Rethinking Citizenship Education: A Curriculum for Participatory Democracy

Description

Rethinking Citizenship Education presents a fundamental reassessment of the field. Drawing on empirical research, the book argues that attempting to transmit preconceived notions of citizenship through schools is both unviable and undesirable. The notion of 'curricular transposition' is introduced, a framework for understanding the changes undergone in the passage between the ideals of citizenship, the curricular programmes designed to achieve them, their implementation in practice and the effects on students. The 'leaps' between these different stages make the project of forming students in a mould of predefined citizenship highly problematic. Case studies are presented of contrasting initiatives in Brazil, a country with high levels of political marginalisation, but also significant experiences of participatory democracy. These studies indicate that effective citizenship education depends on a harmonisation or 'seamless enactment' of the stages outlined above. In contrast, provision in countries such as the UK and USA is characterised by disjunctures, showing insufficient involvement of teachers in programme design, and a lack of space for the construction of students' own political understandings. Some more promising directions for citizenship education are proposed, therefore, ones which acknowledge the significance of pedagogical relations and school democratisation, and allow students to develop as political agents in their own right.

Tristan McCowan is Senior Lecturer in Education and International Development at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK.

'Tristan McCowan has compressed several decades of contentious pedagogical and political debates into this concise, elegantly written and theoretically ambitious book....A vivid and thorough discussion of rather important educational questions: What is citizenship education? What does it mean to "participate" in educational settings? And, Can we envision a different form of education? By introducing a set of new conceptual tools and presenting detailed analysis of three models of citizenship education, this book engages in broader questions of curriculum and educational practices, while offering an original and robust model to re-frame the debate about what matters most in the field of politics of education.'Gustavo E. Fischman, Arizona State University, USA 'This is a good book that is well worth reading...An interesting and very valuable book that succeeds in encouraging us to think differently about citizenship education' Education Review 'A well documented, thoughtful, readable, researched based, and balanced study on how to conduct citizenship education' -- Reviewed in Educate Journal Vol. 10, No. 2, 2010 (UK) 'I would highly recommend this book , as an empowering conception of the possibilities in education for democratic citizenship.' -- International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning 'Tristan McCowan challenges scholars to reconsider commonly held assumptions about citizenship education. His wide-ranging and original study should be read by anyone wishing to explore relationships between pedagogic principles, democracy and social justice.' Audrey Osler, Visiting Professor of Citizenship and Human Rights Education, University of Leeds, UK