Revitalising Politics: The Role of Citizenship Education. Ben Kisby and James Sloam

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1 Revitalising Politics: The Role of Citizenship Education Ben Kisby and James Sloam Citizenship education is an appropriate demand-side policy response to declining political participation amongst young people in the UK. There is evidence that its compulsory introduction in secondary schools in England in 2002 is having some success but its implementation is not without problems. Citizenship classes can be made more effective if they are underpinned by the core principles of experiential and service learning, whereby knowledge, participation and deliberation are linked together in the promotion of active citizenship. Declining participation in conventional forms of politics has become a central theme for academics and policy-makers in recent years, and has often been viewed as marking a crisis in citizenship (Power Inquiry 2006; Stoker 2006; Hay 2007). The trend is most observable amongst younger people, who have become increasingly alienated from electoral politics (and, indeed, the state). On the other hand, young people (15 to 25 year olds) are not politically apathetic (Catan 2003); they have their own views and engage in democratic politics through various modes of participation (Pattie et al. 2004; Sloam 2007). How can we reconnect young people to the political system? Much faith has been placed in education as an answer to this problem (e.g. DFEE/QCA 1998), and there is strong evidence to suggest that educational interventions have the potential to boost prospects for future political activity (Beaumont et al. 2006). We therefore argue that the introduction of citizenship education can help provide young people with the knowledge, skills and values to 1

2 participate effectively in the democratic life of the country. The introduction of compulsory citizenship lessons in England in 2002 was a positive step and there is evidence of its successful impact in some schools around a third of which, according to Ofsted, are achieving high levels of student efficacy and participation and have well defined and implemented approaches to the subject. However, Ofsted has deemed provision unsatisfactory in 25% of schools and it has found evidence of citizenship education being accorded a low status, a lack of leadership among senior staff with regard to the subject, and insufficient numbers of trained specialist staff to teach it (Ofsted 2005, 2006). 1 These problems need to be rectified. But further to this, we argue in this article that a more effective form of citizenship education can be developed by placing greater emphasis upon: interactive engagement with young people s politics; intensive deliberation and critical analysis reflection on experiences and participatory acts; the role of the school as a minipolity; and, outreach beyond the school environment (e.g. service learning). 2 Our underlying argument is that existing attempts to promote participation will fail if citizenship classes either over-emphasise knowledge transmission (in a top-down manner) or simply equate active citizenship with voluntary work. We argue that young people must be enabled to fully experience politics, deliberate upon those experiences, and reconstruct citizenship in their own image. To achieve this, citizenship classes must be flexible and student-centred, be integrated more deeply into the overall school environment, and interface more actively with the state and society outside the classroom. We nevertheless underline the point that education can only be part of the answer, and can easily be frustrated or undermined by opaque and inaccessible political decision-making as well as other negative political practices, discussed elsewhere in this volume. 2

3 Youth, Politics and Citizenship The UK has witnessed a significant decline in engagement in electoral politics in recent years. The median young person does not vote, does not belong to a political party and has very little trust in the main political institutions (Sloam 2007). Turnout for the year old age group in the 2005 general election reached a historic low of 37% (despite a moderate increase in overall turnout to 61%) (Electoral Commission 2005). According to a recent study, only 10% of young people trust politicians and just 6% trust political parties (Moore and Longhurst 2005: 24). By contrast around a third of young people trust certain NGOs like Amnesty International and Greenpeace (Ibid.). Political parties have traditionally acted as the glue for democracy, providing political socialisation and forums for different advocacy groups, and have galvanised public opinion on a broad range of issues. But parties (like other conventional political institutions) are increasingly irrelevant for young people, as demonstrated by the ageing and declining of their memberships (Mair and Van Biezen 2001). 3 Disengagement from conventional, formal politics is most prominent amongst younger cohorts, but youth (non-)participation should not be divorced from broader developments in society given that participation depends as much on social class, income, educational attainment and regional location as it does on age (Pattie et al. 2004). In terms of the population as a whole, authors have offered different explanations for the UK and elsewhere, pointing to decreasing participation in civic life (Putnam 1995, 2000) (although this is hotly contested, see Pattie et al and Dalton 2008), low levels of trust in political institutions (Hall 1999), the marketisation of political competition (Hay 2007), the withdrawal of the state and the individualisation of risks in society (Beck 1992), and growing 3

