ABSTRACT
In all formal education systems someone, somewhere, decides what is to be taught, and how. This, however, is just the beginning. What happens in classrooms is influenced by the informal as well as the formal, the global as well as the national and the local. It is these processes of governance that are the subject of this chapter. In 2002, the government in England decided that citizenship should be taught in schools. Yet decisions about what may be taught and in what ways were not fixed in stone, particularly given the ‘light touch’ approach that was adopted (QCA, 1998). Who governs the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of citizenship education continues to be open to debate, and – given the nature and content of the subject – is open to even more political influence than other subjects. Why is it relevant to consider the governance of citizenship education in a
book such as this? We argue here that the debate about who governs citizenship education links to a wider debate about who governs our societies, economies, environment and our education systems. This is the very stuff of citizenship education. In this chapter, we propose that patterns of rule in citizenship education create at least two challenges for practitioners. The first relates to how teachers conceptualise their own role in governing citizenship education, since it is they who decide (at least in part) what and how they teach, and who else they involve in such decisions. The second relates to how practitioners support young people to develop as ‘active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life’ (QCA, 1998: 7). We propose that the critical and mindful application of concepts of governance and governing can support practitioners and young people in recognising and engaging in new public spaces for democratic engagement beyond national government, including in their own classrooms.
