyone has to study the same content" and to appease me
suggested using cooperative groups so students could learn to work with others. We
spent an entire day planning. We revised the key concepts and skills, discussed how
best to teach them and prepared lessons accordingly. Malik expressed a number of
concerns:

How do I deal with the weaker students? How will they learn?....How do
I teach so many students? Can you teach half and I teach half?... There
is no large map of Pakistan, no world map in the school how will I
explain?. . . Can you help me identify the Muslim countries on the
map?

The active-participatory activities designed and the teacher's role in creating a
cooperative learning environment, required radical changes to Maliks beliefs about
and practice of teaching. He lacked content knowledge. He believed transmission of
knowledge was the only way to deal with large classes, lack of resources, curriculum
and examination demands. He doubted his ability to use an active-participatory
pedagogy with sixty-three students. He wondered about classroom discipline and
weak students performance. As we discussed the concerns and identified ways to
deal with them, Malik's anxiety decreased.

Malik began the lesson by asking students to draw a map from their home to
school, followed by teaching directions and conventional symbols. Students learned
to draw freehand the map of Pakistan, apply the skills of directions and use
conventional symbols on it. They learned to locate important Muslim countries on
the world map and inquire about them. Malik created a cooperative learning
environment, teaching students interpersonal skills and having them work
cooperatively. Malik observed, explained and encouraged students.

The environment in Malik's classroom was electrifying. The enthusiasm of the
students towards this, student-centered approach to learning encouraged Malik to
push himself and his students even further. The roles of teacher and student blurred
and the Freirean classroom of "teacher-students" and "student-teachers" emerged
(Freire, 1970, p. 67). Reflecting on his lessons he said:

The work that seemed very difficult before we started became easy
because the students enjoyed this method of teaching way beyond my
expectations. I think it is because cooperative learning is in accord
with our way of life in Pakistan What they were learning was related
to their daily life, therefore, it had a greater impact on them I also

Creating a Cooperative Classroom Environment
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learned a lot ...to recognize the different continents, identify the
Muslim countries...

Malik made some important observations: the teaching method was effective
because it was related to the way children learn (active engagement) and the way
they live their lives (cooperatively). In addition, students learned useful content.
Pakistan is a Muslim country, its relationship with and events in Muslim countries
are regular news items. Knowledge of these countries would help students engage
critically with the news.

Malik recognized that a cooperative learning environment led to a more open and
equal relationship between student and teacher. He confronted the myth of the
teacher as sole authority:

If we want to teach for democratic citizenship teachers have to modify
the traditional teacher-student relationship. It is commonly believed
that teachers should be strict, and distant. I think there is too much
distance between teachers and student. teachers should talk politely,
treat their students equally, cooperate with them but must retain their
respect.To change my own behaviour I have worked hard. In these
six weeks I have come very close to the students. The change started
when I encouraged the students to speak, accepted what they said and
showed confidence in them...Now in creating a caring and cooperative
environment I have seen the difference on me and my students.

Discussing Social Problems
Malik decided to discuss a social problem on Saturday as "citizens in a
democracy need to be informed about the problems in society and see their role in
solving them." Malik decided to show the video Der na ho jiya (Before it's Too
Late) which depicts the environmental problems of Pakistan and peoples actions to
address them.

I suggested encouraging students to take social action. Malik was surprised,
"What action?" he asked. Taking social action was not part of his educational
experience. Even in the teacher development programme where he got the idea of
discussing social issues, they only identified possible actions. The result is that most
Pakistanis discuss problems, articulate grand solutions but fail to act.

On Saturday, the Principal, under pressure from students who wanted to learn
like Malik's students asked Malik to allow another class to join his class. The
students watched the video noting the environmental problems and suggested
solutions. Malik found it difficult to manage both classes and volunteered to teach
the other class separately.

In subsequent lessons, students discussed the causes, effects and possible
solutions. The last problem discussed was waste disposal. Malik suggested keeping
the classroom clean as a possible action and told students to Pick up the garbage on
the floor. The students picked up the garbage walked to the window and threw it
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outside (there being no bin in the classroom). No student asked for a bin or pointed
out the need for one. The behaviour demonstrated that the teacher and students had
yet to understand and act democratically.

Malik realized that in the discussions students were drawing not only on the
video but also on their own experiences. They were also using the discussion skills
he had taught them.

Before students would only speak about what they were taught but now
they talked about the environmental problems of their surroundings
and Pakistan. The reason there was noise in the class was because
students had ideas and were eager to share them. ... they were not
waiting for their turn. I feel in the last two months I have succeeded
in making the students speak, listen and ask questions.

Analysis of the observations revealed that all the students had participated in the
discussions. Students were supporting their ideas, asking questions, identifying
limitations in proposed solutions and suggesting alternatives. They identified causes
and effects on health and well being. Malik claimed:

The topics in the textbook are boring as students have been learning
them since class one and in the subjects of English, Urdu and social
studies. This topic was not from their textbooks, it was new,
challenging related to their daily life, therefore, it had a greater
impact on them. It is also because students are sharing ideas and
learning from each other.

Anilas Project
Anila emphasized the importance of developing democratic values such as
equality, tolerance and justice, learning about political and economic systems; rights
and responsibilities; and current issues. She planned to teach these by relating the
text to real world situations.

Teaching the Text
Anila's class had to study "The Major Climatic Regions of the World," "The
World of 2000 AD" and "The United Nations." Anila started with The Major
Climatic Regions of the World. Students defined climate and weather, learned about
the major climatic zones, found out about vegetation and animal life in each zone
and presented their findings.

With school holidays for Eid, Anila had time to discuss the lessons. Anila wanted
to educate for democratic citizenship but had been unable to given institutional
imperatives of completing the syllabus and preparing for examinations:

I have no choice with the syllabus; we all have to teach the same
syllabus because the exams are based on it. I do have a choice in
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methodology and I use it sometimes. I would like to go beyond the
syllabus but how can I when the students don't even know the facts? I
could ask them to read the textbook themselves but many students can't
even read correctly. I would like students to do a project but it
will take a whole month. I can give the facts in thirty minutes. We
can't ignore the facts, they are the base for their work in classes nine
and ten.

Anila's struggles exemplified the struggle between authoritative (discourses of
the institution), and internally persuasive discourses (her own desires for change)
(Britzman, 1991). I wondered if there were possibilities of collaboration with other
teachers to address curriculum requirements. Anila responded:

Yes and No. I have felt the need for these changes for a long time and
wanted to tell my Principal but I don't have the confidence to share my
ideas with my superiors If you want to do these things you have to create
an environment, you need to facilitate teachers; provide time, resources,
training. For example, when I want to do work that requires concentration
there is no time or place. ...That is why the possibilities I see are not
realized in this environment.

We decided to seize this research opportunity to see how these constraints could
be addressed. Anila suggested dealing with the syllabus by teaching the facts first
and then relating them to life so as to educate for democratic citizenship.

Relating the text to real world contexts
Anila had completed teaching the text. She decided to relate it to life by
discussing environmental degradation. She selected newspaper articles on the
environmental disaster caused by the Gulf war and on increasing air pollution of
South-East Asia and the videos: Greening Our Future: Pakistan's National
Conservation Strategy and Before It's Too Late.

Anila introduced each newspaper article and ensured a fluent reader was in each
group. A hush descended as students read. In the discussion students shared the main
ideas noting that people were responsible for environmental degradation.

In our reflective conversation Anila immediately focused on students reading
difficulties which militated against using materials other than the textbook:

If there was only one difficulty we would overcome it but you deal with
one and another arises (referring to materials other than the textbook,
being too difficult). It is so difficult to find materials suitable for our
students.

I referred her to my observations that indicated students had difficulty
understanding only a few words. She agreed and realized that students required the
meanings of the difficult words. She expressed surprise at how well the students had
grasped the ideas in the articles. I pointed out that it was because of her practice:
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preparing questions to guide the reading, introducing each article and ensuring a
fluent reader in each group.

The school had not replaced the stolen video cassette recorder (VCR) so Anila
decided to complete the syllabus teaching the next two chapters in a week. Students
discussed the future world and answered the end-of-chapter questions. They listed
the aims and objectives of the UN and described its work.

Analysing the script tapes of her teaching Anila expressed surprise at how
controlling she was. She had used questioning to actively involve students in
learning. In actual fact, Anila had not changed her practice. Questioning like
lecturing allowed her to rapidly cover large amounts of textbook content and gave
the illusion of students' active participation.

