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This article identifies the challenges of developing active citizens based on the latest revised social studies curriculum in Malawi (2015) in the context of Malawi's secondary school classrooms. By using collected data from interviews with teachers and students and classroom observation, the paper examines the extent to which social studies empowers students to express their opinions. The analysis identifies three issues: 1. both teachers and students perceive social studies teaching as 'easy'; 2. teachers expect students to be active in classroom practices but to be obedient outside classes and 3. individualistic values in textbooks could conflict with the values of Umunthu in Malawi. The paper concludes that classroom practices might dissuade students to be critical thinkers, thereby fostering obedient citizens and limiting students' potential power to tackle social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing attention to citizenship education since the turn of the 21st century, the recent spread of authoritarian populism worldwide has raised relatively little attention in educational policy and research. As a result, the possibilities and limitations that national curricula offer to educators to deal with this phenomenon are still rather uncertain. In this article, we develop an analytical framework based on the key features of authoritarian populism and critical citizenship education to compare the elements and scope for addressing populism in the national curricula of Brazil and Spain, two countries where national populism is particularly widespread. This paper examines the extent to which national curricula in these countries include goals and content that enable teachers to address the complexities of this phenomenon ranging from political polarisation through to the exaltation of national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compare is a leading journal in the comparative and international education research field. To assess this journal's productivity and influence, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of 428 papers published in Compare between 2010 and 2019. The findings show that in the past decade, Compare experienced significant growth in the number of publications and citations. This growth primarily stemmed from England, which yielded over half of the top 20 most productive authors and institutions. Among the numerous research topics discussed in Compare, the disciplinary development of comparative and international education, the internationalisation of education, gender studies in education, and citizenship education were the most frequently addressed. A detailed analysis of these four topics reveals that despite having published many papers falling within the scope of international education, Compare is encouraged to publish more papers about this subfield in the post-COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a theoretical contribution to discussions about the emancipatory potential of citizenship education across four sites (i.e. Catalonia, Colombia, England, and Pakistan). By reflecting on policy and empirical data from our four contexts of study, we discuss whether citizenship education manifests different conditions of emancipatory education (modern, postmodern, and posthumous). We argue that citizenship education offers possibilities for emancipation, but these are constrained by capitalist and Enlightenment barriers. We conclude that if an emancipatory form of citizenship education is to be possible, there is a need to make room for politics in school classrooms and further politicise epistemological and anthropological assumptions. We recommend a form of citizenship education that conceptualises emancipation as our ability to respond ethically to situated challenges by thinking by ourselves with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, councils involving young people have become widespread, both in developed and developing countries. However, these councils are said to reflect the hierarchical nature of parliamentary and representative democracy, leading to tokenistic participation. Studies on the formal structures of youth participation have tended to focus on their failings and reveal little about structures and processes that might encourage youth participation. To address this gap, this paper examines three youth councils in Denmark and argues that the structures of these youth councils – referred to as 'dialogic democracy' in this paper – are what encourage effective participation, ensure the fairness of decision-making processes and develop young people's citizenship skills so that they can have agency in the arena of local policy. Crucially, dialogic democracy can be seen as a form of informal learning, with peer learning being central. Lessons can therefore be drawn for developing citizenship education programmes in other national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global citizenship education (GCE) has emerged as a powerful force in global and national discourses, with scholars and dominant international organisations stressing it to be the overarching educational framework. Although numerous approaches have been adopted to promote it, most of the strategies focus on transnational activities. There is less focus on national engagements. Utilising a qualitative study and a decolonial framework, this paper draws upon data in the Ghanaian context to discuss the potentiality of utilising the Third Trimester Field Programme of the University for Development Studies to develop the global citizen. The paper concludes that the programme provides heightened opportunities for GCE. To enhance this process, efforts should be made to avoid perceiving the programme as a 'civilising' mission or of perpetuating colonial legacies. Whilst participants develop critical values, they should also be encouraged to think critically about issues of social justice in and beyond the communities they visit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship is a contested term and its meanings and implications vary according to the socio-political and historical context in which it originated and continues to be practiced. This research explores the conceptualisation of citizenship among different groups within the Palestinian education system. The research utilises qualitative research methods such as interviews, focus groups, policy document analysis, and classroom observations. The findings of the research reveal that citizenship represents a unique relationship between the individuals and the homeland. Moreover, this research demonstrates how politics and culture affect citizenship conception. It also