The Practice of Citizenship: embracing diversity in learning and teaching with implications for in–service training and professional development

Abstract

This article develops the concept of ‘mainstreaming’ citizenship within schools and organisations as an approach that can stimulate the greater diversity on teaching and learning necessary to accommodate conditions of rapid social change. Greater diversity is not to say less educational effectiveness, but more, because ‘mainstreaming’ citizenship means emphasising values of mutual co–operation and trust. The ‘rooting’ of democracy within these values is essential for accommodating social diversity, but it means citizenship education can be a catalyst for a critical re–evaluation of the democratic structure and practice of schools, by addressing not just narrow academic or economic objectives, but wider political, social and cultural ones, which influence individual values and norms. In this respect, the vision of educating for citizenship needs to acknowledge the value of reciprocity between schools, community and workplace as sites for the nurture of future citizens. Schools cannot be the sole arbiters of citizenship education, but grasping the potential for dynamic change, diversity and improvement that education for citizenship presents, schools can become the stimulus for the development of an inclusive practice of citizenship appropriate and relevant for a twenty–first century multicultural society