Having completed the syllabus Anila returned to the environment. Both students
and teacher were disappointed (the VCR had not arrived) so I brought a VCR. The
students watched the videos. Animated discussions of the environmental problems
and solutions followed. Highly motivated students suggested they participate in the
ongoing tree plantation campaign, make compost or participate in a signature
campaign to prevent the conversion of parks into parking lots.

Reflecting on her lessons Anila pointed out the importance of having materials in
Urdu as it facilitated conceptual understanding and active student participation.
Discussing students' motivation to act, Anila expressed concern about the action
interfering with examination preparation, the likelihood that the Principal would not
give permission and her inexperience with preparing students to take social action.

There is no time now. The students are busy preparing for their
exams...The exams are so near I don't think Mrs. M.will give
permission. I want the students to take some action but I don't know
which action they should take and how to go about doing it.

We discussed the process, time and effort required to take each action.
Recognizing they were doable she decided to seek the Principal's permission, which
she received.

The students decided to participate in the signature campaign. Anila prepared the
students eliciting ways to approach people and role playing various possible
scenarios. The students went out and obtained the signatures. She ended the topic
with reflections on the action and learnings that accrued from their study.

Anila and the students learned that persistence pays off. Going from house to
house to obtain signatures they learned that people have different perspectives on an
issue, the reasons for peoples inaction, and most important, their actions can bring
about change (the government revoked their decision to convert parks into parking
lots). Anila was thrilled with the result of the action and the learnings that accrued
for her students and herself. She began to see how teaching could prepare students
for democratic citizenship.

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Reflective Conversation On Possibilities And Challenges Of Educating For
Democratic Citizenship
Our conversation started with the teachers identifying the need to reconceptualize
social studies education to prepare students to create a more democratic society.
While Malik emphasized enhancing textbook knowledge, Anila stressed social
issues. Malik wondered how he would teach social issues when "the textbook
contained no information related to issues affecting our life." Anila shared how she
used newspapers and videos to enrich textbook information and how it motivated
students to act. She concluded, I think they now have first hand experience of being
democratic citizens.

Malik was impressed but did not think it would be possible to teach like this
without professional support. He however, pointed to how the textbook could be
used to facilitate democratic citizenship education. He suggested students should
compare the positive picture painted therein to what is happening around them. This
would develop in them the desire to find out why things are the way they are and
think of what can be done to change them.

The conversation then moved to the instructional strategies that could facilitate
democratic citizenship education. Malik stressed discussion as it developed students
confidence to speak. Anila stressed cooperative learning because it empowered
students. She said:

When using cooperative learning the teacher only has to ensure the
students understand the task. She doesn't have to shout at them or ask
them to pay attention every two minutes as when she lectures. When we
ask questions students do not hesitate in answering. The teacher
therefore doesn't have to punish, beat or use galat alfaz (bad
language).

Anila continued, proposing an alternative system of assessment that received the
approval of Malik. She suggested:

Students' knowledge should be assessed by having them do different
assignment throughout the year. Besides knowledge, their
communication skills, participation in class and attitudes towards
others should be assessed.

Through the research Anila and Malik realized they had agency and their actions
could bring changes. For example, they could create a democratic classroom
environment, use active-participatory teaching methodologies and receive some
institutional support for these. But they also identified constraints to teaching for
democratic citizenship such as a time-table that did not provide teachers time for
preparation and reflection.

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Anila and Malik moved from school level constraints to a discussion of how the
curriculum and examination system constrained their desires. Anila felt curriculum
issues could be addressed at the school level by teachers working together to enrich
it. She asked Malik if he would be willing to work with her to prepare a syllabus
aimed at educating for democratic citizenship.

Anila's thoughts then turned to a more idealistic goal of changing the education
system which she believed, reproduces the existing society:

If we want to create a democratic society we will have to change the
education system because in its present form it promotes beliefs and
values that support the existence of the present society . I realize that
concerted effort will be needed to introduce changes. We teachers
are the products of the system. We are teaching in our classrooms with
the same techniques and beliefs of the society without realizing our
mistakes.

The teachers' reflections then turned inwards as they reflected on how their
beliefs had changed through systematic action and reflection on teaching for
democratic citizenship. Malik explained that he now realized that students were not
"dull" but had a "lot of potential". Anila added.

The students not only know more than I expected but also have very
good analytical and critical thinking skills which I ignore most of the
time and do not help them to develop.We have to believe in the
potential of our students.

The Possibilities A Democratic Research Method Offers For Creating More
Democratic Schools

Action research provided teachers the opportunity to look critically at themselves
and their practices. They recognized that although constrained there were
possibilities for democratizing their practice. As they enriched the curriculum, used
active-participatory pedagogies and gave up some control they began to uncover
new possibilities.

A democratic curriculum
As the teachers began to educate for democratic citizenship they recognized the
curriculum was narrow and irrelevant to students' lives. They made curriculum
decisions in choosing what and how to teach. They enriched the content and
designed intellectually engaging activities that helped students understand the
content and develop skills.

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The teachers realized that what they had accepted as "school knowledge" was
only one way of selecting knowledge to meet curriculum goals, that the school
curriculum inhered values and interests that did not serve democracy and that they
and their students were not just consumers but also producers of knowledge. Even
though the teachers did not provide students opportunity to make curriculum
decisions, the students did so by demanding they be allowed to take informed action.

Teaching as the practice of democracy
The use of democratic practices led to the teachers and students discovering a
whole new way of being in the classroom. The passive and bored students became
active and enthusiastic participants in learning as they engaged with meaningful and
challenging ideas and tasks. The authoritarian and controlling teachers found that
when they created a cooperative learning environment students learned well and
did not sit on their heads.

Action research helped teachers to prepare lessons in greater consonance with
their goals, reflect on their teaching and make new plans. This process helped them
to realize that teaching need not be a repetition of monological performances but a
continually evolving process that is challenging yet exciting, deeply satisfying but
also exhausting work. They pointed out that to continue to teach like this they would
require greater autonomy over their work, more time for planning and reflecting and
professional support.

Changing school structure and processes
Over the course of the research the teachers came to recognize that they and
their students had agency. Their interactions with their school heads resulted in
changes in school structure (longer periods for social studies) and practices
(allowing students to participate in a signature campaign) opening up ways for
teachers to make their practice more democratic. The students, recognizing the more
democratic environment in their schools, used it to bring about change. In Malik's
School, other students demanded they be taught like Maliks students which resulted
in Malik teaching another class. Similarly, Anilas students organized themselves as
a group to insist they be allowed to take action based on their learning.

Conclusion
The empowerment of teachers and transformation of their classrooms that
resulted from them researching their practice suggests that action research can be a
powerful means of creating democratic schools. Action research provides
opportunities for teachers to critically reflect on themselves as teachers, undertake
an analysis of the culture of schools and the society. Teachers must explore "the
dynamics of power and desire in educational life" (Britzman, 1991, p.242) so that
they see how they are influenced by and can influence society. As teachers engage in
action research they subject their practice to critical reflection, uncovering the
assumptions underpinning their practice and identify more democratic ways to act
based on reflective insights. Furthermore, as teachers transform their practice they
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influence others, bringing about change in the material conditions and practices of
school.




Correspondence: BERNADETTE L. DEAN, Aga Khan University Institute For
Educational Development, F.B. Area, Karimabad, P.O. Box 13688, Karachi 75950,
Pakistan.

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Citizenship, Teaching and Learning
Vol 4, No. 1, July 2008




http://www.citized.info 2008 citizED


A response to Ralph Leighton's Article-
"Revisiting Postman and Weingartner's
'New Education' - is teaching Citizenship
a Subversive Activity"
GARY CLEMITSHAW, University of Sheffield & Sheffield Hallam University
ABSTRACT This article is written in response to Ralph Leighton's Revisiting
Postman and Weingartners New Education is teaching Citizenship a Subversive
Activity? (Leighton, 2006), which appeared in Citizenship Teaching and Learning
Volume 2, Number 1. Drawing on the radical late-60s writings of Postman and
Weingartner, Leighton calls for citizenship education to avoid the perils of entropy,
and to energise education with a spirit of creative subversion. This article has two
halves. The first considers Leighton's criticism of education in general, and concern
for citizenship education in particular, and questions whether the
Postman/Weingartner critique is valid in the conditions of the first decade of the
twenty-first century. The second seeks to identify the Postman/Weingartner critique
as being part of a genesis of emerging orthodoxies in educational policy in the late
twentieth century, policy that can be seen finding expression in the discourse of the
Learning Society and Life-Long Learning. It is argued that these discourses
emphasise the individual, and individual needs, to the extent that they have the
potential to undermine citizenship education's ambition of promoting meaningful
community involvement, respect for diversity and social cohesion.