demonstrates how the absence of Palestinian statehood affects the perception towards citizenship amongst the participants in this research. The study concludes that the existing definitions of citizenship could be adapted, rather than merely adopted from other contexts when applied to the unique Occupied Palestinian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the complex relationship between the state, civil society and education through comparative research with young people in France and the UK. Survey data derived from two cohorts of school students in South Wales and Lyon reveal strong differences in their levels of civic and political participation. While our Welsh students have higher levels of 'civic participation', as measured in terms of charitable work and volunteering, our French students have far higher levels of what might be considered 'political engagement', defined in terms of campaigning and demonstrating. We argue that these differences can be accounted for by the different cultural repertoires and priorities of citizenship education which themselves reflect the contrasting historical configurations of education, the state and civil society in these two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence on the differences among Spanish regions, regardless of other factors, in student achievement – in Language, Mathematics, Science and Citizenship – of fourth graders. This is the first paper in Spain that analyses these differences for Primary Education in all Spanish autonomous communities. The data in the Spanish General Diagnostic Assessment of 2009, by means of descriptive analyses and estimation of multilevel regressions, led us to show that, beyond differences between and within schools, variation in student achievement in Spain is even larger between regions than schools. Furthermore, regions with a co-official language produce worse results than others, especially in Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on two surveys conducted before and after the 2014 Umbrella Movement, this paper discusses the dynamics of how Hong Kong (HK) university students constructed their own ideals of citizenship. The former survey reveals that HK university students' ideas about citizenship were mainly associated with their visceral sense of HK belonging. They aspired to social movements as a site for learning and exercising citizenship. However, the findings of the later survey show that students' sense of HK pride, identity, attachment, and interest in voting were in decline. Such changes were partially due to their feeling of political exclusion and disappointment, and partially due to their unpreparedness to make informed decisions or judgement in the contested political sphere. I argue that students' experiences mirrored unresolved problems in HK politics and citizenship education, and have implications for the civic role of HK higher education alongside the global wave of youth activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for global citizenship education (GCE) in primary education have been making themselves heard in recent literature in different national and international contexts. Primary school teachers must be equipped with the necessary competencies required to carry out this broader task appropriately. This article seeks to understand how experienced teachers and teacher educators look at GCE and related global teaching competencies. A global citizenship typology provides the article's theoretical frame for the investigation. This study used the Delphi method to reach consensus on a definition of GCE and what a globally competent primary school teacher should do to support the learning of diverse learners and engage them in GCE. The results show an extensive profile with foundational, facilitation, and curriculum design competencies and a definition of GCE which corresponds most with a moral and cultural global citizenship description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic citizenship education is of key concern in many societies, particularly with the adoption of global citizenship education in the United Nations’ Education First Initiative. There have been particular critiques that current frameworks for understanding citizenship fail to account for civic understandings and practices in both African and African Diasporic societies. In this paper I share examples of indigenous civic knowledges and practices from societies within West Africa, the main nexus of the African diaspora. To illustrate the rich contexts societies have related to rights and political participation, I examine Adinkra symbols from the Akan in Ghana, and the Mande Charter of 1222, from what is now Mali. I then illustrate including indigenous knowledges in empirical research via a study of citizenship education in Liberia that included questions about traditional justice in a survey instrument, demonstrating varying access to traditional justice systems by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds a theory of wait-citizenship, wherein the lack of opportunities for structural inclusion has contributed to young people’s liminal positioning in society and their struggles to become social adults while seeking equality, democratic freedoms, and a sense of belonging. Two decades after civil war, Guatemalan youth are routinely reminded of the fragility of their democracy and instructed not to make demands for inclusive and transformative citizenship. As young people become ‘wait-citizens’ they develop strategies for navigating precarious openings between dangerous actions and coercive structures, often in ways that do not conform to Western, liberal expectations. The paper argues for broader conceptions of civic agency to account for how young people make decisions about exercising their civic voice, particularly in settings where legacies of authoritarianism constrain long-awaited democratic freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic self-efficacy and trust are interrelated dimensions of citizenship that are important in adolescence and linked to educational contexts. Furthermore, they have been separately connected to corruption. However, the three factors are seldom looked at together and investigations of them using international education datasets are rarely contextualised within national histories and politics. The current study uses the 2009 and 2016 ICCS and multi-group multilevel confirmatory factor analysis to investigate differences in and relationships between adolescent Colombians' trust, civic self-efficacy, and acceptance of corruption. During these years, the government was involved in a peace process that sparked political polarisation and embroiled in several corruption