Home > Revue internationale d'éducation Sèvres > n° 44 > Abstracts

Students as future citizens
n° 44, April 2007

Introduction
Maroussia Raveaud

Citizenship education and its contradictions
François Audigier
From design to implementation, citizenship education is fraught with tensions and contradictions. The concept of citizenship itself brings into play political, affective and legal aspects. Delivering citizenship education in schools raises several issues. At times treated as a subject area in its own right and at times taught using cross-disciplinary approaches, citizenship education addresses not only knowledge and skills, but also values and behaviour. The ends of citizenship education are ambitious, and often include aims that are difficult to reconcile with one another. In terms of how citizenship education is actually delivered, the once-systematic introduction to the legal and political systems has lost ground to the more recent priority of teaching students a sense of community. Today, there is a need to ensure that the values taught at school are coherent and that they reflect the values of society.

«A change in the political culture »
Citizenship education in England
David Kerr
Citizenship education has been at the centre of a major policy review in England since 1997. This has culminated in the introduction of Citizenship as a new statutory subject in schools for all 11 to 16 year olds and the establishment of a citizenship programme for 16 to 19 year olds. This article focuses on the policy process concerning citizenship education in England. It goes on to examine emerging lessons from research and evaluation concerning the progress of the citizenship education initiative, with a particular emphasis on evolving practice in schools and colleges. It concludes that the emerging lessons from England have implications for wherever citizenship education is developed.

From rhetoric to practice
Citizenship education in Spain
J. Ramón Jiménez Vicioso, J. Carlos González Faraco
Despite converging and shared objectives, citizenship education is understood differently throughout Europe, depending on each country’s educational culture and socio-political context. This article provides an overview and an analysis of the current debates and conflicts which surround it in Spain. The issues are fundamental ones which go far beyond the arena of the curriculum and schooling. The government’s official position and teaching recommendations focus on the urgent need to prepare students for future citizenship in an increasingly globalized, complex and multicultural world where democracy and social cohesion are perceived to be threatened. The question is, has this ubiquitous message made its way into classrooms yet and is it changing school culture – even marginally – or is it just another rhetorical proposition soon to be forgotten?

Battlefield or common ground:
Citizenship education in Denmark
Niels Kryger, Birte Ravn
In Denmark there has been a long tradition for considering citizenship and learning to become a citizen as an integrated part of the Folkeskole (primary and lower secondary school) – not as a special subject in the curriculum but as part of life and learning in and outside school. However, over the past few years, in line with international trends, the idea of ‘citizenship education’ has become deeply rooted in Danish educational debates and policies. While the need for citizenship education now appears to be gaining widespread acceptance, what the concepts of citizenship and citizenship education actually mean is disputed. This article examines the current situation in Denmark, pointing to the trends and potential battlefields in which actors with various agendas attempt to influence not only the concept, but also the implementation of citizenship education in schools. It also discusses the impact of the ‘culture war’ declared by the current government with a view to bolstering the nation’s traditional culture and values.

Citizenship and education
A South African perspective
Salim Vally
This article attempts to provide an understanding of citizenship as seen through the lens of poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. It highlights the gap between the ‘glossy rhetoric’ of official statements and reality. It then presents the sharp contrast between educational policies, laws and school curricula structured around the ideals of human rights, social justice and democracy on the one hand, and their actual implementation in a neo-liberal, globalized context. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of building ties between civil, political and socio-economic rights in any discourse concerning citizenship.

Justice and equity at school
What students say according to international studies
Stephen Gorard
This article reports on a study conducted in five European Union countries targeting 6,000 15-yearold students. The study focused on students’ sense of justice at school and beyond. The author examines how systems of fairness and equity operate to influence pupils’ perspectives within their schools, and so their understanding of education in general.

Student councils in Switzerland
Discourse, intentions and practice
Philippe Haeberli
In Switzerland, forming citizens is the shared responsibility of three subject areas: history, geography and citizenship education. This article presents the case of Geneva, underlining its specific features, and goes on to discuss the student council system – a body organising student participation in decision-making at school. It examines teachers’ stated aims, and then deals with the way student councils actually operate by focusing on two recurring issues – taking turns to speak and resolving conflicts. The article highlights the councils’ use of notions of consensus and making efforts, which suggest a tendency to give priority to fostering a sense of community over the political dimension of citizenship.

Learning to be a universal citizen in France
Initial findings of a study in primary schools
Géraldine Bozec, Sophie Duchesne
This article reports on the initial findings of a study on civics education in French primary schools. After having presented the current content of the civics education curriculum, it turns to the ways in which teachers interpret and implement the curriculum. While the focus on the individual dimension of citizenship has remained strong and may even be gaining ground, its historical counterweight – a sense of solidarity between fellow citizens afforded by their attachment to the nation – is now struggling to find new foundations.

Between hope and despair
Citizenship education in Indian schools
D. S. Muley
This article focuses on a country whose size and bewildering diversity rule out any attempt at sweeping generalization. Citizenship education is rooted in India’s Constitution and is to promote the core values of democracy, secularism, gender equality and the removal of social barriers. This normative content is particularly challenging in an examination-driven education system, in a society that is struggling to keep up with the changes in its constitutional principles. However, some examples of civic awareness demonstrated by students give reason for optimism.

Bibliography
Sophie Condat

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