Introduction
This essay is a response to Ralph Leightons engaging article in Citizenship
Teaching and Learning 2.1, entitled Revisiting Postman and Weingartners New
Education is teaching Citizenship a Subversive Activity? (Leighton, 2006). The
article deserves attention as it covers many very important principles, and policy
issues, relating to the current initiative to develop citizenship education in English
secondary schools (QCA 1998, DfEE 1999a). The intention of the essay is to
acknowledge the verity and importance of some of the concerns Leighton raises, and
the criticisms he makes about current policy and practice. This will spring from a
support for many of the aims he defines for citizenship education.

However, there are aspects of Leightons pessimism that are open to contention,
display some potential contradictions, and could be unhelpful to the project we both
support. This essay will attempt to identify and discuss these. Additionally, and
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importantly, some of the principles that inform Leightons argument, drawn with
reference to the work quoted in the title of his article, will also be discussed.
Postman and Weingartners seminal radical writing, first published in 1969
(Postman and Weingartner, 1969), offered a powerful critique of concepts of
education, schooling, teaching and learning, they considered prevalent at that time.
Leightons article is presented as homage to this work (Leighton 2006:79), and
consequently this essay will regard the two works under discussion as positing much
the same thesis. It will consider the value of Postman and Weingartners critique to
the circumstances of the early years of the 21
st
century, in the light of some current
writing relating to citizenship education. This essay is offered as a professional and
academic colleague drawing on similar experiences, having similar responsibilities
and sharing similar aims.

Leightons article is heartfelt, it is described in the editorial to the edition as
deliberately polemical (Davies, 2006). That it comes from the heart should be
considered a virtue. There is a passionate commitment to citizenship education, and
to the objectives of students learning relevant knowledge, critical skills and
empowering them to question, and to engage in the project of an essential renewal of
civic society. It might be described as idealistic; this too is a virtue. It is important
that we engage in a discussion of ideals. This essay makes many points that could
also be described as idealistic.

In favour of citizenship education: pessimism or optimism?

Leighton is rightly impatient with the faltering implementation of citizenship as a
meaningful subject in many, if not most schools (Kerr et al, 2004, Calvert and
Clemitshaw, 2003, Clemitshaw and Calvert, 2005), in the lip service paid to it in
many policy documents, in the absence of sufficient initial teacher education in
citizenship. He asserts that this is indicative of a continuing process of entropy, in a
Postman and Weingartner sense, in much that passes for schooling in England in the
first decade of the 21
st
century. Entropy is a word used to denote a general and
unmistakable tendency of all systems natural and man-made in the universe to
run down, to reduce to chaos and uselessness (Postman and Weingartner,
1969:17).

I will first of all review Leightons article to establish the broad areas where
issues are identified which, to me, are valid, and where general prescriptions should
be supported. They lie in the areas of the preparation of specialist teachers
committed to the new citizenship education project, education for critical
citizenship, the application of democratic principles to school communities, and the
need for belief and passion in education.

The general picture relating to the training of specialist teachers dedicated to the
teaching of citizenship is presented in the article as lamentable. By the beginning of
the 2006-2007 academic year, 800 specialist teachers had qualified through the Post-
Graduate Certificate of Education, enough to offer a specialist citizenship teacher to
only 15% of secondary schools in England (Leighton, 2006:82). Pointedly, this lack
of supply is matched by a lack of demand, with few schools advertising to recruit a
specialist citizenship teacher. This is indicative of a faltering curriculum
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development project, illustrative of schools adopting a minimalist approach to
developing citizenship as a new curriculum subject, giving, sometimes foisting,
citizenship subject responsibility to existing non-specialist staff, placing it alongside,
at best, a discreet Personal, Health and Social Education (PHSE) programme, at
worst a fragmented, low-status PHSE curriculum, or relying on cross-curricular
token gestures to citizenship education, which are beyond meaningful management,
monitoring or evaluation. Additionally, in the main, little progress has been made in
developing a sense of the civic implications of subjects across the curriculum.

If schooling is a process designed to produce unquestioning loyalty and cannon
fodder, if pupils are still largely expected to be passive recipients of their place in
society (Leighton, 2006:80) then criticism of and opposition to this is undoubtedly
right. If schools actively generate alienation from, and rejection of, education and
society, then urgent concern is essential. The potential, and essential need, for
citizenship education to promote social and civic engagement, dispositions to
question, and scrutinise established institutions, their policy and purpose, is also to
be concurred with. One might question whether the two short quotes from Leighton
above are a fair criticism of all that goes on in our schools, but that it happens at all
is a cause for concern, and remedial action.

Leightons worry that the democratic principles that should lie at the heart of
citizenship education might find difficulty being translated into democratic values
and processes in schools is valid.

These activities (school councils) are controlled by teachers who either
set their own restrictions or follow guidelines laid down by school
managers or school governors. It is exceptional for a school to
devolve any budget to a school council, although some do; it is rare for
schools to have pupil representation on governing bodies, although
there is legislated provision for such representation. It is almost
unheard of, in the state sector, for pupils to have any formal say in the
structure of their day, their lessons, or their curriculum.(Leighton,
2006:85)

Seeking out and empowering the student voice, establishing school councils with
a meaningful role in the school community, a budget, real representative and
decision-making functions, is essential to a citizenship education project. However
schools are traditionally authoritarian institutions. A mis-match between the
espousal of democratic values in citizenship teaching, and the absence of democratic
values in the school community, is something that students will detect very easily.
Nevertheless, there are some examples of good practice in these areas, as Leighton
acknowledges, and perhaps these can be a basis for more optimism than is generally
conveyed by him. However we might acknowledge the paradox that positive
development in this area will be dependent on determined and dynamic head
teachers. There needs to be a commitment to spreading good practice from teachers,
school leaders and policy makers.

Leighton calls for belief, commitment and passion in education (Leighton,
2006:79), and these qualities are conveyed in the pace of the prose throughout the
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article. They are qualities that can energise, and make meaningful, the whole project
of education, not only citizenship education. If visible in students, teachers, school
leaders, administrators and policy makers, they may be signs that something
important, and good, is going on. But, to sound another note of caution, such
qualities might exist in an educational project that one might not want to aspire to at
all.

A case of over pessimism?

Building on some of the qualifying comments in the section above, I now want to
argue further that there is a degree of over pessimism, and over criticism, in some of
the points that Leighton makes, and that aspects of good practice in what good
citizenship education is can be defined, identified and spread, given the political and
managerial will to embrace these issues. I will look at some of the ways in which
school and classroom practice is characterised by Leighton in ways that are over
critical; for example, questioning.

Leighton offers a critique of what he characterises as classroom cultures and
processes. He decries teacher questioning that is based on guesswork,
guess how apparently disparate strands are interconnected, guess
what answer the teacher wants, guess what is RIGHT and TRUE but
with the valued questions, values behind the questions, and arbitration
on validity of guesses, being the sole remit of teachers. (Leighton,
2006:83).
This point descends directly from the Postman and Weingartner thesis,
Now, what is it that students do in the classroom? Well, mostly they sit
and listen to the teacher. They are rarely encouraged to ask
substantive questions It is practically unheard of for students to play
any role in determining what problems are worth studying Examine
the types of questions teachers ask in classrooms most of them are
convergent questions, but which might be more simply be called
Guess what Im thinking questions.(Postman and Weingartner,
1969:30-31)
There are grounds for criticising, in a technical sense, what passes for teacher
questioning in some classrooms, perhaps because it is too shallow, too closed, too
undemanding, lacking the challenge of focused rational complex thinking in those
being questioned, even falling into the blind guess what I am thinking field, a
characterisation of the nature of questions in education much favoured by Postman
and Weingartner; a field which literally leaves students unclear and confused, unable
to make any new, rational connections. Anyone who has the privilege of observing
lessons as a teacher trainer can identify this limited practice in beginning teachers. It
is no doubt found in the work of experienced teachers too. Nevertheless it is surely
not possible to deny that questioning is an important aspect of a teaching technique,
one that, if done well, can enrich teaching and learning. The recent initiative in
England to identify and spread good classroom practice identifies questioning as a
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key teaching technique and offers valid guidance on ensuring it is done in a
meaningful way. It draws on definitions of high level thinking that should be the
target for questioning challenges. Leaving aside any criticisms that the National
Strategy for Key Stage 3 is yet another element of centralised control of what goes
on in schools and classrooms, this is surely an indication of a technique that is valid,
and essential professional practice.

