Good Citizenship and Educational Provision

Ian Davies,Ian Gregory,Shirley Riley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781135700362
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Citizenship has been taught in school around the world for many years now, and is due to be introduced to the UK curriculum over the next few years. Teachers, Headteachres, administrators and policy makers have the opportunity to develop citizenship education programs for all their students. This book takes a pragmatic approach to the issue, and answers many of the crucial questions that will be emerging: what definitions of citizenship are to be followed, and how is citizenship taught? What approaches will be taken by teachers and what is the likely shape of best practice for citizenship education? How will the issue impact on schools and teacher training, and how should they rise to the challenge? What are the key factors influencing or threatening the development of good citizens? Based on the analysis of data collected form over 700 teachers the book provides real solutions to questions raised by citizenship education, and makes recommendations for practice in schools and in the training and development of teachers.

Part I
Good Citizenship and Educational Provision in Context

1 The Recent History of Citizenship Education

INTRODUCTION

This chapter begins with a brief historical sketch of some relevant events and trends. We then argue that there have been three main periods of citizenship education in schools during the last three decades. Political literacy, which was in a dominant position in the 1970s, was succeeded in the 1980s by a wide array of ‘new’ or ‘adjectival’ educations which ranged from peace to global and from anti-sexist to anti-racist education. These were in turn supplanted more recently by a direct focus on citizenship education. A description of each of these main phases is given. Prior to a brief conclusion, we discuss four key trends with some comments about future prospects.

Before the above can be tackled, however, it is necessary to make clear the parameters of the chapter. The time period under review is almost entirely restricted to 1969 (the year when the Politics Association was established) to the present; the geographical focus is England; and, generally, only issues relating to schools are discussed (and largely those for pupils in the compulsory years of secondary education in the state sector). The nature of citizenship explored here is restricted. Although some mention is made of other factors, the focus of the work relates to those deliberate efforts to promote knowledge, understanding, skills and the potential for action, and to support pupils’ dispositions which are congruent with living within (rather than merely studying) a democratic society. There is a stronger emphasis on political aspects of citizenship education than on other related but potentially distinct fields, such as moral education. Although some mention is made of a number of centrally important related fields, citizenship education is not seen as covering everything that might aim at a better society and, indeed, the terms ‘political education’ and ‘citizenship education’ are often used in the chapter interchangeably. Examples from specific and potentially relevant areas such as history education are not given detailed attention. While this omission is partly due to limitations of space, it also reflects two other important points: that there are remarkably few concrete and explicit examples of citizenship education programmes in mainstream schools and colleges which could be referred to; and, while we strongly hope that a better world can be made at least in part through education, any programme must be realistic and limited. This latter important point is developed more fully in the conclusion to the book.

BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

If the discussion within the last three decades is to mean anything, it must be placed within some sort of context. Heater (1977a), Brennan (1981) and Batho (1990) have charted the historical developments in some detail. This historical material makes for rather depressing reading. The Spens (Board of Education 1928) and Norwood (Board of Education 1943) Reports largely neglect the area, reflecting the failure of the Association for Education in Citizenship (Whitmarsh 1974), and although the 1944 Education Act included a clause favourable to political education (Brennan 1981, p. 40), this was never implemented. Although some support was given from time to time to Commonwealth Studies, pamphlets issued in 1947 (Ministry of Education 1947) and 1949 (Ministry of Education 1949) concentrate on the British Constitution for any reference to political education, and the latter illogically suggests that a ‘healthy democratic society’ could be encouraged if schools would only develop ‘the old and simple virtues of humility, service, restraint and respect for personality’ (see page). The Crowther Report (Ministry of Education 1959) is largely silent on the matter of political learning, the Newsom Report (Ministry of Education 1963) does make a claim about the importance of educating children so that they are not the victims of the ‘hidden persuaders’ (p. 163) but there is no thorough consideration of the topic. Traditional school subjects such as history (DES 1967) were felt to be the area in which political education would find expression rather than through the development of any explicit and systematic approach. Some Schools Council papers (e.g. 1967) make passing references to political education but fail to give any in-depth treatment and are themselves part of the expression of neglect which led to most pupils having: ‘little good to say for what they have learnt in those subjects which are concerned with the understanding of human nature and institutions’ (Schools Council 1967, para. 62).

