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This paper discusses the effects of the learning environment on an important and unique 21st century learning outcome—that of active citizenship, in contrast to more conventionally measured cognitive and attitudinal outcomes. In our study, we utilized a learning environment instrument, the Place-Based Learning and Constructivist Environment Survey (PLACES) with an integrated environmental studies program prepared for high school students in the Canadian context. Our research used a retrospective case study design to investigate how aspects of this unique learning environment are related to long-term, active citizenship outcomes as perceived by students from two previous student cohorts (N = 24 and N = 36) who were contacted several years after the culmination of the program. To access information about student perceptions, PLACES was implemented as part of a range of mixed methods which also included focus groups and interviews. This study is important because it links key aspects of the learning environment to long-term citizenship outcomes and is unique in that the data were collected five and eight years later as part of a longitudinal study. Our findings demonstrate that the learning environment and citizenship outcomes were closely linked, and that students’ perceptions as measured by the PLACES instrument (past and present) were remarkably stable across all dimensions. These findings further indicate significant and positive implications for future learning environments research.

A recurring motif in recent scholarship in the computing ethics and society studies (CESS) subfield within computing have been the calls for a wider recognition of the social and political nature of computing work. These calls have highlighted the limitations of an ethics-only approach to covering social and political topics such as bias, fairness, equality, and justice within computing curricula. However, given the technically focused background of most computing educators, it is not necessarily clear how political topics should best be addressed in computing courses. This paper proposes that one helpful way to do so is via the well-established pedagogy of citizenship education, and as such it endeavors to introduce the discourse of citizenship education to an audience of computing educators. In particular, the change within citizenship education away from its early focus on personal responsibility and duty to its current twin focus on engendering civic participation in one’s community along with catalyzing critical attitudes to the realities of today’s social, political, and technical worlds, is especially relevant to computing educators in light of computing’s new-found interest in the political education of its students. Related work in digital literacy education is also discussed.

For the past two decades, there has been a resurgence in the actualization of civic missions in universities; these universities have continued to demonstrate commitment to educate for the purpose of global citizenship. Global citizenship is both a skillset and a mindset. As universities engage in efforts to increase students’ capabilities for living and working in a diverse society, research in this area has often focused on students of social science disciplines in the United States, presenting an opportunity for an investigation into students’ sense of belonging and global citizenship in the STEM university context in the United Kingdom. Building on prior civic scholarship, which defines citizenship in part as a sense of belonging, this paper presents interview data from a longitudinal, mixed-methods study at a STEM university in the United Kingdom to explore the meanings and experiences of students’ belonging in a multicultural institution, and their attitudes about current political issues before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study presents theoretical and practical implications for citizenship education research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to assess students’ social representations of forced migration as a relevant social problem in the last year of primary education and the opportunity for its curricular inclusion. The study was carried out by means of a questionnaire, filled in by 6th-year primary education groups (11–12 years old) (n = 70), in a state-supported private school in the city of A Coruña (Galicia, Spain). The questionnaire was supported by three pictures of forced migrations from the media. In this case, the children had to interpret the pictures through a series of questions that sought to investigate their representations, the causes they identify in this social problem, their opinions, and possible solutions. Finally, the opportunity for the inclusion of social problems as curriculum content was addressed. The study shows that the students are in favor of migrants, that they use concepts from the social sciences in their arguments—albeit simple ones, and that they are in favor of the curricular inclusion of social problems, in which they develop representations through different sources of information.

Citizenship Education could play a pivotal role in creating a fairer society in which all groups participate equally in the political progress. But strong causal evidence of which educational techniques work best to create political engagement is lacking. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of controlled trials within the field based on transparent search protocols. It finds 25 studies which use controlled trials to test causal claims between Citizenship Education programs and political engagement outcomes. The studies identified largely confirm accepted ideas, such as the importance of participatory methods, whole school approaches, teacher training, and doubts over whether knowledge alone or online engagement necessarily translate into behavioral change. But the paucity of identified studies also points both to the difficulties of attracting funding for controlled trials which investigate Citizenship Education as a tool for political engagement and real epistemological tensions within the discipline itself.

The place of religion and how it should be employed in education for citizenship is currently an issue in Europe. The challenges of increasing diversity are the underlying factors. The conception of maximal citizenship (a critical model of citizenship) gives a significant framework for analysis and scholarly perspectives about several European contexts on this matter. However, there is hardly maximal citizenship in Finnish contexts in scholarship. Hence, this work searches for the elements of maximal citizenship in educational policy for young people by employing the policy relating to citizenship in Finnish religious education (RE). Focusing on grades 7−9 of basic education, its primary data is based on selected national policy documents. The data were analysed using critical discourse analysis. The main findings suggest that citizenship in Finnish RE is only somewhat compatible with the characteristics of maximal citizenship. This reveals some policy shortcomings that could negatively affect the potential of critical-mindedness of young people and equal opportunities in a democracy. Hence, some suggestions that could improve the situation are embedded in the paper. Nevertheless, a linguistic conception of citizenship in Finland vis-à-vis a recent development in national educational policy seems to push the conception of maximal citizenship in a relatively new direction. Furthermore, an explicit use of the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” in Finnish curriculum broadens our conception of maximal citizenship in general. Moreover, while scholars generally agree that maximal citizenship is essentially “critical”, this piece suggests that every “critical” approach to citizenship education is not necessarily “maximal”.

Citizenship education has been debated for some time and has faced various challenges over time. This paper introduces the lens of “ableism” and ability expectations to the citizenship education discourse. The author contends that the cultural dynamic of ability expectations and ableism (not only expecting certain abilities, but also perceiving certain abilities as essential) was one factor that has and will continue to shape citizenship and citizenship education. It focuses on three areas of citizenship education: (a) active citizenship; (b) citizenship education for a diverse population; and (c) global citizenship. It covers two ability-related challenges, namely: disabled people, who are often seen as lacking expected species-typical body abilities, and, advances of science and technology that generate new abilities. The author contends that the impact of ability expectations and ableism on citizenship and citizenship education, locally and in a globalized world, is an important and under-researched area.