4 cynicism about electoral politics driven by the media (Stoker 2006). Literature focusing more exclusively on young people has similarly laid responsibility for decreasing participation on: more complex and less structured youth transitions (Hall et al. 1999); political institutions that deny young people the opportunity to express their opinions (Matthews et al. 1998); party strategies that in the UK s first-past-the-post electoral system rationally neglect marginalised groups (including young people) that are less likely to vote (Sloam 2007); and, the weakening of young people s position in relation to the labour market and the welfare state (MacDonald 1997). 4 Together, these factors have undermined the sense of common purpose and ownership in the political system (Wilkinson and Mulgan 1995: 10) and impacted upon young people s sense of responsibility to the state. 5 Yet the current generation of young people are not apathetic with regard to politics (more broadly defined). They are interested in and engaged with political issues, even if their modes of engagement have changed (Pattie et al. 2004) and they have quite different conceptions of politics and how it works (Marsh et al. 2007). Evidence of interest in politics (broadly conceived) can be found in the education sector where the number of students taking politics A-levels and enrolling for politics degree programmes has increased rapidly over the past decade. The number of students taking A-level exams in political studies subjects in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rose by 24% between 2003 and 2008 (compared to a 7% increase in all subjects) (The Guardian 2003, 2008). The number of students applying to politics programmes at higher education institutions in the UK rose by 69% between 1997 and 2007 (compared to a 14% increase in all subjects) (UCAS 2009). A central problem is the low level of political knowledge and here education can clearly make a contribution given the fact that: Students with the most civic knowledge are 4

5 those most likely to be receptive to participating in civic activities (IEA 2008). At the same time, knowledge can be relative and shaped by perceptions of politics so it is important for politicians and educators alike to engage with young people s own conceptions of politics. 6 Henn et al. (2002: 175) argue that politics is not aimed at young people and has little political meaning for them. Despite some efforts to engage young people in recent years, we believe that this continues to be the case. 7 In the absence of political socialisation within and through political parties, schools in general and citizenship education in particular can play a key role in this area. Comprehensive cross-national studies have shown that citizenship education does work (e.g. Torney-Purta et al. 2001), but to make it more effective in England and the rest of the UK improvements must be made. First, schools can act as minipolities (Flanagan et al. 2007), which place importance upon their democratic nature and the opportunities they provide for student expression. Second, citizenship education can be more effective if it is an interactive (flexible) experience that relates more to students own experiences within and beyond the school environment, and encourages them to participate in and reflect upon the wide spectrum of democratic politics as part of the curriculum. Citizenship Education in the UK Aims and Developments Citizenship education became a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum for secondary schools in England in August Citizenship, as a discrete, compulsory subject, is still not on a statutory footing in Wales or Scotland. 8 In September 2007 Local and Global Citizenship became a statutory component of the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum, meaning in effect that citizenship education is now a statutory entitlement for all young 5

6 people from the ages of 11 to 16 (McEvoy 2007: 140). Citizenship lessons were introduced in England principally because of concerns held by a range of actors, including politicians, academics and members of pressure groups, about levels of social capital in Britain (Kisby 2006, 2007). One of the key immediate causes of the introduction of the initiative was the 1998 report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship (AGC). The AGC had been set up in November 1997 by David Blunkett, the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment and key citizenship education policy entrepreneur, who provided the AGC with its remit, selected its members and took a close interest in its deliberations and with the progress of the policy after the AGC report was published. The AGC defined citizenship education in terms of three strands: Political Literacy, Social and Moral Responsibility and Community Involvement (DFEE/QCA 1998). Its report can be criticised for having little to say in relation to debates around cosmopolitan, multicultural and feminist conceptions of citizenship in its advancement of what may be described as a republican communitarian model of citizenship (Kisby 2009). This is a model that emphasises both political participation in the public realm of the state and civil society and the importance of community membership as a necessary prerequisite for such participation. The principal aims of citizenship education were to teach young people to become well informed, responsible citizens engaged in mainstream political and civic activities, such as voting and undertaking voluntary work, in particular at a local community level (DFEE/QCA 1998). Citizenship education covers a wide variety of topics, including: politics and government, the legal system, equal opportunities and human rights issues. Following Keith Ajegbo s review of Diversity and Citizenship in the curriculum, published in January 2007 (DFES 2007) and welcomed by the Government (see e.g. Johnson 2007), from September 6

