ABSTRACT
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan,
Ontario and Alberta. Since the introduction of citizenship education into the secondary
school curriculum in England in 2002, many commentators have suggested that there are
fruitful links between citizenship and history (Kerr 1993; Davies and John 1995; QCA 1998;
Wrenn 1999; Davies 2000; Arthur et al. 2001; Crick 2001; Phillips 2002). In presenting their
case for citizenship education, the Advisory Group (QCA 1998: 22) recommended that
‘schools consider combining elements of citizenship education with other subjects’ adding
that ‘combinations of citizenship and history have obvious educational merit’. Following
the publication of the Advisory Group’s report, its chair Bernard Crick (2001: xiv) wrote:
[M]y personal view, that I have had to be a little bit discreet about at times, is that
of all the other subjects History may have (should have) overall the greatest role to
play…Seeley long ago said that politics without history has no root, and that history
without politics has no fruit – and I take it that even then he meant both the disciplines
and the activities. The most common reason that something happens is that some
antecedent thing or things occurred in the proximate past, and so on back as far as
one needs to understand…And I think the professional case is strong also. Historians
in discussing alternative interpretations of complex events, say of the English Civil
War…, the growth of the franchise, political and social change, are developing the kind
of skills of informed discussion and concern for evidence that are at the heart of the
citizenship order and, indeed, the practice of Citizenship.
