The Influence of School Ethos on Pupils’ Citizenship Attitudes

Abstract

In recent years the term education for citizenship has gained increasing significance and it has been widely argued that the school has a crucial role to play in developing appropriate attitudes and abilities. This paper set out to explore this issue by investigating the relationship between the espoused ethos of a school and its apparent effect on the citizenship attitudes of its pupils. Two sets of pupils in two contrasting schools were chosen for the study. The analysis of the results of the questionnaire revealed that the school did influence its pupils particularly in relation to democratic values and the rights and freedoms of individuals. However, the evidence was marginal and the paper ends with a plea for further research into this crucial area.