7 2007, governing bodies had a new duty to promote community cohesion and since September 2008, the secondary curriculum for citizenship education has included a new fourth strand Identity and Diversity: Living Together in the UK. School children are now also taught about national, regional, ethnic and religious cultures and their connections and are to explore the concept of community cohesion. In addition, a short course GCSE in Citizenship Studies has been developed and an AS Level in Citizenship Studies is also an option for many students. A full course GCSE is expected to be available from September 2009 and an A level in Citizenship Education is also being devised. Furthermore, a number of British Universities offer Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Citizenship Studies. In 2001 the then Department for Education and Skills commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to carry out a longitudinal study examining the short-term and long-term impact of citizenship lessons on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of pupils. 9 The study is being conducted over an eight-year period, from 2001 the year prior to the compulsory introduction of citizenship in the National Curriculum to 2009 and follows a cohort of over 10,000 pupils who will be the first to be taught citizenship lessons right the way through school. The study combines a tracking survey, a cross-sectional survey, longitudinal case studies in twelve schools and an on-going literature review. The annual reports produced by the NFER so far (see, in particular, Cleaver et al. 2005; Whiteley 2005; Ireland et al. 2006; Kerr et al. 2007; and Benton et al. 2008) present a mixed picture. They point to differential levels of citizenship education provision in schools and to the fact that it is taking time for citizenship education to find its place in the National Curriculum with a limited degree of success in some schools. The reports suggest that citizenship lessons are likely to have a positive impact on pupil engagement in society in the longer term and they 7

8 draw attention more recently to significant improvements in the delivery and impact of citizenship education in terms of the increasing amount of time devoted to citizenship lessons, pupil s growing knowledge of citizenship, and rising numbers of schools that formally assess citizenship. However, a positive impact on young people s participation in mainstream politics should not be seen as the principal justification for, or only measure of the success of, citizenship education. Rather, citizenship lessons should be seen as an entitlement for young people to enable them to gain the knowledge and skills to participate effectively in the democratic life of the country. Students, Schools and Society: The Importance of Experiential Learning Citizenship education is most effectively taught through an interactive approach that focuses on forms of experiential learning. Drawing on principles based on the educational philosophy developed by John Dewey (see e.g. Dewey 1916) experiential learning emphasises the vital role experience plays in learning and stresses the importance of the nature of these experiences. This is contrasted with more passive, didactic forms of learning. Experiential learning seeks both to connect learning to students past experiences and promotes the notion of students actively and collaboratively engaging in participative activities that address issues that are relevant to their own lives to facilitate what educationalists have described as deep learning (Ramsden 2003). The development of knowledge and skills is facilitated through performance (Kolb 1984), enabling learners to link theory with practice, to develop their own questions and find their own answers. Service learning, for example, promotes student participation in work-based learning concerned with 8

9 achieving public goods, and unlike simple volunteering emphasises the importance of participants critically reflecting on and analysing the activities undertaken. In great contrast to the civics education taught in the past in British schools, which focused exclusively on students passively learning facts about Britain s uncodified constitution and the rule of law, citizenship lessons, through the community involvement strand, encourage students to actively engage in participative activities, and this is to be welcomed. Under civics, students were taught in a top-down, didactic way about the functions of central and local government, aspects of the legal system, and various procedural details relating to the role of the monarchy, the passage of a bill through Parliament and so on. The courses were very descriptive rather than being analytical and critical, providing naïve rather than sophisticated introductions to the realities of various political processes. This approach was (and sometimes still is) mirrored by overly hierarchical educational structures. But without an element of student participation and input into school life, citizenship education is undermined. Schools can and should act as minipolities, formative arenas for expression and civic engagement, for practice in social relations and in dealing with authority (Flanagan et al. 2007). There are also significant grounds for concern about how citizenship lessons are taught in practice. Ofsted and NFER reports, combined with anecdotal evidence from teachers, suggest that too much of what passes as citizenship education is inconsistent with the core principles of experiential and service learning, with active citizenship sometimes treated as synonymous with volunteering. The clear danger here is that school children are oxymoronically required to engage in compulsory, voluntary activities. Significant research in the United States shows that educating for democracy can and should employ a variety 9

10 of educational practices: learning through discussion and deliberation, political research and action projects, speakers and mentors, placements, internships and service learning and structured reflection (Colby et al. 2007). Beyond teaching and learning, there is the further danger that, as in the US, civic education (as it is termed over there) may increase voluntary service, but not participation in electoral politics. Bernard Crick, who was Chairman of the AGC, has rightly drawn attention to important differences between citizenship activities and volunteerism. As Crick says, volunteering can only become active citizenship when the volunteers are well briefed on the whole context, given responsibility about how to organise their actions, and debriefed afterwards in the classroom or listened to in a formal meeting about whether they think it could have been done better (Crick 2004: 83). Active citizenship, certainly on a republican understanding of the concept a strong influence on both Crick (Crick 2002: 114) and Blunkett (Blunkett 2001: 18) requires a knowledge base, involves various activities in the public realm of society, which develop skills of discovery and advocacy and includes an attempt to influence local authorities, councillors, the police or whoever may be relevant (Crick 2004: 83). It is not enough that children do good deeds in the community, however worthy and worthwhile. Knowledge, participation and deliberation are all vitally important elements that must be linked together in citizenship lessons, if it is to be active citizenship rather than just volunteering that students are engaged in. Outreach: Beyond the School Environment To become more effective, citizenship classes in England need to be less compartmentalised, structured (i.e. defined from above) and target-driven. Benton et al. 10