scandals. Analyses revealed lower institutional trust, but higher civic self-efficacy and acceptance of corruption in the 2016 cohort. The results indicate that declining trust and rising acceptance of corruption may not dictate negative civic outcomes, while highlighting possible areas for refocusing peace education in Colombia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers citizenship formation at universities, drawing on the example of a student leadership project at the University of the Free State, a formerly White South African university, in a higher education context and society where racialised difference continues to influence peer relationships. The paper proposes a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of social citizenship, as described by T.H. Marshall, enriched by the capabilities approach, which adds specific citizenship dimensions of deliberation, acknowledgment of heterogeneity, and agency goals and activities as core elements of being able to be and to do as citizens. This is operationalised by investigating the student development intervention, based on biographical interview data from 50 of the 71 students who participated in the first iteration of the programme. The data is analysed for the three capability dimensions and for student criticisms of the programme, before an overall judgment is made of the programme’s contribution to democratic values and citizenship formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In countries that embraced democracy after the fall of communism, education became a particular focus for policy change, particularly within their citizenship programmes. Schools that had been used to inculcate obedience to and unfailing support for authoritarian regimes were now being required to adopt citizenship programmes incorporating democratic values. This paper reports a study in Malawi that explored the school as a location where democratic citizenship is practiced. Using a multiple case study approach in three different kinds of secondary schools to explore students’ participation in school affairs, the study found that different forms of participation were being encouraged, with each school apparently socialising students to distinctive kinds of citizenship roles. The paper highlights a conflict between democratic values and traditional roles of schools leading to new and hybrid school cultures. Providing scope for student voice to be heard can lead to tensions and paradoxical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding multilateral institutions’ role in the construction of desirable goals for educational reform is a key element to grasp the weight globalisation has on local practices of education. Comparative studies of civics and moral education point to the idea of ‘citizenship’ as a site revealing not only the political economy but also the cultural politics involved in the globalisation of education. Through political discourse analysis, this paper analyses key multilateral agencies’ discourses on citizenship education for Latin America. It traces the concerns, diagnoses, definitions and proposals of what citizenship education is (or should be) in agenda-setting documents and policy reports promoted by these organisations. Drawing on Latin American decolonial theories, it challenges concerns with civic disengagement and convivencia underpinning multilateral citizenship education discourses. As a counterpoint, it presents research from scholars highlighting alternative - often overlooked - participatory and decolonial pedagogical experiences present in Latin America that open new standpoints for citizenship education comparative research in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks comparatively at the enactments of citizenship in two schools in Bogota, Colombia: a private elite institution and a public-private partnership school from the outskirts of the city. Data was collected through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews Enactments of students were conceptualised so as to identify the discourses of citizenship that were at play. I argue that both schools are under the influence of a strong neoliberal project that places emphasis on educating productive citizens. However, this conceptualisation of citizenship might not work for contemporary Colombia as it continues to reproduce a highly stratified society that carries within itself colonialities that do not allow for the interaction and collaboration of peoples. The article concludes that a thick cosmopolitanism that emphasises causal responsibility might be a more adequate lens for citizenship education in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of citizenship and citizenship education can have different meanings. We analyse changes in concepts, policy and practice of citizenship and citizenship education. In our theoretical and empirical research we conceptualised three different types of national citizenship: adapted, individualised, and critical-democratic. Our research into global citizenship identified also three types: an open global citizenship with an emphasis on cultural openness; a moral global citizenship focusing on humanity; and a social-political global citizenship aimed at greater social justice and changing power relations. Recent transnational migration, impacts the national and the global citizenship and citizenship education in different ways. Global citizenship focuses on humanity and on human rights as moral guidelines towards a better world; national citizenship focuses on strengthening national culture and on integrating newcomers into traditional society. What the two developments share is a focus on culture and morality and a neglect of politics of power relations and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following remarks about the nature and significance of values and values education, generally and more specifically in China, England, Mexico and Spain, we explain the methods used to analyse official policies that apply to moral education, citizenship education and character education. We find similarity across the documents regarding five values-related themes: justice and the rule of law; harmony and tolerance; diversity and non-discrimination; international understanding; and equality. These themes emphasise understanding and knowing, with limited consideration of implementation and privileging of dominant values and contextually relevant considerations. We suggest that across countries there are attempts to develop personally responsible citizens and that further work is needed on how these documents are interpreted in practice by educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship education has been an important part of the