Leighton calls for a spirit of inquiry in education and asserts that this spirit is
embodied in the ambitions of the citizenship education project. The National
Curriculum programme of study for citizenship (DfEE 1999a) calls for such enquiry
skills to be fore-fronted in citizenship teaching. However his article talks of a fear
of enquiry in schools, a conspiracy that fears an uncovering of inadequacy amongst
decision makers and commentators, a preference for their own feelings of security
and superiority rather than looking to develop and enhance the prospects of future
generations (Leighton, 2006:83). This is again in danger of caricaturing
educational policy and practice, and of being over pessimistic. In many subject
areas the principle of enquiry-led teaching and learning, with questions, pupil
generated questions as well as teacher-determined questions, being the organising
principle for learning focus is well established (see, within the area of history
education, Riley, 2000). A list of questions that Postman and Weingartner set out as
indicative of the pointless nature of questioning include, How many sets of
chromosomes do human beings have?, What is the real meaning of this poem?,
Why did Brutus betray Caesar? (Postman and Weingartner, 1969:31). I would first
of all argue that these are questions of very different natures, but all possessing some
validity. If these are questions that students have only been equipped to guess an
answer to, they are indeed pointless, but if they are questions that are formulated in a
spirit of enquiry, that enables teachers and supports students to offer speculation and
posit tentative exploration of their implications, reflecting on their significance, in
human and in civic terms, then I assert their value.

Postman and Weingartner: A message for our times?

All this, of course, begs the point, strongly argued by Leighton, and by Postman
and Weingartner, that schools and schooling, and the whole educational
establishment, are so crippled by entropy that they have lost any validity.
we believe that the way schools are currently conducted does very
little, and quite probably nothing, to enhance our chances of mutual
survival.

our present educational system is not viable, and is certainly not
capable of generating enough energy to lead to its own revitalization.

there are so few men (sic) currently working as professional
educators who have anything germane to say about changing our
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educational system to fit present realities. (Postman and Weingartner
1969:12-14)
They also criticise the school curriculums structure based on subjects, subjects
that are content based.
There are thousands of teachers who teach subjects such as
Shakespeare, or the Industrial Revolution, or geometry, because they
are inclined to enjoy talking about such matters. In fact that is why
they became teachers. It is also why their students fail to become
competent learners. (Postman and Weingartner, 1969:50)

To our knowledge, all schools of education and teacher training
institutions in the United States are organized around the idea that
content and method are separate

Content exists independently of and prior to the student, and is
indifferent to the manner in which it is transmitted'.

The professors of the liberal arts have, so far, escaped the censure and
ridicule they deserve for not having noticed that a discipline or a
subject is a way of knowing something in other words, a method
and that, therefore, their courses are methods courses.(Postman and
Weingartner, 1969:29-30)
In these passages the authors are arguing against content, and for method. They
are privileging method over content, pitching method as a field of educational
practice that stresses the centrality of the learner, her active engagement in learning,
and the development of the ability to learn to learn, against a subject content that is
simply transmitted to a passive learner.

If this caricature of a binary had credence in the 1960s, I would argue that it does
not have credence today. Subjects have, as part of their identity, a method, and in
the last extract quoted above, Postman and Weingartner acknowledge this,
seemingly exposing a contradiction in their argument. For example, History, as a
subject, has concepts that are central to its identity; a way of knowing, they would
include chronology, causation, evidence, interpretation. These ways of knowing are
organising principles that a history teacher would lead students into an
understanding of, through the exploration of some aspects of the content of history.
They, alongside the creation of learning environments and tasks, involving degrees
of student autonomy, would be the terrain of meaningful history teaching and
learning. What is more, the History National Curriculum for England emphasises
and promotes these very qualities (DfEE 1999b). It is worth suggesting that one of
the difficulties in the development of citizenship education is the absence of such
ways of knowing. Currently we are called upon to teach citizenship knowledge
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through the acquisition of skills, and through active participation (DfEE 1999a);
whilst of value, and laying down a very important challenge to build up experience
of what this education might look like in practice, they are not organising concepts
as such, in the way that chronology, causation, and evidence are in history.

Postman and Weingartners criticism of subjects as an organising principle in
the curriculum goes against the validity of subjects as a map of the field of human
experience, thought and endeavour. These subjects should be taught sensitively,
with a sense of humility to the human experience, and the human imagination, that
they embody. As subjects they have proved capable of acknowledging and
criticising their nationalist and imperialist origins and limitations, and transcended
them. They should be ways of knowing that students actively engage with, rather
than be passive recipients of. Furthermore they should all, history, geography,
science, literature, mathematics, be held to account for the civic significance of their
pursuit, a consideration that should be central to all this teaching and learning that is
going on. Citizenship teachers might play a catalyst role in developing this aspect of
subject teaching across the curriculum.

This brings us to Postmans and Weingartners distrust of the teacher as expert.
It seems to me that to wish away the nature of the teachers subject expertise, is to
set out on a programme of absurdity. A teacher is inevitably a subject expert, and
the role she embraces is one of developing greater understandings in her students. If
that is a responsibility that is carried out badly, with no reference to supporting the
student, engaging the student, creating a sense of belonging between the student and
the subject, encouraging their sense of exploration of the subject, then indeed there
is a cause for concern. If it is teaching that is pompous and sterile then it will
contribute little to fostering an understanding of the human and civic importance of
the subject.

If, however, it is teaching that does support and engage, inspire commitment and
the desire to understand, then subject teaching, and subject expertise, is valid and
essential. If a teacher can acknowledge and convey to students the sense that,
although they, as teacher, may know more, their humility towards the human and
civic significance of what they know grows all the more greater; that the more they
know, the less they know, then perhaps we have teaching that means something.

There is much in the Leighton/Postman and Weingartner thesis that makes a
moral argument for a type of school, classroom, curriculum, that is valid and
valuable. (I would personally recommend the chapter entitled So what do you do
now? (Postman and Weingartner, 1969:183-194) to any teacher with an open mind,
and a willingness to reflect on their day-to-day teaching.) A dead weight of
conservative entropy in education may have provided the impulse for Postman and
Weingartners polemical tour-de-force in 1960s USA. The well-documented
fractures in American society of the late 1960s are also a context in which their work
should be read. I would argue, however, that these aspects of society and education
are not characteristics of England today. If vestiges of entropy remain, they sit
alongside a great deal of educational theory and practice that is very different. On a
positive side, there is a prevalence of educational practice that emphasises challenge,
questioning, enquiry, thinking skills, active learning, interactive classrooms and the
integration of content and method. This is a realisation of much of the progressive
agenda called for by Postman and Weingartner. Whilst acknowledging varied and
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uneven practice in the complex reality of day-to-day schooling, in many ways this
realisation is a new orthodoxy. This new orthodoxy is supported by reams of
training materials that have gone into schools in the early years of the new century.
It has been promoted by new posts of curriculum development leadership in local
authorities responsible for education provision, in the creation of the status of
Advanced Skills Teacher to identify teachers who exemplify good practice and can
promote it across a community of schools. It is perhaps best exemplified in the
prevalence of the terms learning to learn and the Learning Society. It is a
development that Leighton either does not acknowledge, or perhaps implies that it is
policy without practice.

Leighton asserts that students are still largely expected to be passive recipients of
learning about their place in society. Can this point be sustained? Much of the
moral impulse in education comes from an ambition to support students to see
beyond their place in society, to counter parochialism, promote achievement. It may
not always succeed, and the reasons for the limitations of success are complex, and
relate to circumstances of inequality and interests of privilege. Nevertheless, in the
decades of the 20
th
century since the publication of Postman and Weingartners
work, English education, as a mass project, has seen rising achievement, largely
through community-based schooling, and a vast expansion of access to higher
education. This is not to be complacent about the persistence of low attainment and
educational deprivation, nor of impoverished classroom practice. Importantly, for
the rest of this essay, neither is it a blanket approval of current educational policy
and practice, which, it will be argued, present challenges for education, particularly
citizenship education, but challenges that are very different from those defined by
Postman and Weingartner in the 1960s.
From Postman and Weingartner to Masschelein and Simons
What I want to explore in the latter part of this essay is the way in which some of
the language employed in the Postman and Weingartner thesis, reappears in the
current policy discourse around what education is, or should be, in an English, and
broader European context today. In doing this I want to consider a tension which I
think exists in the conceptions and objectives of a civic education, between, on the
one hand, an emphasis on the individual, and, on the other, a concern with issues of
identity, community and social cohesion. I want to draw primarily on the idea of
current educational discourse as immunisation against being together (Masschelein
and Simons, 2002). I will argue that we, as a citizenship education community in
England, and internationally, need to consider what kind of citizens are proposed by
educational policy and practice as currently conceived. I will argue that there are
implications for citizenship in current educational policy that run a risk of
impoverishing, and even curtailing, any sense of being together as communities.