11 (2008), in their extensive review of citizenship education in England, show that citizenship lessons are more successful if they are integrated into the overall school environment (i.e. its educational context). The school ethos is therefore important whether the school, as a whole, is geared towards student interaction and participation. We argue further that it is equally significant for citizenship education to be integrated more widely into society and politics. Experiential learning is central to connecting what goes on in the classroom to what goes on outside, but there we can also draw important lessons from abroad (here, from different practices in the US and Germany) on the value of extending citizenship education beyond the school environment. Higher education (HE) is perhaps the most obvious new territory for the expansion of citizenship education. Over forty percent of the population now passes through HE institutions, which therefore have the potential to promote political participation amongst a significant proportion of UK citizens. Though some efforts have been made to promote good and active citizenship in universities and colleges, they are often tied to voluntary servicetype activities and rarely integrated into the learning process. In the few examples where this has happened through techniques such as service learning and internships (see Blair and Curtis 2009) its implementation has been sporadic and usually dependent upon the personal initiative of one or two teachers or lecturers. In the US, on the other hand, colleges invest resources in centres that organise and co-ordinate internships, service learning, and participation in community action projects, which allows HE teachers to easily integrate political participation into academic courses and programmes (Colby et al. 2007) and enables colleges to incorporate a civic mission into their core institutional objectives. Interestingly, in the US much of the pressure for colleges to commit to these activities has come from the 11

12 need to compete in the HE marketplace as colleges with a conscience (The Princeton Review 2005) rather than the imposition of civic education from above. In recent years UK universities have become increasingly involved in two dimensions of social activity widening participation and community/voluntary service and have become more aware of the value of student participation and feedback (e.g. through the National Student Survey). These two developments make it more likely that HE institutions can become more amenable to civic education (for themselves, their students and their communities) if there is adequate peer pressure (e.g. through the social ranking of UK universities). Within this context political science education can play an important role in: promoting political participation (broadly defined) amongst its undergraduate students; and providing outreach to schools in particular, providing expertise for the training of citizenship teachers (as in Germany where democratic education is an established feature of many political science departments). Whilst the idea of a democratic or civic mission is controversial within the discipline, good student-centred teaching practice that focuses on students experiences can benefit both pedagogical and participatory goals (Macedo et al. 2005; Sloam 2008). However, there is no reason why civic education in HE should be limited to politics students (see Colby et al. 2007). One could justifiably argue that vocational subjects from medicine, to engineering, to sports science actually offer more potential for encouraging political engagement (so long as students are made to deliberate upon their participatory experiences). Just as evidence from the US shows that extending citizenship education/civic education to HE can play an important role, evidence from Germany shows that the extension of what Germans call political education to other areas of society is also 12

13 important. Given its unique history in particular, the experience of the National Socialist dictatorship the German state places great emphasis upon the education of democratic values (e.g. tolerance) and practices (e.g. demonstrating how political action can work). Thus, citizenship education is integrated into institutions as diverse as the armed forces and trade unions and absorbed into the fabric of German society. 10 Two aspects of the German example are especially interesting for the UK. First, the resources that are invested in promoting the concepts of good and active citizenship; and, second, the effective coordination of information, education and research through the Federal Centre for Political Education (BPB) (e.g. Weißeno 2008), which provides a vast amount of educative material, sponsors conferences, meetings and research projects. 11 The national co-ordination of citizenship education in the UK through such an institution providing information on politics and on political action would potentially be enormously beneficial. It would help to establish the principle of good and active citizenship beyond the classroom and into society as a whole. Conclusion Citizenship education is not a simple solution to the problem of young people s disengagement from mainstream politics, whatever its content and however well it is taught; there is no such thing as a panacea on this issue. But the fact that the evidence of disengagement is so strong does point to a genuine problem, albeit one with complex causes, almost certainly of both demand and supply. Policy-makers, members of various interest groups and think-tanks, academics, commentators and others are right to be concerned about such evidence. Citizenship education is just one, albeit important, element of addressing the 13