Of course, there are exceptions that could be made to this general picture. Those interested in citizenship education before 1969 were able to draw (positively or negatively) from the work of Dewey (1916/1966), Laski (1934) and Oakshott (1956). Some relevant research and development work had taken place (e.g. Oliver and Shaver 1966) and the Association for the Teaching of Social Sciences had been set up in 1963. Very important has been the long-term existence of the Council for Education in World Citizenship (Heater 1983).

However, in general, before 1969, if any citizenship education was being promoted it was largely almost exclusively for elite students (e.g. those studying at HSC or ‘A’ level), and was based around acquiring information for the purposes of doing well academically and preparing for high-status professions. If it was ever practised in any explicit sense for majorities, it was as civics which ‘may have been utopian, quietist, simplistic, indoctrinating as well as class biased, hardly meriting the description of “education”’ (Entwistle 1973, p. 7).

This low level of implementation seems to have continued. There has in fact been very little explicit work undertaken in schools. Even high-status policy initiatives do not translate easily into classroom practice. This has been a consistent finding of those who searched for evidence of political education in recent decades. Stradling and Noctor (1981) and Fogelman (1991) both report positively on what head teachers say when faced with an officiallooking questionnaire, but the reality is, they argue, rather more prosaic. Even Stradling and Noctor’s estimate that the average pupil will receive no more than two 35-minute periods per week of political education for no more than 10 weeks of the year seems optimistic (Davies 1993a). Lister’s use of the term ‘phantom curriculum’ to describe what is happening seems entirely appropriate. The half-formed expectation was that citizenship education would be somehow the job of the history teacher, the subject of a few assemblies, a module in a PSE programme taught by someone drafted to fill in spaces on a ‘proper’ subject’s timetable, which would not be assessed and would not be seriously evaluated through inspection (whatever the current rhetoric from Ofsted). There are, of course, exceptions, and teachers struggling with excessive administrative burdens often contrive small-scale wonders (e.g. Davies et al. 1998), but the general picture is unimpressive.

Heater (1977b) has explained the reasons for the neglect: a lack of tradition; few teachers who were professionally committed to the field; a belief that politics was solely an adult domain; and a fear of indoctrination. It is true that from the 1960s the situation began to change in relation to the attention given to political education by policy makers, and four factors are described in the next section to explain the transformation.

THE REASONS FOR THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL EDUCATION DURING THE 1970s

First, the lowering of the age of majority to 18 in 1970 had a significant impact. For the first time, sixth formers and others in full-time education would be allowed to vote. For them to have had no formal experience of political education seemed an anomaly. Second, work relating to political socialisation, either generally (e.g. Dawson et al. 1977), or that which focused specifically on children and what particular ideas they could cope with (Jahoda 1963; Greenstein 1965; Connell 1971), or through an examination of the nature of school textbooks and their potential impact (Gilbert 1984) was important. The notion that politics was something that children knew nothing about, and should at best be left to be discussed within the private world of families, could now be dispelled. Political messages were contained in school texts, and children could understand political concepts. As such, there was some acceptance of the need for political education to be undertaken more explicitly.

Third, although it is always hard to judge the extent of political ignorance among young people, key politicians took note of research which carried alarming messages (Stradling 1977) and were keen to ‘edge young people away from the margins of politics into the mainstream’ (Stradling 1987, p. 3). Finally, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a number of studies and reforms all associated with the democratization of educational structures. Kerckhoff et al. (1996) and Chitty and Benn (1996) have recently discussed the growing school population, the interest in equality, dissatisfaction with intelligence tests, the presence of an expanding number of young teachers and a greater concern with reforms of process as well as content, which would mean that the political nature of education would be stressed. Research studies which stressed the importance of structural and personal relationships were prominent during this period and were clearly seen to be relevant to the need to develop political understanding (e.g. Hargreaves 1972). With the climate of public—or, at least, professional— opinion influenced by radical thinking (e.g. Reimer 1975), it became increasingly difficult not to accept that politics had to be included in the curriculum. The nature of what, precisely, was meant by ‘politics’ was not clarified at that point but, as shown below, various concepts became relatively clear during the development of different notions during the following decades.

TYPES OF CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION PROMOTED DURING THE PERIOD 1969–1999

Although it is not possible neatly to encapsulate all the many initiatives taken during the last few decades into coherent groupings, we argue that there are essentially three main (overlapping) frameworks which can be discussed: political literacy; ‘new’ or ‘adjectival’ educations and education for citizenship. For each of these frameworks we attempt to describe the key features, explain why they came about and why (at least for the first two) they faded.