I have argued above that in many ways the emphasis on method, as opposed to
content, made by Postman and Weingartner can be seen as present in much official
material which attempts to identify and spread good practice in pedagogy today; a
new orthodoxy. There are other aspects of language that echo across the decades. In
the quote below, having claimed a disjuncture between the technical developments
of media and communication, and the entropic practices of education in the 1960s,
they set out their clarion call for action to prevent the end of western civilisation;
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We suggest that this is the stage we have now reached environmentally,
and so we must now work to reach this stage educationally. The only
thing that is at stake is our survival.(Postman and Weingartner,
1969:95)
As I have argued above, the type of education argued for by Postman and
Weingartner, rather than being now needed, as argued by Leighton, has actually
come into existence in modern conditions. It is present in the concept of the
Learning Society, a term that is central to much current educational discourse. In
this society the production and management of knowledge and information is the
critical purpose that will secure societys survival and renewal. There has to be a
capacity to react to continual change, and to learn how to survive and renew in these
conditions. Individuals have to become permanent learners and be active in defining
their learning needs, educational institutions have to become flexible facilitators of
the meeting of self-defined learning needs, and all organisations have to become
learning organisations. Furthermore we must develop a learning market, a
learning city, a learning nation, a learning democracy (see, for example, Ranson,
1998).

In some ways, as educationalists, we might consider this emphasis on learning
as a good thing, one that supports and promotes our belief in the importance of
education for society, and promotes the concept of the socially participating citizen.
Also, one might evaluate its emphasis on adapting to changing environments, putting
the student at the centre of the purpose of education, and striving to ensure the
renewal and survival of society, as being, at least in some ways, a welcome
realisation of the changes demanded by Postman and Weingartner. When we
consider the type of citizen implied by current educational policy, it is reasonable to
suggest that echoes of Postman and Weingartner can be detected, arguing that, in
some important ways, they exist as progenitors of current policy. However, this turn
in educational discourse raises real challenges for a conception of a civic, or
citizenship, education in our time.

In a critique of the Learning Society, Jan Masschelein questions the conceptions
of life and the citizen implied by this discourse (Masschelein, 2001), in particular its
implication for the citizens relationship with the other. This essay will attempt to
identify and summarise the implications of the discourse of the Learning Society for
the tension between the individual and community in citizenship education,
implications which risk undermining the potential of education to consider
community. The discourse of the Learning Society reduces the relationship between
the individual and community to an over-individualist position. The emphasis
placed, in the discourse of the Learning Society, on the meeting of needs and
survival, means that any notion of success and happiness are tied to the self-centred
satisfaction of all our lifes needs. It reduces life to a zoological level, and defines
social relations, quoting Masschelein, as such; as a living being in this sense the
individual cannot have a relationship with something or someone else in their
particularity, but only in their functionality (Masschelein 2001:7). He posits the
environment and the citizen, as defined by the discourse of the Learning Society,
against another, preferable, conceptualisation of the world and the citizen:
(where) things do not appear only as instruments or means for goals
or objects of choice. They do not only serve the maintenance of life
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and the satisfaction of needs. Therefore they do not build an
environment (for life), but they build a world where human beings can
exist: a world being the public space between human beings who
appear to each other as unique and who act and speak together. The
world is understood here as a durable habitat of human beings not
there in order to be consumed, but in order to endure (and) in order
for life to be the life of someone, there is need not only for a world of
artefacts, but also (for) a world as a network of meanings and
embodied relationships among a plurality of beings who are at the
same time equal and absolutely different and unique. (Masschelein,
2001:9)
Here is a call for an alternative conceptualisation of human beings to the one
offered by the Learning Society, a conceptualisation of human beings in a society, as
citizens in a community, as people with life stories, not just needs.

In a later work, Masschelein and Simons (2002) discuss the implications of
current educational policy, as exemplified by The European Higher Education Area,
a joint declaration of the European Ministers of Education, convened in Bologna in
June 1999. They ask, given the way this declaration speaks of education, and the
people who inhabit education, what are its implications for the type of citizen it
expects to live in the globalised world it seeks to prepare them for? They draw
attention to what they call the discursive horizon of the declaration, and what it
invites the inhabitants of education to become. I will set out some of the key
concepts that compose this discursive horizon.

The Bologna Declaration invites us to be autonomous individuals, identifying
our learning needs, negotiating the satisfaction of those needs through flexible,
competitive educational provision, doing this as an entrepreneurial self, engaging in
lifelong learning, pursuing a life as an enterprise. As such we will compose a
learning or knowledge society. Inhabitants of the learning society are referred to
as stakeholders, with self-directed learning needs, requiring a number of competing
education environments to be available to match provision to individual needs. This
maximises the individuals potential for success. It implies new skills of self-
appraisal, self-evaluation, self-criticism, and new forms of self, and peer assessment.
First, it becomes clear that we are dealing with an individual who is
confronted, on the one hand, with needs (her own and those of others)
and, on the other, with potential and capital; she is someone who is
obliged to do something with her capital or potential in order to meet
those needs; and this means that the individual subject is expected
to develop a productive and entrepreneurial relationship towards
itself. (Masschelein and Simons 2002:593-594)
This is a process of the capitalisation of education, and furthermore, the
capitalisation of life itself, enabling education to be defined as investment, and
defining many aspects of life; marriage, divorce, procreation, as investment, with
outcomes measured as profit or loss, with an emphasis on the exploitation of
preference and choice to maximise the satisfaction of needs.
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People are responsible for their own well-being, and therefore a specific
kind of self-knowledge and self-mastery is required opening the way
for the experts of the self (the therapists) to sell their expertise. The
entrepreneurial self is an active, counting and calculating self. It
counts with itself, it keeps its own account and is accountable.
(Masschelein and Simons, 2002:595)
This is a discursive horizon of education that puts the learner at the centre of the
process, places an emphasis on skills, and the importance of individuality, echoing
Postman and Weingartner. Even though the analysis is focused on the space of
higher education, its implications are just as relevant to schools. Anyone who has
worked in schools in recent years will be able to detect this discourse as informing
the way the institution defines itself and its students. Individualised learning routes,
competitive schools with diverse specialisms, to support consumer choice, learning
to learn, self-assessment, individual learning targets, professional portfolios for
teachers expected to cross a quality threshold to secure higher salary rewards, are
just some of the current terms that are prevalent in English schools. It echoes with
the emphasis put on the learner, the individual, the elevation of method and skills
over content, present in Postman and Weingartners prescription for the entropic
condition they defined in their time. But it does so in a way that has implications
that we might want to consider anew.

Going back to the critique offered by Masschelein and Simons; they explore the
implications for social relations implied by the discursive horizon they analyse.
They identify it as not anti-social; defining relations towards friends and loved-ones
as crucial for personal happiness, social effectiveness and a healthy society, but, that
these personal/social relations start from an identification of individual self-needs,
requiring for their meeting the conscious development of inter-personal skills, to
make social relations transparent and to manage the meeting of needs. These are
calculable and calculating relations (Masschelein and Simons, 2002:597).

The success of these entrepreneurial projects also requires a permanent obsession
with quality, performativity and standardisation. Competing institutions, and
entrepreneurial learners, have to be compared and measured against quality
indicators. Again, anyone with experience of schools in England in recent years will
readily testify to the growth of quality measurement in the professional and learning
life of the school; regular (if not obsessive) assessment of learning against defined
levels, individual targets for learners and teachers, frequent monitoring and
evaluation of teaching, measurements of value-added in learning, performance
management regimes, publicised inspection reports and school league tables.

