Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Citizenship, learning and education: themes and issues

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13621020902749027

1469-3593

Rachel Brooks, John Holford,

Religious Education and Schools

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeView correction statement:Erratum Notes 1. The language of citizenship education is complex and by no means agreed. The editors have not tried to impose any uniformity of usage across the articles. 2. http://esj.sagepub.com/ [Accessed 26 November 2008]. 3. http://www.citized.info/?strand = 6 [Accessed 26 November 2008]. 4. Illustrative examples under the Fifth and Sixth Framework research programmes are: 'Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity', 'Intercultural Active Citizenship Education' and 'Education and Training for Governance and Active Citizenship in Europe'. EU Framework Projects relating to citizenship address questions such as: how are social changes reshaping concepts, such as 'active citizenship' and 'governance'? Do women and men perceive citizenship differently? How can the education system intervene to teach governance and active citizenship? How do people construct their identities? Do they feel attached to their local area or their nation-state? Do they consider themselves as European citizens? For surveys of this research, see Follesdal (2008 Follesdal, A., 2008. European Union Citizenship. EU research in social sciences and humanities, policy synthesis of EU research results series, no. 13. Brussels: European Commission Directorate-General for Research. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/policy-briefs-reviews_en.html [Accessed 4 February 2009] [Google Scholar]), Mokre and Puntscher Riekmann (2007 Mokre, M. and Puntscher Riekmann, S., 2007. From good governance to democratic governance? A policy review of the first wave of European governance research series, no. 2. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/policy-briefs-reviews_en.html [Accessed 4 February 2009] [Google Scholar]), Power (2007 Power, S., 2007. Education. EU research in social sciences and humanities, policy synthesis of EU research results series, no. 4. Brussels: European Commission Directorate-General for Research. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/policy-briefs-reviews_en.html [Accessed 4 February 2009] [Google Scholar]). 5. While there is no adequate synoptic overview, Arthur et al. (2008 Arthur, J., Davies, I. and Hahn, C., eds. 2008. The SAGE handbook of education for citizenship and democracy, London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) is a substantial collection including a number of useful overviews of current work and of citizenship education in a range of countries. It concentrates on the initial and higher education sectors, saying little about adult education. 6. Thus, for example, the EDC's 'first phase' (1997–2000) was principally concerned with research; the second phase (2001–2004) was intended to 'translate the results of the first phase into concrete policies and practices' while 2005 became the 'European Year of Citizenship through Education' (Council of Europe 2005 Council of Europe, 2005. Education for democratic citizenship: learning and living democracy [leaflet] [online]. Available from: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/edc/Source/Pdf/Downloads/Leaflet_en.pdf [Accessed 4 January 2009] [Google Scholar]). Its website incorporates many research outputs, educational and policy materials (such as a 'pack' of 'practical instruments specifically designed to provide support to all those involved in education'). See http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/edc/Default_en.asp [Accessed 4 January 2009]. 7. Current examples, under the Sixth Framework Programme, are the five-year integrated projects on 'Strategies for Inclusion and Social Cohesion in Europe from Education' (Includ-Ed) and 'Towards a Lifelong Learning Society in Europe: The Contribution of the Education System' (LLL2010), respectively. 8. See http://ec.europa.eu/education/more-information/moreinformation294_en.htm [Accessed 4 January 2009] and, for town-twinning, the 'Europe for Citizens' programme. 9. The main outcomes of this project are set out in Hoskins and Mascherini (2009 Hoskins, B.L. and Mascherini, M. 2009. Measuring active citizenship through the development of a composite indicator. Social indicators research, 90(3): 459–488. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Hoskins et al. (2006 Hoskins, B., et al., 2006. Measuring active citizenship in Europe. European Commission Directorate-General Joint Research Centre, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning, Research Paper No. 4. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities [Google Scholar]), Hoskins et al. (2008b Hoskins, B. 2008b. Measuring civic competence in Europe: a composite indicator based on IEA Civic Education Study 1999 for 14 year old in school, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. [Google Scholar]). See also Holford (2008 Holford, J. 2008. Hard measures for soft stuff: citizenship indicators and educational policy under the Lisbon Strategy. European educational research journal, 7(3): 331–343. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Hoskins et al. (2008a Hoskins, B., D'Hombres, B. and Campbell, J. 2008a. Does formal education have an impact on active citizenship behaviour?. European educational research journal, 7(3): 386–402. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), and other contributions to the European Educational Research Journal (Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008 – a special issue edited by Bryony Hoskins and Ruth Deakin Crick on 'Social justice, research and European policy: defining and measuring key competences in education') and the papers presented at the European Commission Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning's conference on 'Working towards Indicators on Active Citizenship' (http://crell.jrc.ec.europa.eu/active_citizenship.htm [Accessed 4 January 2009]). 