Political Literacy—from Thinking about Politics to Political Issues

The Programme for Political Education (PPE) had as its key aim political literacy. PPE was supported by the Hansard Society. Many of its leading advocates had a strong and positive relationship with the Politics Association, which had been established in 1969. The principal figure was Bernard Crick. There was a critical approach to knowledge and efforts were made to ensure that pupils could learn about politics (in various contexts). The goal was to make people critically aware and potentially more active for life in a society that could be more than nominally democratic.

Political literacy made four main shifts away from earlier work. It was issue-focused; it used a broader concept of politics than had been used in British Constitution courses; it valued procedural concepts; and it was concerned with skills as well as knowledge and attitudes, so as to develop pupils’ potential for action. The key publication was edited by Crick and Porter (1978). That book emerged from a series of conceptual working papers and research reports arising from six case studies of educational institutions which were developing new approaches to political education.

The central phase of the PPE was between 1974 and 1977, although work continued long after that point. It achieved high-status recognition with the explicit support of HMIs (who made statements in 1977 and 1979), and of the Secretary of State for Education (Humberside undated). In 1980 the DES produced A Framework for the School Curriculum and as a result the Politics Association commented that it welcomed: ‘the specific inclusion of the “social and political” area of experience and the principle that all [areas of the curriculum] are of equal importance’ (Brennan 1981, p. 142).

By the end of the 1970s, political literacy did seem to have gained a strong position with key policy makers. Legitimation had been achieved, however, without implementation and during the 1980s it was replaced by a raft of ‘new’ educations.

‘New’ or ‘Adjectival’ Educations—the Radical Agenda

The ‘new’ educations are perhaps not a coherent school of thought or action other than in the commitment they have to social justice. The relationship with citizenship education (as suggested in the conclusion to this book), is not necessarily always helpful or straightforward. Some, such as Peace Education and World Studies, had existed from the post-First World War era (Heater 1984); others, such as anti-sexist and anti-racist education, were more recent. Academics in ‘new’ areas such as women’s studies, as well as trade unionists, workers for aid organizations and teachers, were regarded as being the ones involved in the promotion of projects as well as, at times, setting up departments in schools. These various camps often competed between themselves for resources and curriculum space.

There were a number of key shifts made after the work of the 1970s. First, whereas political literacy saw those from traditional academic subjects attempting to expand the nature of work on politics so that it had the potential for democratic understanding and action, the initiatives of the 1980s which, while for the most part had similarly democratic credentials, also had a harder edge and would not achieve the same level of support from key decision makers. Instead of having a broad framework of politics which was applied to issues that affected everyday lives, the new educations seemed to give more attention to specific issues. Supporters argued that those issues were both vitally important in themselves and that also there could be some way in which the specifics could be made to generate a more decent society.

There were a number of key issues but four were always more important than others: the bomb; gender; development; and ‘race’ (the latter in inverted commas as the very existence of ‘race’ is, in our view, to be challenged). All four areas were concerned with social justice and had a number of strengths. The issues were undeniably important. A number of local education authorities (e.g. Newcastle undated) gave a lead at a time when many perceived there to be grave dangers for world safety. Those active in these movements were reflecting wider debates and actions and were very much a part of the climate of the early 1980s which encompassed the 1978–9 ‘winter of discontent’; the 1981 riots in Liverpool, Bristol and London; reactions against the excesses of monetarist government policy and the controversies of Howe’s 1981 budget; the teachers’ strikes of the mid-1980s; and actions by women who were cultivating far more developed versions of what was needed for a just society than had been allowed for by the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.

The teachers who became involved with such work were not (or at least not as obviously as those associated with previous initiatives) academics moving from high-status disciplines, making comments about teachers and schools. The new groups included many intelligent and creative teachers and the relative lack of emphasis (with some exceptions, e.g. see Crick and Porter 1978) by the advocates of political literacy on producing a teaching and learning programme (Stradling 1987) was now seen even more starkly as packs, books, guides and schemes of work were developed. Hicks’ 1988 book, Education for Peace, has a subtitle which stresses action in the classroom; the work on world studies and later on global education by Pike and Selby (e.g. 1988), while always being academically respectable, is largely concerned with what teachers can actually do with children.

