CITIZEN EDUCATION

CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION FOR THE
21ST CENTURY
WHAT IS MEANT BY CITIZENSHIP
EDUCATION?
Citizenship education can be
defined as educating children, from
early childhood, to become clear-
thinking and enlightened citizens
who participate in decisions
concerning society. ‘Society’ is here
understood in the special sense of
a nation with a circumscribed
territory which is recognized as a
state.
A knowledge of the nation’s
institutions, and also an awareness
that the rule of law applies to
social and human relationships,
obviously form part of any
citizenship education course. Taken
in this sense, citizenship education
is based on the distinction
between:
the individual as a subject
of ethics and law, entitled
to all the rights inherent in
the human condition
(human rights); and
the citizen – entitled to
the civil and political
rights recognized by the
national constitution of the
country concerned.
All human beings are both
individuals and citizens of the
society to which they belong.
Therefore, human rights and citizen
rights are interdependent.
Men, women and children all come
into the world as individual human
beings. Thanks to the immense
historical conquest of human rights,
we are equal, in rights and dignity,
to all other human beings. When
citizenship education has the
purpose of ‘educating future
citizens’ it must necessarily
address children, young people and
adults, who are living beings,
having the status of human beings
endowed with conscience and
reason. It cannot, therefore, exclude
consideration of individuals as
subjects, each with individual
characteristics.
Moreover, human rights include civil
and political rights, the latter
obviously relating to the rights and
obligations of citizens. Thus a
comprehensive human rights
education takes account of
citizenship, and considers that good
citizenship is connected with human
rights as a whole.
Conversely, citizenship education
which trains ‘good’ citizens,
ie. citizens aware of the human and
political issues at stake in their
society or nation, requires from
each citizen ethical and moral
qualities. All forms of citizenship
education inculcate (or aim at
inculcating) respect for others and
recognition of the equality of all
human beings; and at combating all
forms of discrimination (racist,
gender-based, religious, etc.) by
fostering a spirit of tolerance and
peace among human beings.
Thus, when we speak of the
purposes to be ascribed to either
citizenship education (producing
citizens with moral qualities) or
human rights education (comprising
a knowledge of the social and
political rights of all human beings,
and their recognition) we inevitably
end up with the complementarity
between citizenship and human
rights.
Depending on the cultural traditions
of each education system, we shall
have, in some cases, civics
education, comprising a knowledge
of human rights and their exercise,
and in others, human rights
education, stressing civil and
political rights as the basis of
citizenship, and hence the national
features assumed by these rights
and guaranteed by states.
Bearing in mind this
complementarity, citizenship
education means not only
‘educating citizens’ but also
‘training children for adulthood and
citizenship’.
Citizenship education has, therefore,
three main objectives:
educating people in
citizenship and human
rights through an
understanding of the
principles and institutions
[which govern a state or
nation];
learning to exercise one’s
judgement and critical
faculty; and
acquiring a sense of
individual and community
responsibilities.
These three objectives correspond
both to educating the individual as
a subject of ethics and law, and to
educating citizens. These objectives
suggest four major themes for
citizenship education:
The relations between
individuals and society:
individual and collective
freedoms, and rejection of
any kind of discrimination.
The relations between
citizens and the
government: what is
involved in democracy and
the organization of the
state.
The relations between the
citizen and democratic
life.
The responsibility of the
individual and the citizen
in the international
community.
DEMOCRATIC CULTURE AND
CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION
If there is one idea inherent in
civics education, because it
concerns politics and institutions, it
is the idea of democracy .
Comprehensive citizenship
education cannot dispense with this
concept or with a knowledge of the
institutions that enable a country to
function democratically.
Rather than confining ourselves to
noting and describing institutions
(the necessary but not sufficient
requirement for civics education),
we should explain how the
operation of the machinery of state
respects government of the people
by the people, and makes it
accountable to citizens.
However, this way of tackling
democracy may seem remote and
foreign to the world of school and
of children. It is therefore desirable
to imbue the whole of school life
with a culture of democracy.
Educational practice is of equal
value with knowledge when we
come to tackle civics education.
One of the major flaws in civics
instruction has been that it fails to
bring democracy to life in schools,
and remains at the stage of merely
enunciating principles and
describing institutions. When the
organization of a school does not
lead to a democratic mode of
operating on which pupils can give
their opinions, children and
adolescents lose interest in
citizenship and see only the
mismatch between what adults say
and what they do, between
knowledge and action, a mismatch
which they usually call ‘hypocrisy’.
Schools should therefore set up
‘governing boards’ with
representatives of pupils and staff,
and other bodies in which pupils
express their views and in which
decisions are taken in consultation
with everyone, both young people
and adults. The representation of
pupils in these various bodies can
and should be achieved by an open
election system which has the
same qualities of transparency as
in any democracy worthy of the
name.
If we are to develop a credible
civics education, respect for others
– pupils and teachers,
administrators and minor
employees – and non-violence in
attitudes and behaviour must be
the rule in schools.
Respect for others, and their
dignity, in the same way as the
self-respect of a free autonomous
individual, springs from each
individual’s personal ethic, the will
to ‘live together, with and for others
in just institutions’.
These qualities, whether described
as ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’, are required
of all human beings and all
citizens. They form part of both
civic ‘virtues’ and individual
‘virtues’. They enable each
individual to live as a ‘good’
citizen.
In other words, in citizenship
education, respect for the ‘Other’,
regarded as one’s equal, with his or
her individual differences and
distinctive physical, intellectual and
cultural features, is to be explained
and above all experienced in daily
life in all schools. Based on these
principles of equal dignity and
respect for others, citizenship
education has the task of
combating all forms of negative
discrimination and racism, sexism
and religious fanaticism.
Thus citizenship education can be
regarded as an ethical (or moral)
education as well as education in
citizenship.