ABSTRACT
Large-scale quantitative studies on citizenship and citizenship education research have advanced an international and comparative field of democratic citizenship education. Their instruments, however, informed by theoretical variables constructed in Western Europe and North America mostly measure young people's understandings of a predefined construct of democratic citizenship. Recent studies that report on young people's descriptions and interpretations of citizenship issues and concepts show that a new methodology of narrating young people's individual conceptualisations of citizenship is emerging. The author argues that the methods of inquiry into conceptualisations of citizenship require: (1) a social constructionist ontology that views reality as socially constructed; (2) a wide-ranging operational definition of citizenship; and (3) open-ended questions that facilitate the self-reporting, reflection and discussions of experiences regarded as good citizenship. The author draws on evidence from citizenship education research in Lebanon that examines young people's conceptualisations of citizenship and illustrates constructs particular to Lebanon and the wider region.
