Citizenship Education And The Personalization Of Democracy

The core message of this educational book is that democracy is, more than ever before, in need of the personal contribution of engaged citizens. Democracy is viable only if it is rooted in the hearts and minds of citizens who feel responsible not only for their own well-being, but also for the quality of social relationships in a society with marked differences in race, religion, culture, and gender. Three basic features define personalized democracy: A critical attitude not only towards others but also towards oneself; learning not only from others but also from oneself; and participation in society with attention to the contradictive nature of one’s own mind. The authors emphasize that the development of personalized democracy and global citizenship requires participation at different identity levels: I as individual, we as members of social groups, we as part of humanity, and we as part of the earth. Written for future teachers at secondary level, the book contains dialogical self theory, research and a wide range of exercises.

This volume surveys the new global landscape for democratic civic education. Rooted in qualitative researc, the contributors explore the many ways that notions of democracy and citizenship have been implemented in recent education policy, curriculum, and classroom practice around the world. From Indonesia to the Spokane Reservation and El Salvador to Estonia, these chapters reveal a striking diversity of approaches to political socialization in varying cultural and institutional contexts. By bringing to bear the methodological, conceptual and theoretical perspectives of qualitative research, this book adds important new voices to one of educationOs most critical debates: how to form democratic citizens in a changing world.

Political, economic, technological and cultural changes have taken place all over the globe, changes which have transformed the meanings of citizenship and citizenship education. This volume represents an effort to analyze the implications of these changes.

As we move forward well into the 21st century most citizens around the globe seemingly accept the rudiments of a democratic citizenship. And yet in spite of this broad acceptance, a clear articulation of what democratic citizenship entails remains somewhat elusive. In this book, Hyslop-Margison and Thayer achieve two critically important objectives in response to this problem. First, they successfully articulate the threat to democracy posed by current citizenship education programs that adopt a largely instrumental framework fostering passivity and compliance by protecting the established parameters of neo-liberal social design. Second, they show a way out of this anti-democratic trap by illustrating how critical theory, with its marvelous ability to provide trenchant critiques of capitalism and turn those critiques into concrete political action, provides the ideal pedagogical approach to educate our students effectively as future democratic citizens. The authors critique the conditions of modern democratic citizenship and distinguish a robust, or thick, version of citizenship based on citizen agency and participation in the construction of social reality from contemporary models that undermine citizen engagement. They contend that it is only through critical theory and the political agency it inspires that meaningful democratic change can and must occur. Hence, the role of education in their view is not merely to prepare students for a new economic reality, but to prepare them instead to shape that reality in more progressive and socially just ways. This book eloquently argues that the citizenship mission of schools ought to teach students what is possible rather than simply objectifying them as human capital being prepared for the inevitable impact of the policies determined by others.

Globalization is changing what citizens need to know and be able to do by interrupting the assumption that the actions of citizens only take place within national borders. If our neighborhoods and nations are affecting and being affected by the world, then our political consciousness must be worldminded. The outcomes of globalization have led educators to rethink what students need to learn and be able to do as citizens in a globally connected world. This volume focuses on research that examines how K-12 teachers and students are currently addressing the challenge of becoming citizens in a globally interconnected world. Although there is an extensive body of literature on citizenship education within national contexts and a growing literature on global education, this volume offers research on the work educators are doing across multiple countries to bring the two fields together to develop global citizens.

The discourse of civic education privileges liberal democratic understandings of citizenship. Yet we know that such understandings do not accurately represent the complex, plural, and problematic nature of citizenship in contemporary society. To stimulate discussion about new possibilities for teaching citizenship, this volume brings together the work of Canadian and American curriculum scholars to «trouble» the existing canon of citizenship education. Addressing themes as diverse as gender, sexual orientation, globalization, agency, ontology, and interdisciplinarity, the essays that make up this collection seek to enlarge and expand upon the ways educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers might approach teaching citizenship.

A unique look at how how citizenship education is embedded within the school curriculum using a combination of philosophical enquiry and empirical research.