ABSTRACT
This activity provides the student of citizenship with an opportunity to look at a number of successful participants in society and plot some of their characteristics against a range of different criteria. One question that might be raised is, ‘why those characteristics?’. Why not a characteristic like whether they are left or right handed? The reason why the characteristics in the question box have been chosen is because they are felt to be fundamentally important in their ability to influence a citizen’s life chances. (If the research had been related to sport, the issue of whether somebody was left or right handed would be very relevant, because of the disproportionate percentage of successful left handed sports people in those sports like cricket that need hand/eye coordination.) Not only are those characteristics felt to be of fundamental importance in influencing a citizen’s life chances, but there is considerable evidence to support the view that social class, sex/gender, sexuality, ethnicity and age have an influence on a citizen’s ability to participate successfully in society. Before taking the debate forward, it is necessary to establish some degree of clarity regarding these categories.
