(Re)creating citizenship: Saskatchewan high school students’ understandings of the ‘good’ citizen

Abstract

Citizenship education is of central importance in curriculum and schooling, as evidenced by the proliferation of research and writing in the area over the last 20 years. Building on existing citizenship literature, this paper discusses one aspect of a larger project exploring the ways in which citizenship is discursively produced in officially mandated school curriculum and the ways in which students themselves understand and take up narratives of ‘good’ citizenship in light of their diverse experiences and social locations. Using an image-based approach to research, students visually represented and then discussed with researchers their perceptions of good citizenship. What became apparent through the analysis of images and focus group transcripts was the ease with which students, regardless of their social locations, reproduced commonsense narratives of ‘good’ citizenship, including socially sanctioned concern for the environment, a sense of nationalism and national pride, respect for relationships and a communal ethos, and the official discourse of multiculturalism. Missing from students’ understandings of ‘good’ citizenship was any kind of social analysis, suggesting that they largely accepted citizenship as universally realized and experienced by individuals.

Keywords:

• citizenship education
• curriculum
• multiculturalism
• nationalism
• social studies

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the students who shared their time and perceptions with us, and the teachers who offered up their classrooms. Thanks also to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding this work, and to Dr Alan Sears at the University of New Brunswick for his ongoing support and helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

1. Pseudonyms are used in place of the actual school and student names.

2. According to Statistics Canada, ‘low income can be measured using three different methods: Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICOs), Low Income Measure (LIM), and Market Basket Measure (MBM). All three determine an income threshold necessary to meet the basic needs of an individual or family. Based on these complex formulae, it is difficult to provide a specific dollar amount as an indicator of low income.