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This paper analyses the fracturing of civic and moral virtue within curricular policies pertaining to Citizenship in England since the late 1990s. A longstanding aim of education and schooling, the teaching of citizenship gained a more secure base in the English curriculum with the introduction of Citizenship as a statutory subject for 11–16 years olds from 2002, which owed a great deal to the Report of the Advisory Group on Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (Crick Report). The report drew intimate connections between civic virtue, moral virtue, and personal character. These connections have become seriously fractured over the years since the Crick Report. In charting this fracturing, the paper will examine how the character-influenced direction taken in the early/mid-2000s was replaced by, at first, a more general emphasis on British Values before morphing into a more specific, though no less problematic, concentration on Fundamental British Values. While character education has gained significant policy attention in England over the last six years, the civic dimensions have been at best underplayed, with little connection to education for citizenship. It is argued that without greater clarity and consistency about how the moral – including moral virtues – intersects with the civic in contemporary Britain, official curricular policy (whether for Citizenship education, character education or more generally) will restrict rather than encourage the education of young citizens who are informed, wise, responsible and active participants in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades there have been increased calls for UK schools to develop a more European and global orientation in their pedagogy and curriculum, and to equip children and young people with post-national knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This paper examines some key problems in post-national conceptions of citizenship education, in order to develop a research agenda focusing on the contested nature of notions of post-national citizenship (with particular attention to European and global citizenship), and on the way these notions are understood as having competing claims in education. In examining these issues the paper explains the confused governmental agendas and commitments in relation to European and/or global citizenship education, and concludes by considering alternative theories of citizenship, curriculum, and pedagogy that may provide a deeper understanding of the associated issues and tensions. Although the paper relates directly to the UK, some of the debates have a wider significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the extent to which the implementation and assessment of the new citizenship curriculum in England treats learners as citizens or subjects by evaluating whether the interests of state or citizen predominate. Philosophical, contextual, and practical perspectives on citizenship education are drawn upon to evaluate mechanisms which mediate state power in young citizens' lives. Current methods of delivering and assessing the citizenship curriculum in schools are challenged and the ideology underpinning citizenship education, as conceptualized in official discourse, is questioned. The view is advanced that citizenship cannot be reduced to what learners know (the informed citizen) or do (the active citizen) as it cannot be divorced from who they are. This paper focuses on citizenship education in the context of English liberal democracy but has a wide application as it addresses issues relevant to the state education of citizens elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of JCS has examined the changes and challenges facing citizenship education policy and curricula by way of case studies from Europe and beyond. It is indicated that European and/or global integration have had an impact on all of the citizenship curricula examined. However, it is also noted that each case conceptualizes supra-national citizenship and its relationship to national citizenship and other groups in differing ways. It is argued that these ways present issues of exclusion, as curricula often remain centred on the nation-state and use European citizenship as a means to exclude 'non-Europeans'. The article concludes by discussing the research implications of these findings within the context of discussions over supranational and cosmopolitan modes of creating, and educating for, citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship education has been the subject of growing attention in policy and academic circles over the past 20 years. Citizenship education curricula have typically focused on national institutions, issues, and ties. Citizenship education has been closely bound up with the legitimacy of the nation-state, and alternative institutions and citizenships thus present a significant challenge not only to the contents of national curricula, but also to the traditional purpose and assumptions of citizenship education. The articles in this special issue seek to explore how nation-states have responded to this challenge by exploring, from a comparative perspective, the ways in which one supra-national, regional citizenship (namely European citizenship) has been defined in the citizenship education curricula of states from across Europe. This Introduction describes the supra-national policy developments that have led European states to consider reforming their citizenship education curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is hypothesized in the fields of political education and citizenship studies that a discrepancy exists between the rhetoric of political education as expressed in official policy documents, guidelines, and curricula, on the one hand, and the reality of what happens in the classroom, on the other. This study tests this hypothesis in relation to the five new states created in 1990 in the eastern part of Germany on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic. Following German reunification, reform of political education in eastern German schools was considered necessary in this region and legislative changes introduced relating to the aims, content, teaching methodologies, and assessment criteria associated with this subject. This study investigates the extent to which these changes were actually implemented in the classroom. In addition, some conclusions are drawn regarding the management of change in political education in times of transition from dictatorship to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While it is clear that all educational undertakings consist of ends and means, the relationship between the two is far from straightforward. This article proposes a framework for understanding the relationship in the context of citizenship education. Qualitative research was undertaken of three educational initiatives in Brazil: the schools of the Landless Movement, the Plural School framework in the city of Belo Horizonte, and the Voter of the Future programme, run by the Electoral Tribunals. Case studies were carried out of each, involving documentary analysis, interviews, and observations. Analysis of the relationship between ends and means in each case gave rise to two key frames: the first, 'proximity', refers to the extent to which ends and means are separate or unified; the second, 'rationale', refers to the grounds on which means are chosen. Finally, the implications of this framework for understanding curriculum are drawn out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]