Education for Responsible Citizenship: Conversation

There is an abundance of literature on citizenship education. This essay is an attempt to show how deliberation is used in university classroom pedagogy, to engender in students a commitment to becoming responsible citizens of a post-apartheid South Africa. Firstly, I show that controversy can be attended to through deliberation, with specific reference to three incidents in my country: alleged racist practices at a university ; an instruction by the Minister of Education to introduce a pledge of allegiance in public schools; and xenophobic attacks on foreigners. Secondly, I show that deliberation alone cannot guarantee responsible citizenship. Students also need to be taught to have compassion for the vulnerable other. Finally, I argue that cultivating citizenship through deliberation offers much hope to counteract blindly patriotic sentiments and to engender cosmopolitan justice.