To conclude this section, and reassert the way that Postman and Weingartners
prescriptions can be found to echo in this discourse, as described by Masschelein
and Simons, I offer this next quote,

a human life required to be so conducted is a life not so much in
a world as in an environment. The proliferation of the word
environment is striking indeed. Reality is not allowed to appear as
a world, and as such has nothing to say to the entrepreneurial self;
it does not speak to her. Things (only) receive their meaning from
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their function in the framework of projects. In this environment an
entrepreneurial relationship towards ourselves is said to be vital for
our survival. (Masschelein and Simons, 2002:599)
Conceptions of community
The message of this critique should be clear. This discourse embodies the
creation of a market environment, not only of education, but also of life as lived. In
doing so it centralises the autonomous individual, and their individual needs. This
centralisation of the reflective, autonomous individual accords with much of the
liberal traditions emphasis on the individual, and the emphasis which is present, in
some ways legitimately, in the liberal conception of the citizen, and in the objectives
of citizenship education. Nevertheless it presents a paradox; the appeal to the
entrepreneurial self
appears (politically, institutionally) with an authority that knows what is
good for those to whom it is addressed. On the other (hand) it feeds a
distrust towards this authority since it resounds with the message: be
yourself, become the entrepreneur of yourse (Masschelein and
Simons 2002:601).
For the purposes of this essays argument, it closes down other possible
conceptions of life, education and community. In emphasising the individual it
somehow closes down diversity and any sense of the other. Postman and
Weingartner may not themselves have taken us to this, but their reaction to the
conditions of their time, is, I assert, a genesis to this discourse.

Others have also expressed this concern with the development of a strident
individualism in modern conditions, creating a precarious individual identity based
on consumerism, and diminishing a necessity for individuals to consider the moral
demands that come from outside ourselves, a necessity which requires the fostering
of a stronger sense of moral responsibility to the significant other, based on an
understanding of a complex, authentic, more deeply founded sense of diverse
identity (see Mason 2001).

It is essential that a civic, or citizenship education, has as its objective, not just
the creation of informed, critical, active individuals, but citizens with a sense of, and
obligation to, community. This objective requires more than is present in the current
English citizenship programme of study. It makes statements such as use their
imagination to consider other peoples experiences and be able to think about,
express and explain views that are not their own (DfEE 1999a) though well
meaning, seem inadequate. Within the educational discursive horizon analysed by
Masschelein and Simons, this is an inadequate counter-balancing prescription for the
need to educate citizens for an understanding of the relationship between the subject
of the individual, and the other of the community.

To develop this essay, I want to draw further on the discussion of the meaning of
community presented by Masschelein and Simons, which, I argue, poses a
fundamental challenge to the neo-liberal discursive horizon of the European Higher
Education Area, and to education more generally, requiring more than a counter-
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balancing, but a serious re-thinking, by those committed to civic education. They
refer to the effects of the discursive horizon as immunisation, not in the Postman
and Weingartner sense of injecting students with pointless doses of entropic teaching
(Postman and Weingartner, 1969:32), but as an immunisation against being-
together. The discursive horizon immunises individuals from a possible threat to
their individuality and subjectivity, whereas, in reality, the very notion of
community includes an infringement of individuality. The discursive horizon,
whilst stressing the importance of interaction with the environment and others in
this environment, individuals are (nonetheless) addressed in the first place as
separated and isolated from each other (Masschelein and Simons 2002 p. 602). The
discursive horizon negates the reality that we are always captured in relations of
dependency and obligation, which are beyond transparency and beyond calculation;
parent to child, teacher to student, speaker to listener, individual to community.
They are the crucial reality of a life lived. The meanings implicit in the derivation of
the word community draw on cum, meaning with, and munus, meaning void, debt,
gift, implying the debt we owe to others which cannot be measured, as its
calculation would imply that it could be dispensed with, paid off. These notions of
belonging, and the void of the debt we owe to the other are critical realities of life
as lived, of meaningful identity, and of the nature of meaningful civic discourse and
social cohesion.

It is important that civic education begins to embrace these principles. There
should be a recognition of the other, in more than a contractual sense of tolerance,
and readiness to listen and to empathise with views other than our own, but rather
with an acknowledgement of the incalculable debt we always owe. This is not to
negate the complexities of community, its pluralistic nature, the different community
experiences and narratives that comprise a complex society, the conflicts inherent in
a complex society (see Mouffe 2005), indeed it reminds us of these complexities,
complexities that I think are also inadequately acknowledged in the current English
conception of citizenship education (Clemitshaw 2007). However we should negate
the overwhelming emphasis placed on the subject as individual in much educational
and political discourse of our time.
Conclusion
This essay has been a response to Ralph Leightons homage to the writing of
Postman and Weingartner about the nature of education in the late 1960s, re-visited
as a recipe for a meaningful citizenship education. Whilst sharing many of
Leightons concerns about the progress of citizenship education project in England
today, I have questioned some of Postman and Weingarthers conceptions of
pedagogy and the role of teachers. More fundamentally, and contrary to Leighton, I
have argued that whilst Postman and Weingartner may have had much to say,
particularly about education in the USA at the time, and that read in conjunction
with an understanding of US society in their time, it is indeed powerful, it has only
limited relevance to education, and to civic education in particular, in England
today. I have also suggested that there can be read in the reaction of Postman and
Weingartner to features of their time, at least a genesis of the neo-liberal politics,
particularly relating to education, that are prevalent today. These policies, with their
stress on survival, individualism, the centrality of skills, learning to learn,
performance measurement, and an overwhelmingly marketised version of
educational relevancy, are seriously absent of the notion of community, and its
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importance for social cohesion. Liberal democratic citizenship needs more than a
focus on critical autonomous individuals if it is to reflect the importance of
community, and affiliations of identity and belonging, that are essential components
of life as lived.




Correspondence: GARY CLEMITSHAW, School of Education,The University
of Sheffield, 388 Glossop Road, Sheffield, S10 2JA. g.clemitshaw@sheffield.ac.uk
Division of Education and Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University,
Owen Building, City Campus, Sheffield, S1 1WB. g.clemitshaw@shu.ac.uk


REFERENCES:
CALVERT, M. AND CLEMITSHAW, G. (2003) Implementing Citizenship into the English Secondary School
Curriculum. In Pastoral Care in Education, 21, 3, 3-12.
CLEMITSHAW, G. AND CALVERT, M. (2005) Implementing Citizenship in the English Secondary School
Curriculum: A Follow-Up Study. In Pastoral Care in Education, 23, 3, 31-36.
CLEMITSHAW, G. (2007) Citizenship without history? Models of citizenship and civic education in
different national contexts. Paper given at the CitizED International Conference, The University
of Sydney, Australia, April 2007.
DAVIES, I. (2006) Editorial. In Citizenship Teaching and Learning, 2, 1. CitizED.
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1999a) Citizenship: The National Curriculum for
England. DfEE.
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1999b) History: The National Curriculum for England.
DfEE.
KERR, D., IRELAND, E., LOPES, J., CRAIG, R., AND CLEAVER, E. (2004) Making Citizenship Education Real:
Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study: Second Annual Report. In Davies, I., (ed.) Citized:
Citizenship and Teacher Education. (E-newsletter no. 14)
LEIGHTON, R. (2006) Revisiting Postman and Weingartners New Education is Teaching Citizenship
a Subversive Activity? In Citizenship Teaching and Learning, 2, 1, 79-89. CitizED
MASSCHELEIN, J. (2001) The Discourse of the Learning Society and the Loss of Childhood. In Journal of
Philosophy of Education, 35, 1, 1-20.
MASSCHELEIN, J., AND SIMONS, M. (2002) An Adequate Education in a Globalised World? A Note on
Immunisation Against Being-Together. In Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36, 4, 589- 608.
MASON, M. (2001) The Ethics of Integrity: Educational Values Beyond Postmodern Ethics. In Journal of
Philosophy of Education, 35, 1, 47-69.
MOUFFE, C. (2005) On the political. New York, Routledge.
POSTMAN, N. AND WEINGARTNER, C. (1969) Teaching as a Subversive Activity. New York, Delacorte
Press.
QUALIFICATIONS AND CURRICULUM AUTHORITY (1998) Education for Citizenship and the teaching of
Democracy in Schools: Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship. London, QCA.
RANSON, S. (1998) Lineages of the Learning Society, in Ranson, S., (ed.) Inside the Learning Society.
London, Cassell.
RILEY, M. (2000) Into the Key Stage 3 history garden: choosing and planting your enquiry questions. In
Teaching History, 99. Historical Association




Citizenship, Teaching and Learning
Vol 4, No. 1, July 2008

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Book Reviews
Education for Intercultural Citizenship: Concepts and Comparisons
Edited by Geof Alred, Mike Bryam and Mike Fleming. Published 2006 by Multilingual
Matters Ltd., UK. ISBN-13: 9781853599187. Cost: 25.22.

This edited collection of essays makes a useful contribution to citizenship
education in a globalised world. I also share with the editors their sensitivity to
diversity and aspiration for intercultural education, and will certainly recommend the
book to my students.

