Active citizenship
What are my rights and responsibilities in communities, cultures and economies?
Schooling was founded on the development of students as worthwhile and contributing citizens. Producing active citizens remains a specific goal of schooling-whether the active citizens are compliant members of an assumed social order, participants within given social structures, or active agents of social change.
This approach involves students in the reinvigoration of valued social practices and civic institutions through exercising their democratic rights and responsibilities. In recent times, there has been increased advocacy for the importance of preparing students to play a more active role in society.
This view of citizenship suggests that schools engage students in active participation in social, political and economic issues in communities, as well as in their school life and studies. Communities take on a different perspective when viewed not merely as physical spaces with clearly defined boundaries but as a series of interacting, intersecting social relationships and groupings. Important social changes and issues may have local impacts, but also reflect global dynamics. The power of communications technology in redefining what were once reasonably static and defined boundaries has to be acknowledged in this context. For example, the online economy is changing patterns of consumption, production and delivery of goods and services. It has created new industries based on products and services especially designed to exploit these opportunities.
Also, the election of governments, the fall of political regimes, and the gruesome details of war are portrayed in our homes on tiny screens every day. Young people need help in understanding the significance of these events and some criteria for evaluating them.
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Changing patterns of global communications have resulted in a blurring between virtual and actual communities. Building and maintaining communities has moved from being a local, site-specific issue towards a new concept of communities-of interest and leisure, of business, or perhaps of protest. Community activity entails participation in globalised cultures, economies and communities. These communities already exist, and are rapidly being extended, across a wide range of both physical and virtual contexts. An active citizen participates in and critiques a range of communities, groups, organisations and institutions well beyond the boundaries of the school fence - and, indeed, national borders.
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While communities are changing, so too are their building blocks - cultural identities. Shifting versions of what counts as cultural participation mean that we can no longer rely solely on a prescribed set of valued cultural knowledges. Instead, globalisation has reconfigured cultural identity in terms of capacities of intercultural communication. This involves developing skills and knowledges of how people in other cultures undertake their social and economic business. Productive diversity is achieved when we move away from a monolingual and monocultural view of the world to embrace how others see it. Solving problems from a monocultural perspective narrows choices and limits engagement with the spectrum of life. Looking through the eyes of others expands our horizons and ways of viewing reality.
Students are also challenged to understand and critique discriminatory practices, not only as personal or local cultural identity issues but also as having national and international dimensions. Students are thereby able to explicate the nature of inclusion and exclusion, as well as rights and responsibilities embodied in the concept of citizenship.
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The current global economic environment is characterised by accelerated change driven by applications of new technologies, intense domestic and international competition, and increasing interdependence of nation-state economies. Many people have viewed this new environment as centring on a knowledge economy. Given this shift, the need to develop students' economic understandings is now a crucial factor underpinning the economic growth of our own society. Citizenship has an economic dimension in addition to its legal and political roots and its social and cultural extensions. It is essential for students to be given early and significant opportunities to understand how their lives and that of their families and communities are embedded in local and global economies. (E-commerce was alluded to in the introduction to this New Basics category, Active citizenship.)
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All civic institutions and social movements have sprung from the active participation of citizens, from people exercising their rights and accepting their responsibilities in society. Examples of civic institutions include governments, courts, political parties, trade unions, churches and schools. Social movements are usually centred around a cause based on perceived injustices often perpetuated by such civic institutions. Citizenship is predicated on a long and complex set of historical progressions involving significant social movements. Tracking such historical development is an integral part of any citizenship program in schools.
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