ABSTRACT
The 1990s, according to Sir Ralf Dahrendorf, will be ‘the decade of the citizen’ (Keane, 1990). Some valuable light has been shone on the meanings associated with the complex area of citizenship by Oliver and Heater (1994):
Individuals are citizens when they practise civic virtue and good citizenship, enjoy but do not exploit their civil and political rights, contribute to and receive social and economic benefits, do not allow any sense of national identity to justify discriminating or stereotyping of others, experience a sense of non-exclusive multiple citizenship and, by their example, teach citizenship to others. (Oliver and Heater, 1994, p.8)
This chapter explores the meaning of education for citizenship and outlines some ways in which practical work can be undertaken. There are four main sections to the chapter: firstly, general comments are made on the nature of political learning in schools and the reasons for promoting different forms of that learning at different times; secondly, some of the main organizations which promote and investigate citizenship education are reviewed and recommendations by two of the most prestigious of those bodies are analysed; thirdly, a few examples of models of citizenship education are sketched; and finally practical suggestions are made based on a review of available literature and recent school practice.