European Union’s (EU) agenda to integrate a European dimension into schools’ curricula. The usage of European symbolism in citizenship education curriculum material has been an especially important (yet understudied) means not only to promote a distinct European identity and increase knowledge on EU-related topics, but also to regulate (young) EU citizens and population. The paper analyses the content related to the EU and European dimension in citizenship education textbooks and workbooks at the lower-secondary school level in Slovenia. It demonstrates that, through diverse symbolic displays, which are understood as a specific governmental technique, the idea of a European community as a site of opportunities is promoted while students are stimulated to understand themselves as subjects who must be active and responsible EU citizens. Moreover, European symbolism is employed to nurture and promote Slovenian identity as being purely European and, as such, distinct from earlier Balkan-situated, Yugoslav and socialist forms of identity and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses Kazakhstan's new generation literature textbooks for Kazakh‐medium schools, with a focus on national identity and citizenship constructs that the revised textbooks promote. By comparing the literature textbooks of the Soviet and post‐Soviet periods, the paper discusses Soviet institutional and cultural legacies that continue to exist in Kazakhstan's literature curriculum. Implications of the recurrent patterns of nation‐building discourse in the literature textbooks for democracy and social cohesion in Kazakhstan are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dutch society and educational policy see citizenship education as being an important task of education. The first section of this paper discusses the concept of citizenship and citizenship education, and analyses educational developments in the Netherlands. Following on from this introduction the second part of the paper puts forward a critical democratic pedagogy of citizenship education. With this proposed democratic pedagogy in mind, the third and final part of the paper goes on to analyse the discourses and developing practices of citizenship education in the Netherlands, and proposes a number of new possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recognition of young children as citizens is relatively new in sociology, with translation emerging into education. Discourses of children and childhood shape ideas of young children as citizens and national discourses of citizenship frame what civic participation can be. The authors analysed national early childhood education curricula frameworks of Australia, New Zealand and the United States to understand how discourses authorise constructions of children as citizens and opportunities for young children's civic participation. They sought to locate how children are positioned as citizens and what opportunities there are for young children's citizenship participation in national early childhood curricula documents of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Illustrative examples of children's citizenship membership and participation from the three nations' early childhood curricula were critically read to locate how prevalent discourses of children, childhood and citizenship in each nation define children as citizens and shape possibilities for citizenship participation for young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments, international organizations and academics have, in recent decades, expressed a sense of crisis in the practice of democracy based largely upon increasing levels of disengagement by citizens from even the most basic elements of civic life. One response has been to devise civics and citizenship education curricula for schools with the concomitant expectations of enhanced civic practice. Our examination of citizenship education programs has revealed considerable variation from country to country in the degree of success achieved in the design, development and implementation of programs. This paper examines recent developments in citizenship education in four leading Western democracies - Australia, Canada, England and the USA; each one with its own particular successes and shortcomings. It identifies several factors associated with the successful building of curriculum capacity for citizenship education and argues that these are fundamental for countries wishing to move beyond rhetoric and toward substance in citizenship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After reunification with the People's Republic of China in 1997, Hong Kong was turned into a special administrative region. The new government has repeatedly emphasised the development of national identity and patriotism. One of the locations where these issues might be expected to appear is in the teaching of Government and Public Affairs (GPA), an optional subject offered to secondary students aged 15–18. The aim of this paper is to study the perceptions of GPA teachers in order to address two issues. First, how do GPA teachers who teach politics in schools construe ‘national identity’ and ‘patriotism’? Second, do the teachers believe studying politics through the subject GPA can enhance national identity and patriotism among the students? The findings show that the teachers understand national identity and patriotism critically. They insist politics should be taught in a rational way. At the same time, they think teaching politics in a rational way, with no appeal to the emotions as is the current practice, will enhance neither the students' sense of national identity nor their patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Global citizenship education (GCE) positions itself on the global arena as a transformative social justice oriented educational curriculum that addresses the political, social, economic and cultural inequalities brought about through colonisation and neoliberalism on the global and local levels. Through an exploration of the discourse, design and delivery of GCE in the young nation-state of South Korea, we argue that, in fact, GCE reinforces and maintains the hegemonic ideals of global capitalism; core-periphery global and local relationships; and dichotomous views of poverty and inequalities. We argue that these approaches reflect South Korea's geopolitical realities, but that attitudes towards GCE in South Korea also reflect its cultural norms and values towards working together towards a common good. Ultimately, we call for a more nuanced approach to GCE scholarship in which we move away from theoretical divisions to practical applications of social justice that work within increasingly capitalist/neoliberal