Citizenship Teaching & Learning - Current Issue

In recent decades, there has been growing pressure to prepare students for citizenship with an orientation to equality and participation. To engage students’ interest, it is generally recommended that teachers provide experiences of simulations, games and themed projects. There are, however, philosophical, legal, empirical and pedagogical justifications for basing citizenship education on experiential learning in which students actually perform as citizens, giving voice to their own concerns and taking appropriate action. A qualitative study introduced students in an Israeli elementary school to experiential learning of active citizenship – complete rounds of observing, thinking, doing and feeling – with the help of the model for Practising Participatory Citizenship (PPC). Students were encouraged to make suggestions for improving everyday life at school. With the guidance of PPC, small groups voiced their views, decided what needs were most urgent, planned changes and carried out their plans. Data show that the structure of PPC enabled students in groups with members of diverse ages to communicate respectfully, present reasoned arguments, take collaborative action and reflect on their accomplishments. Students acting as participating citizens were enthusiastic about the process and acquired sensitivity to the diversity of group members’ needs. There are indications that practising participation and voice throughout the years of schooling can ensure the internalization of a habitus that augers well for good citizenship in adulthood. Their teachers, however, found it difficult to stick to the role of facilitators. To enable potential facilitators to make the necessary adaptive change in their perspective, future implementations of PPC with school children could be preceded by facilitators’ intensive practice of participation and voice.

Global citizenship education (GCE) plays an important role in preparing citizens with the competencies to tackle existing and emerging challenges brought on by globalization. Yet, determining the desired purposes of GCE is contested as it is shaped by different perspectives on globalization, and conceptualized through different discourses in different contexts. This article uses Biesta’s three purposes of education – qualification, socialization and subjectification as a theoretical framework to examine the purposes that the K-6 geography curriculum in the Australian Curriculum serves in relation to developing global citizenship competencies through an analysis of the curriculum policy. Our analysis shows that without a clear purpose for global citizenship in the curriculum policy, global understanding is consistently related to Australia as a nation state when represented at all, limiting learning opportunities to develop global thinking that supports a critical democratic discourse of global citizenship through the subjectification purpose of GCE. Instead, the K-6 geography curriculum is largely invested in socialization towards neo-liberal ends and a passing qualification function that prepares students to be ‘knowledgeable’ as they enter the world.

This article describes a teacher education course that attempts to raise pre-service English as a second language (ESL) teacher candidates’ awareness of undocumented students in US schools. Candidates completed a critical pre-reflection on the first day of class and a critical post-reflection on the last day of class. In the intervening period teacher candidates participated in guided reflective practice to help them process scholarly books, peer-reviewed articles, documentary film and first-person narratives regarding undocumented students and their families. The pre-data indicate most teacher candidates are unaware of undocumented students and the issues they face in school and society. The post-data suggest that encouraging teacher candidates to critically reflect on information regarding undocumented students has potential to make candidates more effective teachers of undocumented students.

Focusing on nationalism and cosmopolitanism as elements influencing the discourse and practice of citizenship and citizenship education, this study discusses how they are construed and implemented by contemporary Confucian educational practitioners. By analysing the theoretical discourses of Confucian classical education and the pedagogical practices of a specific Confucian school, this study reveals the interweaving of nationalism and cosmopolitanism and the pedagogical practices involved in cultivating students as Confucian cosmopolitan citizens with a Chinese national identity. These findings contribute from an Indigenous perspective to the understanding of the shaping of civic subjectivity embedded in the Chinese Confucian context, in line with the ongoing intellectual shift towards post-orientalist citizenship. The study concludes that Confucian education has the potential to inspire citizenship and citizenship education studies by contributing ideas regarding the complexities of the relationship between national identity and global awareness emerging from Chinese politico-cultural circumstances to the internationally recognized rhetoric on citizenship.

This mixed-methods study examined the sense of belonging of Russian-speaking immigrant teachers, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s from the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The study has two methodological parts. In the first part, 57 Russian-speaking teachers were compared to a national sample of Hebrew-speaking teachers on demographics and self-efficacy. In the second part, 34 of the 57 Russian-speaking teachers answered an acculturation questionnaire and two open-ended questions. The findings, both quantitative and qualitative, indicate positive integration of FSU immigrant teachers in Israel. Their feelings towards the school team and management were no different than those of other teachers. The teachers described a sense of belonging through shared care for students, shared content-related teamwork, friendships and school events. Differences were found in favour of veteran Israeli teachers in the percentage of homeroom teachers and managerial positions. Conclusions about migration and accommodation within the education system are discussed.

The aim of this article was to examine how gender and gender context affect students’ experiences of democracy in upper secondary school. The study was based on survey responses from about 1500 students. The students’ experiences of school democracy were operationalized as a collective deliberative communication among fellow students and teachers. Three different explanatory factors were considered: the significance of gender, gender context and the gendered content of the educational programmes. The results showed that a higher share of male students in a class is associated with poorer experiences of democracy. However, educational programmes with a traditional male content were proven favourable regarding school democracy. Since the gender context has one effect and the contents of the education programme affects in the opposite direction, the analytical separation of the variables was necessary to reveal the hidden equality problem of school democracy. Gender context does matter.