Summary of the Education for Citizenship framework paper
This paper for discussion and development explores and suggests answers to four main questions.
- What do we mean by 'citizenship'?
- Why is 'education for citizenship' important?
- What should education for citizenship do for young people?
- What does effective education for citizenship involve in practice - for the curriculum, for schools and early education centres and for communities?
Introduction
The Introduction provides a brief overview of the current and changing context within which these questions are being considered.
Section 1: What is 'citizenship' and why is 'education for citizenship' important?
Section 1 aims to answer the first two questions. It includes an outline of the essential characteristics of active and responsible citizenship and describes implications of this for schools and early education establishments.
Section 2: What should education for citizenship seek to achieve?
The third question is addressed in Section 2. Education for citizenship is taken to be a key purpose of the curriculum. Its overall goal is summed up as development of capability for thoughtful and responsible participation in political, economic, social and cultural life. This capability for active citizenship is analysed in terms of four aspects, each associated with a set of learning outcomes: knowledge and understanding, skills and competences, values and dispositions, and creativity and enterprise.
Section 3: Effective education for citizenship in practice
Section 3 focuses on the fourth question. It describes the types of opportunities and conditions for learning to which all young people are entitled in order to develop, in a progressive manner, the capability for active and responsible citizenship proposed in Section 2. It also examines the contexts within which these opportunities and conditions can be provided to enable progressive development through early, primary and secondary stages of formal education.
Section 4: Areas for development and exploration
Finally, Section 4 indicates proposals for immediate action, and considers a number of issues, related to the framework set out in the paper, which will require further exploration.
Annexes A: Areas of knowledge relevant to citizenship and B: Generic skills relevant to citizenship
Annexes A and B provide more detailed descriptions of areas of knowledge and generic skills relevant to development of capability for citizenship.