Values and visibility: the implementation and assessment of citizenship education in schools

Abstract

This article demonstrates that while the more obvious and visible forms of citizenship education (such as introducing it as a new subject on the timetable and a public examination option) are being endorsed and promoted in official discourse, less visible forms (such as attending to ethics and values across the curriculum or the impact of assessment policies on school ethos) are receiving insufficient attention. Examples are provided from recent research to illustrate the importance of values both across the curriculum and in the assessment of citizenship. It is argued that if children are to see beyond the boundaries of their own lives they need to see their citizenship as more than a subject. The conclusion is drawn that the visibility of citizenship must be ethical, and even spiritual, if it is to cope with the complex moral matter of helping children to live in a liberal democracy.

Acknowledgements

The author should like to thank Professor Mark Halstead for prompting him to consider the broad aims and values of Citizenship education. The author should also like to thank Professor Audrey Osler and this journal's anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.