Abstract
Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) in schools is nothing if not problematic. The debate about whether it should be taught discretely, or as part of a cohesive cross-curricular whole school interdisciplinary matrix combining ethics, critical thinking and community activism, seems to ricochet back and forth like a ping pong ball flying off the bats of governments, academics, schools and, not least, of the teachers themselves.
In Australia, the focus of this book – where there appears to be a preoccupation with balancing some residual guilt about the past treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with its newly embraced locus as an Asian and Asiacentric nation – issues of citizenship have taken on a more urgent character. Furthermore, the twin liberal orthodoxies of diversity and human rights, which are paramount in a country with high rates of immigration, and worrying evidence of radicalisation of the young in the cities, have raised inevitable questions about allegiance and identity. This book, however, gives rather too much space to straightforward pedagogical decisions about, for example, how CCE can be crammed into the busy curriculum schedule of schools. These are surely matters to be left to the discretion of school leaders. This focus comes at the expense of exploring more fundamental issues, which are mentioned in the book but not really addressed in any depth. Surely of greater interest to the general reader are questions such as the following.
Given that CCE is values driven and currently rests its case on certain assumptions about the rights and responsibilities and correct attitudes of a good citizen, should those assumptions not be tested more rigorously? As critical thinkers, would students not be better off learning to challenge assumptions? Or might it not be more practical to keep CCE free of values altogether, and thereby also free from the accusation of furthering a specific agenda?
If critical and moral thinking are, as set out in the CCE curriculum, the central requirements of the active citizen, then are CCE educators themselves guilty of contradiction in presenting the students with apparently irrefutable assumptions around democracy, diversity, and human rights? If critical thinking in students is the principal aim of the educators, then why package it up as part of CCE and not just teach it without reference to civics altogether?
If active citizenship, as promoted in this book, is a necessary requirement of democracies, then where does that leave countries such as China and Russia, which doubtless have their own programmes of citizenship based on different assumptions of close adherence to the state, the race and the nation?
At a time when universities in the Western world are witnessing attacks on free speech by a vocal minority in the name of political correctness, how should CCE be addressing this new phenomenon, and how are students to be equipped to deal with it? In the age of the social media echo chamber, how is citizenship to be rescued from single-issue lobby groups seeking to acquire more influence than the democratic ballot box?
Finally, how can schools – which are in the main organisationally undemocratic – be expected to in some way replicate democratic practices and act as if they are a microcosm of the State? And why is it the job of schools anyway to compensate for the citizenship deficit where it is seen to exist?
The book’s aims are modest and straightforward, and it does not set out to spark controversy or to tackle head on most of the questions raised above. But they will surely need to be confronted if students are to achieve some of the attributes of mature citizenship in Australia and globally, to which the contributors all unanimously appear to aspire. In seeking to avoid editorial bias beyond the reasonable plea for more teaching of the subject, it also avoids any controversy. Had it not done so, it might have been likely to appeal to a wider readership than the academic (especially in CCE) fraternity from which nearly all the contributors were drawn.
Through its 15 contributing authors, the book firstly traces the recent history of attempts, eventually successful, to have their subject formally included in the Australian National Curriculum, ending on a fairly optimistic note for its future as a discrete discipline. The second section presents some interesting perspectives, such as the notions of global vs national citizenship and the requirement in Australia for ‘Asia literacy’ in what one contributor somewhat prematurely describes as the ‘Asian century’. The third section draws some comparisons with the experience of CCE educators in other countries including the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The main idea of CCE, as I have understood from reading this book, is to work towards a better world. The word ‘Utopia’ is actually used on more than one occasion without any sense of irony. This ideal, once expressed, is fostered throughout the book in a tone that relies frequently on well-meaning normative statements of how things ought to be. By consistently linking the notion of the mature, informed and moral citizen to the modern liberal ideal of a democratic society in which climate change is Man’s greatest threat, where diversity is the new unity, and where human rights, race and gender are the new shibboleths, the map is already laid out in the image of the current (adult) generation. These are all doubtless laudable aims, but why do educators so often assume that the world they hope for will be the one that their students will inherit? Future citizens will inevitably be put to the test by changing events, and it is surely best for them to be equipped for change, and with the good sense to separate truth from dogma, however well-intentioned that may be.
Some of the contributions to this book rely on the jargon of their discipline rather than on making their points in a straightforward way. This is surely what academics in Humanities disciplines such as Civics need to get away from if they want their subject to be enjoyed and appreciated more widely and deeply. Here are two out of several examples of language usage which either obscure the intended meaning or simply state the obvious: ‘Harris has argued that “even well-intentioned efforts to enhance and defend young peoples’ entitlement to legitimately inhabit the category of citizen ought to be interrogated as part of the circuitry of citizenship technology”’ (p. 128)
and the following: ‘There is a need to work to ensure that through effective citizenship education, ethnocentrism is negated, and students’ connection with contemporary issues is built, so they can be active and informed citizens and be able to participate positively in multiple challenges in their world’. (p. 96)
But to be fair, there are some memorable and lucid passages in the book, which go right to the heart of the problem of CCE and how it is interpreted and understood. In the chapter dedicated to the problems of teaching CCE to learners from differing cultures, Peterson and Tudball reference the crucial relationship between multiculturalism and interculturalism. Whereas the former celebrates cultural differences and diversity per se, and can thereby be perceived as relativistic and naïve, the latter is more critical, more synthesising and more challenging to illiberal practices and traditions. Similarly enlightening is a passage in ‘A view from England’ by Ian Davies, in which he sets out the four key perspectives about what should be taught – liberal, scientific, developmental, and social meliorism; it is his view that the last of these, which implies idealism about improving the world, is currently in vogue in the UK. The book would have been improved with more of these insightful analyses and fewer of the claims that link more CCE with a better world, which is clearly an objective that can never be accurately measured.
Viewed as an audit of current practice set in the context of recent social, political and education developments in Australia and overseas, the book is informative and useful. It does the job of making a case for CCE in a world in which competing social trends are shifting under the effects of globalisation and movement of peoples – mainly, but not exclusively, in the direction towards the developed West. But the book’s contributions are too uniform and, as such, they do not really stimulate a debate about where CCE stands in a world which is increasingly being divided between the ‘Anywheres’ and the ‘Somewheres’, rather than between the Left and the Right. The ‘Anywheres’ look to global citizenship, whilst the ‘Somewheres’ treasure their local and national allegiances. How these two opposing forces can be reconciled will surely be the greatest challenge to our notions of what citizenship will both confer and demand. The book also does not really address the problems of students emerging from schools into a world where debate is anything but reasonable, critical, perspectival and rational. Political debate has been on a downward spiral of late, with name-calling increasingly used as a substitute for reasoned argument. How are these young critical thinkers going to cope in the brave new world of safe spaces and no-platforming?
Responsible citizenship is a worthy aim in itself, and Citizenship Education is an attempt by governments to mandate schools to do their bit as shapers of young minds. The book’s editors could have done two things to make this volume a much more interesting and accessible read. Firstly, they could have purged the various contributions of stating the same repetitive claims about their subject and making too many unprovable generalisations. Once would have been enough! And secondly, they could have invited more controversy and unorthodoxy in their choices of contributors and content. I look forward to the sequel, if that is what it can deliver.