interests for a more inclusive world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary citizenship education tends to focus on the development of skills through real experiences, which has led to a relative neglect or simplification of knowledge and understanding. This article outlines a framework for analysing citizenship curricula drawing on Young’s notion of ‘powerful knowledge’ and ‘knowledge of the powerful’ and on Shulman’s account of subject knowledge, which includes substantive concepts and epistemic criteria. These ideas are used to analyse the citizenship curricula in the four nations of the UK and Ireland to assess the extent to which they provide an adequate account of knowledge and understanding of citizenship. The article concludes that it is important to reconsider the relationship between the genuinely educational aspects of citizenship education (where ‘powerful knowledge’ opens up new and diverse understandings) from the normative aims, which are more akin to a form of socialisation (where ‘knowledge of the powerful’ closes down certain possibilities). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 20 years, there has been a growing preoccupation with fragile contexts. International development and diplomatic communities have focused on implementing Western-oriented education policies centered on democratisation efforts to transform fragile contexts. In order to understand what happens when education reform policies are enmeshed with the world they are designed to change, this project focuses on the educational actors who create and take up citizenship education in Kosovo. Using ethnographic methods, the research examines how educational actors are making sense of the citizenship education competency within the economic, political and social conditions framing Kosovo as a fragile state. This article highlights how the curriculum was rendered technical in the implementation process producing the unintended consequence of perpetuating conditions that have justified Kosovo’s categorisation as a fragile state. This research raises important questions about the implementation of education reform policies used as a panacea to address state fragility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale quantitative studies on citizenship and citizenship education research have advanced an international and comparative field of democratic citizenship education. Their instruments, however, informed by theoretical variables constructed in Western Europe and North America mostly measure young people’s understandings of a predefined construct of democratic citizenship. Recent studies that report on young people’s descriptions and interpretations of citizenship issues and concepts show that a new methodology of narrating young people’s individual conceptualisations of citizenship is emerging. The author argues that the methods of inquiry into conceptualisations of citizenship require: (1) a social constructionist ontology that views reality as socially constructed; (2) a wide-ranging operational definition of citizenship; and (3) open-ended questions that facilitate the self-reporting, reflection and discussions of experiences regarded as good citizenship. The author draws on evidence from citizenship education research in Lebanon that examines young people’s conceptualisations of citizenship and illustrates constructs particular to Lebanon and the wider region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global citizenship education (GCE) is a global education trend that, like democratic citizenship education, has been adopted recently by many education systems for the purpose of preparing students to engage in global society. In this study we applied Qualitative Content Analysis to semi-structured interviews with Israeli teachers with the aim of shedding light on some of the barriers and opportunities to GCE in a conflict-ridden state. The main novelty of our study is first and foremost the delineation of factors that would hinder attempts at incorporating GCE in a conflict-ridden state, including a lack of consensus surrounding citizenship, increased nationalism and an ambiguous attitude towards human rights. In addition, we revealed that under these conditions, GCE as a concept may be threatening, and conflict-ridden states may choose to opt-out altogether or at least rephrase it under a less controversial title. Overall, this study suggests that GCE would need to be articulated differently in conflict-ridden states than in other Western contexts. We concluded by addressing the implications of our findings for GCE policy in conflict-ridden states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been established that an effective citizenship education in a multicultural society must incorporate some exposure to a variety of views on different topics. However, the ability and willingness to deal with difference relating to controversial matters of national identity, narrative and conflict vary. This is not least the case in the ethno-nationally divided and conflict-affected jurisdictions of Northern Ireland and Israel. This article relates qualitative research conducted among students, teachers and policy-makers in these two jurisdictions that explores the area of dealing with difference within citizenship education. Using the starting point of a framework based on international law on education, the article goes on to consider how freedom of expression and non-discrimination are variously interpreted and balanced when exploring controversial issues in the classroom of a divided society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Philosophy for Democracy is a research project that aims to examine whether and how Philosophy with Children contributes to the development of democratic skills and attitudes. In the Netherlands, as in almost all Western countries, Philosophy with Children is linked with the movement for citizenship education. This article reports the research on the practice of Philosophy with Children. Sixteen philosophical inquiries by children in the classroom were recorded, transcribed and analysed. The analyses show that children develop relevant reasoning skills and advanced dialogical skills. The study shows that embedding Philosophy with Children in a democratic practice is necessary for contributing to a critical-democratic citizenship development. The study also shows that Dutch children often give their opinion, but are not often involved in inquiring their own opinions. From a pedagogical point of view, we think that in Dutch culture and in Dutch schools it would be important to stress more a dialogical – community-based – inquiring attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]