However, some of these strengths could also be seen as weaknesses and would mean that although much of this work continues in the 1990s in the form of, for example, education for the future (e.g. Hicks and Holden 1995; Hicks 1994), there were serious problems about the overarching coherence of the ideas and the likelihood of these movements being accepted. Intellectually, the new educations were fragmented. This was not simply a matter of divisions between those favouring, for example, peace as opposed to another focal point. Rather, within each of the different camps there were very different conceptions. Conflict resolution, for example, can be seen as needing investigations into international crises and/or an exploration of the inner self (e.g. Kragh 1995). Feminism is a very broad church and the possibility for a united front between the different elements seems impossible (Bryson 1993). The shifts in other areas can be seen easily, with the multi-culturalism of the 1970s being replaced by the anti-racist education of the 1980s, which in turn now seems to be replaced by intercultural education. Intellectual fragmentation and commitment to particular objectives which are perceived as being radical does not lead to widespread acceptance. Rather, certain local education authorities became associated with what seemed to be party political aims. Peace education guidelines produced separately by Avon and Manchester were in some ways open to easy attack (Lister 1984). As Scruton (1985) attacked Pike and Selby, and Mary Warnock in her Dimbleby Lecture talked of the ‘educational horror stories’ that all parents tell, sections 44 and 45 of the 1986 Education Act (Number 2) were forbidding political activity in schools and requiring teachers in secondary schools to ensure that there was always a balanced presentation of opposing views. The new educations, however unfairly, were perceived now as edging young people towards the margins of politics rather than being the means of saving them from that fate. As such, despite all their strengths (particularly their acceptance by teachers and the continued use of the teaching materials in many schools and the ongoing development of theoretical and practical approaches, e.g. Steiner 1996) the radical agenda has simply faded from view. In the face of intellectual incoherence and an inability to withstand attack from wellplaced political opponents, the debate has moved on to a consideration of the parameters of the National Curriculum and the primacy of literacy and numeracy.

Education for Citizenship—the Unresolved Agenda

The 1990s were seen at an early point, according to Dahrendorf, as being the ‘decade of the citizen’ (Keane 1990). Education for citizenship having been declared as one of the five cross-curricular themes of the National Curriculum (NCC 1990) and the subject of a report by the Commission on Citizenship (1990), it seemed that perhaps something would be done. For the period of the first half of the decade this expectation was soon shown to be unfilled. The cross-curricular themes have for various reasons (but mostly due to the pressure of other priorities introduced by demands of teaching and assessing the National Curriculum) been generally ignored (Whitty et al. 1994). Indeed, of the five themes, education for citizenship seems to have been the one which is ignored most often. Although it is possible that new working groups (on values and on citizenship—the latter chaired by Crick—and with much valuable work done by the Citizenship Foundation) may develop a new impetus, this seems unlikely. The shift from use of the title ‘education for citizenship’ to ‘citizenship education’ seems to be an attempt to look for something more tightly targeted rather than merely assuming that positive results will emerge from a general input. But the government’s current drive to raise standards in literacy and numeracy is unlikely to lead to a radical refocusing of energy onto this area. Although the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has recently explained that one of the purposes of a review of the National Curriculum will be to address citizenship education more adequately (Tate 1998), one of his own recent statements seems to give a realistic assessment of the difficulties of making radical shifts (Tate 1997).

Throughout this book, and in later chapters in particular, there is a determined effort to be constructive and positive and this includes raising possible new ways to conceptualize and activate citizenship education. However, the difficulties and obstacles need to be clearly understood if action is even to be seen as possible.

The National Curriculum Council (NCC) suggested eight essential components, comprising: community; pluralism; rights and responsibilities of citizens; specific explorations of the family; democracy in action; the citizen and the law; work and employment; and leisure and public services. The Commission on Citizenship (1990) report, although it included many valuable suggestions, became associated narrowly and negatively with the recommendation for more voluntary action by young people. The reasons for this particular form of citizenship education being promoted are not encouraging. It seems that demographic changes which mean that there is a greater proportion of older people not in paid work need desperate measures. The authors of this new form of education may be aware that, as Mulgan (1990, p. 9) suggests: ‘welfarism is dying and the best way to prevent its resurrection is to r...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Good Citizenship and Educational Provision in Context
• Part II The Methods and Findings of the Research Project
• Part III What Is To Be Done? Ways Forward in the Development of Good Citizenship through Education
• Appendix Citizenship Questionnaire (Form AGB)
• References