A short introduction sets the content and scope of the book. It suggests that the
increasingly multicultural make-up of our societies necessitates an educational
response. A notion of interculturality is promoted which involves experiencing
and reflecting on a sense of otherness and acting on insights gained in relation to
self and wider communities. Intercultural citizenship is presented as a way of
being that both challenges and enriches, but does not replace existing identities. It
has particular resonance with citizenship education where plurality of identity may
be seen as a barrier to participation and developing a sense of national identity.

The book is presented in three parts. The first considers questions of complexity
in national identity formation and underscores the importance of context to
discussions on citizenship education. Ryan (Chapter 1), through the voices of others,
explores contingencies of place, ethnicity, wealth and social class in constructions of
Mexican identity. Leung and Lee (Chapter 2) reason that cultural identity is
inseparable from linguistic identity. They review studies of citizenship in Hong
Kong to show, with reference to the growing dominance of Cantonese as a language
of choice, that identity both constructs and is constructed by language. Martin and
Feng (Chapter 3) present an overview of the history of Singapore that helps explain
why Singaporean political leadership seeks to mould through the curriculum a sense
of patriotic belonging, a national identity that is essentially introspective, compliant
and defensive.

The second part of the book builds on the first, and comprises two chapters in
which we are introduced to different and sometimes competing concepts of
citizenship education. Himmelmann compares citizenship education in Germany,
Britain and the USA and reflects on how terms are conceptualised in different
countries. Developing this theme, Feng highlights that in China, seemingly
equivalent terms referring to membership of the nation-state, are differently value-
laden with profound implications for policy and practice.

The final part of the book gets to the nub of its aims. One aim is to develop from
a theory of interculturality a concept of intercultural citizenship. Although
chapters by Byram and Fleming go some way towards this, I feel the manoeuvre
warranted further discussion, particularly with respect to geometries of power both
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within and between nation states. In his chapter, Byram asserts what is at stake is
the ability to decentre from ones own cultureto gain insight into another; not to
abandon held values but to develop deeper understanding of these and other
positions. This is fundamental to his model of intercultural communicative
competence which he sees as complementary to education for democratic
citizenship where learners develop competence in ability to deliberate, compare,
make judgements, and negotiate. What citizenship teachers may wish to further
develop is practice that builds on intercultural communicative competence to engage
in civic and/or political action within and beyond the nation state.

A second aim of the book uses axioms and characteristics of education for
intercultural citizenship as criteria to investigate the extent to which intercultural
citizenship is developed in different countries. These statements merited further
explanation perhaps as an introduction to concluding chapters on intercultural
citizenship in J apan, Poland, Spain, and Portugal. These studies not only provide
interest in their own right but also add depth and layering to discussion. They further
offer intercultural encounters for us to reflect on, and gain insight into our own
conceptions of citizenship education.

Reviewer: Peter Cunningham, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education,
Metropolitan University, London. Email: p.cunningham@londonmet.ac.uk


Citizenship, Enterprise and Learning: Harmonising Competing Educational
Agendas

Ross Deuchar. Published 2007 by Trentham Books, Stoke-on-Trent, UK. ISBN:
9781858563817. Cost: 16.99.

A significant number of academics in the field of citizenship education believe
declining youth participation in formal electoral processes suggests the need for
radical classroom reform in the area. Many of us working in the area of citizenship
education also see an underlying tension between the instrumental human capital
demands of neo-liberal schooling and promoting the student agency required for
participatory democratic citizenship. In Citizenship, Enterprise and Learning:
Harmonising Competing Educational Agendas, Ross Deuchar addresses this critical
problem by arguing for an expanded concept of enterprise based on communitarian
principles that foster student social involvement. The book focuses primarily on a
Scottish-based study of young students where an expanded notion of enterprise was
introduced, and where, in the authors view, some promising practices and principles
for citizenship education were identified.
Although this book addresses a compelling tension in contemporary schooling,
that is, the potential incommensurability between the instrumental preparation of
students to satisfy neo-liberal human capital demands and the agency required for
meaningful democratic citizenship, Deuchars solution fails to provide a convincing
answer to how these two objectives might be, to employ his term, dovetailed.
Deuchars focus on enhanced community engagement to relieve the tension between
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labour market and democratic citizenship requirements resembles what Freire terms
false generosity. The approach qualifies as false generosity because it fails to
address the actual structural causes of problems such as social inequality and
economic hardship. Deuchars proposed enterprise framework, rather than offering
genuine political and/or social alternatives to contemporary workplace, social and
economic conditions, expects students and teachers within citizenship education
merely to act as mediators of widespread neo-liberal suffering. As a result, the
principles for citizenship education emerging from the expanded construct of
enterprise seem more an exercise in social and ideological reproduction than tenets
for robust democratic citizenship.
In spite of this problem, the subject addressed in this book is a critically
important one for the future of citizenship education among industrialized
democracies, that is, whether democracy can be developed in authoritarian school
structures and whether existing enterprise practice can enable pupils to develop
social, moral and ethical values [consistent with democratic citizenship] (p. 4). The
Scottish study employed by Deuchar occurs within a schooling context where, The
Scottish Executive continues to encourage schools to focus upon employability
skills, enabling young people to take their part in a prosperous competitive
economy (p. 6). Deuchar correctly suggests that within a democratic society the
emphasis on satisfying business needs in education must be balanced by a
corresponding focus on business ethics that encourages the development of
thoughtful, responsible and caring citizens (p. 6).
Any thoughtful education program focused on the notion of enterprise would no
doubt include a component or curriculum unit on appropriate ethical conduct for
business leaders. Yet, such an imperative in isolation from other broader ethical
questions avoids the more pressing and trenchant questions related to contemporary
business practices within a democratic society. For example, students also should be
encouraged to ask questions about the roles and responsibilities of businesses and
corporations within a democratic society that embraces principles of equality and
justice.
The theoretical framework adopted by Deuchar, that is, communitarianism, is
inadequately connected with the practical principles for citizenship education
identified in the book. Some elaboration on the relationship between the chosen
theoretical framework and the expanded notion of enterprise education would
strengthen the argument. The reader is frequently left wondering what particular
aspects of communitarianism are most valuable to democratic citizenship education
based on an expanded notion of enterprise. For example, J ohn Rawls presented his
theory of justice as universally true, while other communitarians argue that
standards of justice must be found in the traditions of particular societies and, hence,
may legitimately vary from context to context. Martha Nussbaum argues
compellingly for the restoration of liberal democratic principles which broaden the
scope of possible critique beyond the practice and principles accepted in any given
context. Such a communitarian stance would open the possibility of more authentic
and trenchant critiques of the prevailing social and economic structures. Suffice to
say, there is ample room for Deuchar to discuss his communitarian theoretical
framework in far greater detail and articulate what he considers the most important
and relevant communitarian precepts related to the development of democratic
citizenship based on enterprise.
Perhaps my primary concern in the text, as mentioned previously in this review,
is Deuchars predilection toward false generosity in his examples of enterprise style
democratic citizenship. For example, there is celebratory discussion of venture
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philanthropists such as Tom Hunter in Scotland, Anita Roddick in England and Bill
Gates in the U.S. Deuchar suggests that these instances of philanthropy should be
used to foster more discussion about how young people can contribute towards
economic strength while also helping the needy through charitable causes (p. 10).
What is noticeably absent in the discussions of philanthropic neo-liberal behaviour is
any structural analysis that questions why such acts of charity are required within
wealthy nations in the first place. Freire termed such charity as false generosity
because its more general effect is simply propping up a socio-economic system that,
by its very design, generates significant levels of economic disparity. True
generosity amounts to challenging and transforming the prevailing social and
economic structures through democratic processes to create a fairer distribution of
resources that reduces the overall need for charitable and philanthropic exercises.
In spite of Deuchars obviously noble intentions to relieve the tension between
human capital enterprise and citizenship learning, the fundamental weakness of this
book is its complete absence of structural analysis. The social ravages of neo-liberal
economic excesses are left relatively untouched. The remaining and somewhat
superficial question addressed by Deuchar is how to prepare students as productive
human capital while simultaneously promoting some interest in community welfare.
Hence, although this book is ostensibly about democratic citizenship education, it
also offers tacit protection to neo-liberal enterprise culture from serious
democratic critique.
If, as Deuchar contends, Education for democratic citizenship is about creating
a sense of belonging, the opportunity to exercise both rights and responsibilities and
the ability to communicate opinions and participate in decision-making (p. 92),
then such an education must include space for students to challenge and
democratically transform basic social organization. Simply providing young students
as future citizens with learner-centered classroom environments and opportunities
for community service as Deuchar proposes does not afford them the intellectual
tools or opportunity to raise foundational questions about the kind of society
appropriate for democratic flourishing. The structural analysis absent in Citizenship,
Enterprise and Learning: Harmonising Competing Education Agendas is actually
the starting point for authentic democratic learning at any age and for meaningful
citizenship participation more generally.