10. See Campbell (2006 Campbell, D.E. 2006. "What is education's impact on civic and social engagement?". In Measuring the effects of education on health and civic engagement. Proceedings of the Copenhagen Symposium [online], Edited by: Desjardins, R. and Schuller, T. 25–126. Paris: OECD CERI. Available from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/61/37437718.pdf [Accessed 4 January 2009] [Google Scholar]), Desjardins and Schuller (2006 Desjardins, R. and Schuller, T., eds. 2006. Measuring the effects of education on health and civic engagement. Proceedings of the Copenhagen Symposium [online], Paris: OECD CERI. Available from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/61/37437718.pdf [Accessed 4 January 2009] [Google Scholar]), OECD Directorate for Education (2007 OECD Directorate for Education. 2007. Understanding the social outcomes of learning, Paris: OECD. [Google Scholar]) and the Social Outcomes of Learning website http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_35845581_33706505_1_1_1_1,00.html [Accessed 4 January 2009]. 11. The IEA's International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) investigates 'the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries in the twenty-first century. In pursuit of this purpose, the study will report on student achievement in a test of knowledge, conceptual understanding and competencies in civic and citizenship education. It will also collect and analyse data about student dispositions and attitudes relating to civics and citizenship. The study builds on the previous IEA studies of civic education, particularly CIVED in 1999. … The population to be studied is students in Grade 8 (on average including students who are approximately 14 years of age) … Grade 8 is a stage of secondary schooling in which participation is universal in most countries and which has the greatest similarity in organisational contexts across countries. … The survey of teachers will be from the same schools as the students and there will be a survey of the principals (or head teachers) in those schools. The minimum sample for a country will be 150 schools with about 3,500 students' (International Civic and Citizenship Education Study Information Brochure, available at http://iccs.acer.edu.au/uploads/File/ICCS%20Information%20Brochure(1).pdf, [Accessed 26 November 2008]). Conducted between October 2008 and April 2009, the following countries participated: Austria, Belgium (Flemish), Bulgaria, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominician Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand (http://www.iea.nl/icces.html, [Accessed 26 November 2008]). 12. In a lecture to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institute in 1867, Lowe argued: 'The lower classes ought to be educated to discharge the duties cast upon them. They should also be educated that they may appreciate and defer to a higher cultivation when they meet it; and the higher classes ought to be educated in a very different manner, in order that they may exhibit to the lower classes that higher education to which, if it were shown to them, they would bow down and defer' (Lowe 1980 Lowe, R. 1980. "Primary and classical education". In Educating our masters, Edited by: Reeder, D.A. 103–126. Leicester: Leicester University Press. In [Google Scholar], pp. 125–126). 13. According to Coombs, formal education and training occurs in school and post-school institutions, typically in the public sector, and is the major mechanism of public intervention in education. It is characterised by relatively centralised, stable and sequential curricula, and well-established structures of assessment. It is the main locus of most state 'civic education' policies and expenditure. Non-formal education is systematic educational activity outside formal system (for example, work-based training, community education programmes in health, cooperation, and so forth, adult literacy programmes). It has been the main traditional source of state intervention in post-school learning, and the main context for provision by NGOs, SMEs and the voluntary sector. Informal education is unorganised, unsystematic and/or unintended lifelong learning, for example, from home, work, and media. It is the source of most learning over a lifetime, but the outcomes are strongly dependent on individuals' learning environments (Coombs 1985 Coombs, P. 1985. The world crisis in education, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], esp. pp. 20–26). In a major attempt to review and clarify the literature on classifications of formal, non-formal and informal education, Colley et al. (2002 Colley, H., Hodkinson, P. and Malcolm, J. 2002. Non-formal learning: mapping the conceptual terrain. A consultation report, Leeds: Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Leeds. [Google Scholar]) contest such classifications. They argue that it is often the 'blending of formal and informal' which leads to the most significant learning; that there are 'few, if any, learning situations where either informal or formal elements are completely absent' (p. 6), and that 'either the boundaries between formal, non-formal and informal learning or education, or the relationships between them, can only be understood within particular contexts' which have 'historical, economic, social and political dimensions' (Colley et al. 2002 Colley, H., Hodkinson, P. and Malcolm, J. 2002. Non-formal learning: mapping the conceptual terrain. A consultation report, Leeds: Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Leeds. [Google Scholar], p. 7).