Studying at York
Citizenship Education - EDU00003M
Module summary
Citizenship education is about helping people to understand contemporary society and to develop the skills to take part. This is of obvious vital significance and we will explore the key ideas and issues that are relevant to local, national and global citizenships.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Autumn Term 2021-22 |
| B | Spring Term 2021-22 |
| O1 | Autumn Term 2021-22 |
Module aims
You will be introduced to key ideas about citizenship that are currently influencing the development of citizenship education. We will explore ideas about citizenship as a formal legal and political status, as identity and as a set of practices. We will investigate key ideas and see how citizenship is practised in various contexts.
Module learning outcomes
Subject content
- Understand the nature of key schools of citizenship (liberal; civil republican; communitarian)
- Understand how citizenship is applied nationally, cross-nationally and globally
- Understand how citizenship education has been researched
Academic and graduate skills
- Search sources
- Understand key ideas
- Analyse issues and concepts
- Present arguments
- Work with others
- Manage time efficiently
Module content
Week 2 What are the grand issues and themes in citizenship education?
Week 3 How has policy been made in citizenship education in the 20th and early 21st century?
Week 4 The civic republican tradition
Week 5 The neo-liberal tradition
Week 6 The communitarian tradition
Week 7 Researching citizenship education: an overview of methods and findings from recent studies in England, mainland Europe and elsewhere
Week 8 European citizenship
Week 9 Globalisation and citizenship
Week 10 Conclusions
Course details
Week 2
What are the grand issues and themes in citizenship education?
Citizenship is a highly controversial matter. During this session attention will be drawn to the long history of struggles to understand and achieve citizenship and some of the frameworks that are used to develop forms of citizenship education.
Week 3
How has policy been made in citizenship education in the 20th and early 21st century?
There is always very strong interest in the form of education that will be received by citizens. Governments from around the globe have recently been involved in high profile efforts to develop educational policy that is intended to have a direct and explicit impact on the understandings, skills and dispositions that people will use in their roles as citizens. We will explore some of the ways in which governments have taken action.
Week 4
The civic republican tradition
Citizenship, according to some, is achieved within a society in which duties are emphasised. A simple view of the nature of the civic republican tradition can be found in the fulfilment of duties. The nature of those duties, expectations about who owes what to whom (and what can be expected in return) will be explored in this session.
Week 5
The neo-liberal tradition
Citizenship, according to some, is achieved within a rights-based society. The nature of those rights, the ways in which they can be achieved and their meaning in people's daily lives will be explored in this session.
Week 6
The communitarian tradition
In the previous 2 weeks sessions focussed on the key features of the rights and duties associated with citizenship. We will, this week, examine the (controversial) claims that have been put forward by a number of influential academics and politicians for a way of combining thinking and practice concerning rights and duties in the context of the communities in which we live.
Week 7
Researching citizenship education: an overview of methods and findings from recent studies in England, mainland Europe and elsewhere.
This session will make clear the key issues arising from the increasing number of studies that are being undertaken about citizenship education. Governments want to know if citizenship education is having any impact. We will review the questions that are being posed, the methods being used to examine citizenship and the issues that are emerging.
Week 8
European citizenship
Citizenship is felt by some to be expressed in 'concrete' and 'vague' forms. Europeans now have the status of a transnational citizenship that has clear political and legal expression. There are also less clear notions about European identity that may be relevant to European citizenship. We will explore and review these developments.
Week 9
Globalisation and citizenship
There is currently much talk about our role as ‘global citizens'. We will explore what this means. We will search for concrete expression of global citizenship as well as exploring the nature of identity that might be relevant to its characterisation.
Week 10
Conclusions
This session will pull together the threads of the issues that have been raised during the term. What sort of citizenship is to be preferred? What do we think about attempts to research the key ideas and practices of citizenship education? What will happen to citizenship as a result of the massive social and political forces that bear down upon it?
Assessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework 3500 word essay |
N/A | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Reassessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework 3500 word essay |
N/A | 100 |
Module feedback
You will receive feedback in a range of ways throughout this module. This will include oral feedback in class, responses to posts on the VLE discussion board and written comments on work.
The feedback is returned to students in line with university policy. Please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.
Indicative reading
Heater, D. (1999). What is citizenship? Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kiwan, D. (2008). Education for inclusive citizenship. London: Routledge.
Davies, I., Ho, L-C., Kiwan, D., Peck, C. L., Peterson, A., Sant, E., and Waghid, Y. (2018). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education. London, Palgrave.
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