Reviewer: Emery J . Hyslop-Margison, Associate Professor, University of New
Brunswick, Fredricton. Email: ehyslopm@unb.ca


Citizenship and Moral Education: Values in Action

J . Mark Halstead and Mark A. Pike. Published 2006 by Routledge, London. ISBN: 978-
0-415-23243-2. Cost: 21.70.

What is Citizenship? What is Moral Education? What is the relationship
between Citizenship and Moral Education? Why should these subjects be
taught? How can these subjects be taught and assessed? This book is a welcome
contribution for student-teachers, teachers, other classroom professionals and
general readers who are looking for answers to these questions particularly as they
pertain to the British context. This book aims to give teachers the resources to reflect
on values education, and the concepts and strategies they need to produce informed,
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committed, active, autonomous and critically reflective citizens and moral agents
within the framework of political liberalism.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 focuses on the concepts, contexts,
underlying values, and aims of Citizenship and Moral Education. This section
introduces readers to the its theoretical underpinnings and suggests that while
Citizenship provides the unifying force for people with different beliefs and
backgrounds to live together co-operatively, Moral Education provides the basis
from which the ethical appropriateness of laws and political decisions can be
judged (p. 3).

Part 2 focuses on the teaching and learning of Citizenship and Moral Education
in the curriculum. Attention is devoted to subjects that are particularly relevant to
Citizenship and Moral Education: Language and Literacy, the Arts, the Humanities,
Religious Education (RE), and Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). A
key point underscored by the authors is the need for teachers to go beyond merely
teaching about the diverse religious and ethnic identities of their students in a plural
society. Teachers need to model an understanding of the different linguistic,
religious and social needs of all their students, and address the needs of their
students by providing a learning environment where the beliefs and values of the
majority are not imposed upon the minorities.

Part 3 continues the discussion by exploring issues relating to the teaching and
assessment of Citizenship and Moral Education. Readers are introduced to seven
common models of Citizenship adopted in schools and the teaching of Citizenship
using non-fiction, media, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
The section on the various ways in which children learn values - through
observation, participation and guided action, and critical reflection - reminds
teachers of the need to teach Citizenship and Moral Education holistically beyond
the textbook. Three core principles for the successful implementation of Citizenship
and Moral Education are advocated by the authors: respecting young people as
individuals; promoting social justice; and preparing citizens for an uncertain future.

Although this book centres on the British context and many examples are taken
from British secondary education, teachers outside Britain will be able to identify
with the issues and challenges raised in the book, and will find the ideas and
strategies beneficial and practical. For example, the authors recommendation of
critical literacy where students can develop skills of communication and
discernment is pertinent to any teacher who wishes to nurture informed, active and
reflective students. Classroom practitioners will also appreciate the discussion on the
Arts and the Humanities, especially the examples taken from subjects such as Art
and Design, Drama, Geography and History, which effectively illustrate how
empathy, imagination, and social engagement in moral and civic issues can be
developed in the students.

Reviewer: Charlene Tan, Associate Professor, Policy and Leadership Studies,
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Email: charlene.tan@nie.edu.sg



Book Reviews 101
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Diversity and Citizenship in the Curriculum: Research Review
Uvanney Maylor and Barbara Read, with Heather Mendick, Alistair Ross and Nicola
Rollock at the The Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan
University. Published 2007 by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES),
Research Report RR819. Available online:
www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR819.pdf.

This research review was commissioned by the UK Department for Education
and Skills (DfES) in 2006 to support the high profile Diversity and Citizenship
Curriculum Review Group, which in turn was formed to respond to concerns raised
about social cohesion in the wake of the London bombings, 2005. Despite its clear
focus on British education, this carefully produced small-scale research project
addresses a variety of critical issues relevant to policy makers and educators both
within and beyond the UK. It is generally thought provoking in how it relates
teaching and learning about and for diversity and questions about national and other
social identities to the deeper purposes and potentials of citizenship education.

The two primary aims of the research review, which includes both a literature
review and case studies of three mainly White and three more ethno-culturally
diverse English schools, are to examine how diversity is promoted across the
curriculum at all ages; and whether/how to incorporate 'Modern British Cultural and
Social History' as a potential fourth pillar of the secondary citizenship programme.
As for the latter possibility, teachers responses to it prove to be an interesting mix
of positive and negative reactions. The report subsequently recommends the need for
much further discussion with education stakeholders about how best to frame and
incorporate such a strand. In particular, two problems appear daunting: first, how to
teach such a topic given the extreme difficulty of finding consensus on any
definition of 'Britishness'; second, how to reconcile respect for diversity with the
exclusionary power of any definition that is adopted. As additional goals, the authors
of the report set out to identify: "good practices in the teaching of diversity; the type
of contemporary British identities and values that are addressed through the National
Curriculum in English schools; [and] approaches to promoting shared values and
a common set of identities through the teaching of modern history and
citizenship."

Among the Reviews key findings, it is especially noteworthy that the
researchers conclude that:
The National Curriculum is perceived and has drawn considerable criticism by
many for being Eurocentric;
Despite subject specific guidelines that promote teaching for an understanding
of diversity, schools generally focus on culture and religion to the exclusion of other
aspects of social identity and diversity. Importantly, social diversity among White
British people is often ignored;
There is considerable evidence that many teachers' knowledge and
understanding of social diversity and diversity education is not strong, especially in
subject areas such as Math and Science;
Teaching about diversity is curtailed when schools have few minority ethnic
groups and when diversity is not named as a school priority; and
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Students complained about the use of ideal types in the teaching of faith
communities and commented that these over-generalizations did not properly
represent their own real lived experiences.

Finally, as they seek to make positive recommendations to improve citizenship
and diversity education, Maylor et al. underline four characteristics that they believe
contribute to good practice in the curriculum and schools. They are:
strong and effective leadership with respect to diversity and identities,
including support for teachers to take ownership;
careful and effective planning and explicit guidance for the teaching of
Citizenship to prevent repetition (and boredom!) and to help teachers in
predominantly White schools teach about diversity;
appropriate use of students' own experiences when discussing diversity and
identity, especially when it serves to counter stereotyping and idealization; and
use of students' idealism in such a way as to draw on younger peoples'
perceived greater acceptance and tolerance of ethnic diversity; stronger support for
race equality; and optimistic attitude "that might be useful in developing teaching
strategies that encompass diversity and identities."

Overall, it must be said that the report provides much food for thought for
readers sensitive to various inherent contradictions involved in contemporary
approaches to diversity education, particularly within Britain (but also elsewhere).
As I completed the review, some of the questions that remained with me include: To
what extent are schools still treating diversityand minority communities
themselvesas problems to solve rather than incontrovertible features of social
reality? How do educational authorities seek to reconcile agendas that promote
narrow standards and high stakes testing, state funding for faith-based schools, and
the putative goal of social cohesion through diversity education? Can any citizenship
education curriculum realistically mitigate racism and other institutional forms of
educational inequality if most teachers and schools lack even the basic preparation
needed (e.g., equity and diversity-related training) to teach to and about minority
groups in a way that challenges existing power structures and relationships?

Reviewer: Terezia Zoric, Lecturer, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto. Email: tzoric@oise.utoronto.ca












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References should be indicated in the text by giving the authors name, with the year of
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papers by the same author and from the same year are cited, a, b, c, etc. should be put after the
year of publication. Where a page number is to be referenced, the style should be (Author, Year:
PageNumber) eg (Hahn, 1999:232). The references should be listed in full at the end of the paper
in the following standard form:
HAHN, C. L. (1999) Citizenship: an empirical study of policy, practices and outcomes.
Oxford Review of Education, 25, 1&2, 231-250.
McLAUGHLIN, T. (2003) Teaching Controversial Issues in Citizenship Education. In
Lockyer, A., Crick, B., Annette, J. (eds.) Education for Democratic Citizenship:
issues of theory and practice. Aldershot, Ashgate.
RATCLIFFE, M. and GRACE, M. (2003) Science Education for Citizenship: teaching
socioscientific issues. Maidenhead, Open University Press.
Quotations from texts should be supported by a page number in addition to the usual text
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the quotation is not from a particular source then the words should be surrounded by single
inverted commas eg In what ways do specialist secondary school teachers characterize educating
for citizenship and why?

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