14 demand side, of trying to positively influence young people s civic attitudes. And citizenship education in England is having some success but the NFER and Ofsted reports suggest that its implementation is not without problems. By adopting a more interactive approach, as sketched out in this article, we believe that citizenship classes can be made more effective, helping to provide young people with the knowledge, skills and values they need to participate in the democratic life of the country (in ways of their own choosing) and therefore ought to be a statutory entitlement for all young people in secondary schools across the UK. Despite the fact that there are significant differences in the delivery of citizenship education in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we believe that citizenship lessons in each of these countries would benefit significantly by being underpinned by the core principles of experiential and service learning. In our view, citizenship education may help address the fact that disaffection with conventional politics can be caused by a lack of citizen awareness about the complex realities of policy-making, the inherent need in liberal democracies for messy compromises in which no-one necessarily gets entirely what they want, especially given limited resources and competing interests, opinions and values, and that citizens need to be realistic about what governments can achieve in highly diverse, pluralistic societies (Stoker 2006). Moreover, as we have shown, citizenship education has the potential to extend its influence beyond the school environment, into higher education and society more generally. However, we also wish to stress that policy-makers must not rely on addressing only issues of demand and ignore problems relating to the supply of political goods (Hay 2007). The way formal politics is practiced in the UK seems for many citizens at best of peripheral importance and at worst rather irrelevant. In this context, it is hard even for politically motivated young people 14

15 to see the efficacy of political engagement or action. On the other hand, young people are interested in politics, broadly defined, and the success of Barack Obama in the US in effectively engaging this age group illustrates the potential for revitalising politics if young people s political concerns are actively addressed. 15

16 NOTES 1. The term citizenship education itself suggests a somewhat hollow and instrumental linkage between state and citizen. The Oxford English Dictionary (2009) defines citizenship as the position or status of being a citizen, with its rights and privileges. Although this article refers to citizenship education (as it is officially labelled in England), we prefer the more inclusive term civic education (used in the United States). Civic is defined as: of, pertaining, or proper to citizens; of or pertaining to a city, borough, or municipality of or pertaining to citizenship inclined to concern oneself with civic affairs; publicspirited (our emphasis) (OED 2009). 2. To achieve these goals it is essential that policy-makers and academics reflect upon best practice in the UK and abroad. 3. This is not to say that politicians have an easy job. They are faced by an electorate that is more diverse in terms of values and lifestyles (Giddens 1991; Inglehart 1997) in a risk society (Beck 1992) where a job for life has become a thing of the past. In this scenario, parties have to do more than just appeal to class interests (as was often the case in the past). 4. The withdrawal of the state in previous decades has had a direct impact on the lives of young people from the reduction of benefits to the selling off of school playing fields. This has decreased young people s attachment to the state, which is especially true for those who are socially excluded at the margins of society. 5. Young people furthermore suffer from a (largely unfair) depiction by the media as lazy (e.g. benefit scroungers ), violent (e.g. media reporting on teenage stabbings in London, huge increases in summary penalties and ASBOs) and politically apathetic. 6. Whilst we agree with Hay et al. (2008) and others that the withdrawal of the state and the off-loading of responsibilities creates problems in terms of democratic accountability, we argue it is less about distancing and more about the lack of awareness of how politics works, where responsibility lies and the diffusion of political power away from Westminster (e.g. the huge ignorance about the existing powers of the EU), and the absence of a feeling of efficacy with regard to political participation. 7. Although traditional concerns like healthcare and education remain important, issues of individual interest (e.g. better facilities for young people), issues of special generational concern (e.g. drugs, street crime) as well as post-materialist and international issues (e.g. the environment, fair trade) have greater resonance for this cohort of young people (Citizenship Foundation 2005; Haste 2005). Marsh et al. (2007) try to provide a road-map of young people s politics, but there is a great need for further research in this area, especially as Hay et al. (2008) argue to see how young people s conceptions about politics are constructed. 8. This is correct at the time of writing. It is not, however, to imply that citizenship lessons are not taught in these countries. In Wales lessons in citizenship are provided by schools through a cross-curricular personal and social education framework. In Scotland all subjects are supposed to feed into citizenship education, with issues deemed relevant to citizenship taught through whole-school and cross-curricular activities (see Andrews and Mycock 2007 for an overview of the citizenship education policy divergence across the UK). 9. Split in 2007 into the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. 10. It must be added that political participation in Germany s devolved system of government is significantly assisted by the existence of more effective instruments of citizenship participation (e.g. citizen initiatives ) and stronger regional and local government than in the UK. 11. The BPB acts as a focus for regional centres for political education that are established in 15 of Germany s 16 federal states. 16

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23 Ben Kisby holds an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Grant Number: PTA in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield which provided the support that enabled him to undertake this work. James Sloam is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London. James.Sloam@rhul.ac.uk 23