EDUCATING LEARNER-CITIZENS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: A GENDERED
APPROACH TO CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY.
MADELEINE ARNOT
Plenary Address for the Nordic Educational Research Association 32nd Annual Congress,
'The Positioning of Education in Contemporary Knowledge Society, Reykjavik, March
2004.
INTRODUCTION
This paper focuses on the concept of social change as a yardstick with which to evaluate
current educational practice. There are many different theories of social change but what
they have in common at the most basic level is an understanding that many (although not
all) traditional structures and conventions of the 20th century cannot easily remain the
same in the face of economic and cultural globalisation.
The line of thought I wish to follow in this presentation is that provided by the German
social theorists Ulrich Beck and Elizabeth Gernsheim Beck (2002) who identify what
they call the two ’epochal forces of second modernity’. Taking a rather upbeat tone, they
argue that:
Two epochal processes above all others, individualisation and
globalisation, are changing the foundations of living together in all
spheres of social action. Both only superficially appear to be threats:
they force but they also permit society to prepare and reshape itself for
a second modernity. .....cultural individualisation and globalisation
create precisely that historical orientation and those preconditions for
an adaptation of institutions to a coming second modernity (Beck and
Beck-Gernsheim, 2002, 169, my emphasis).
The focus of my paper is particularly on the processes of individualisation since this is a
concept that is increasingly in use to explain young people’s attitudes to their futures.
Youth cultural researchers have found that young people today employ the language of
individualisation, the concepts of freedom and choice, to justify their choices and
decisions. There is therefore great interest in the ways in which individualisation is being
worked on and by the younger generation.
In contrast, there appears to be relatively less social analysis of how individualisation as
an epochal process has shaped the educational world especially its curriculum and
pedagogy. I would like to suggest the ways in which the discussion of individualisation
can be brought into an analysis of education. I am particularly concerned about the
1
political implications of this process for the alleviation of social injustice and the
promotion of democratic education. I am interested in the dilemma we now face in
determining what sort of citizens we hope to educate for the future and how best we can
prepare youth for the extent and nature of such major social change.
The concept of the learner citizen is a useful one since it signals the important role that
the education system plays in educating young people for citizenship and educating them
about citizenship. I am going to distinguish between the Citizen as Learner and the
Learner as Citizen. The citizen as learner is contradictory since children have not been
categorised as citizens – but what I will focus on is the emergence of new discussions
about learners and their rights in the classroom and in relation to their own learning.
Under the second theme, I will focus on the learner as future citizen being prepared
through citizenship education courses that are attracting increasing international interest.
In both cases I will be bring a gender analysis into play.
One of the arguments I want to make is that new notions of pupil rights in classroom
learning and citizenship education are linked together. Both reflect, although often not
explicitly, the growing individualisation of society. In the first case, we find the extension
of individualisation in the classroom setting and in the second case we find the reactions
by governments to attempt to hold back change by reasserting traditional values in effect
masking the effects of individualisation in society. These scenarios are troubling ones –
they challenge us to consider whether we as educators should support the notion of
individualisation.
Individualisation as Constraint or as Freedom?
Leif Moos, a Danish educationalist writing in a new anthology on Democratic Learning
(Macbeath and Moos, 2004) brings to our attention Habermas’ (2001) four defining
characteristics of globalising societies - all of which do not bode well for democratic
education or for those committed to using education to alleviate social inequalities and
promoting social justice. The four characteristics are:
1. An anthropological view of human beings as rational instruments
willing and able to make informed decisions and to offer their labour
freely in the marketplace;
2. An image of a post-egalitarian society that tolerates social
marginalisation, expulsion and exclusion;
3. An image of a democracy where citizens are reduced to consumers in a
market society and where the role of the state is redefined to that of a
service agency for clients and consumers; and,
4. A view that policy should be aimed at dismantling state regulation
(quoted in Moos, 2004:2).
In such globalising societies, governance is about market efficiency not about promoting
the sort of civil society which is regulated by ‘communication and community, orality
and ethics, and trust and reciprocity between subjects’ (ibid, p2). As Moos points out, in
2
this new scenario, governance shifts from the state down to the classroom to the
individual. Governance is through the promotion of self- managing individuals. There is
now a new individualised relationship to governance. He quotes Peters et al. (2000:118):
No longer are citizens presumed to be members of a political
community, which it is the business of a particular form of governance
to express. The old and presumed shared political process of the social
contract disappears in favour of a disaggregated and individualised
relationship to governance. (quoted in Moos, 2004:3)
The notion of a globalised and marketised society that is being cultivated goes directly
against the Scandinavian traditions where democracy is at the heart of education. Can a
tradition with its emphasis on democratic schools, leaderships and democratic learning
come to terms with this agenda? In the UK, the problem is less severe, not least because
democratic principles historically were seriously compromised by the formation of a
selective educational system and in the main strongly framed undemocratic classrooms
and schools.
However, as we have already seen, there are those who take an optimistic view of
globalisation and its attendant changes to learning cultures. For some, the whole concept
of individualisation and the self-managing individual is associated with greater
democratic freedoms. Countering those who see the negative destructive effects of
globalised economies and a risk society, Beck and Gernsheim (2002) and Beck (1992)
see what might be the positive future experiences of what they call Freedom's Children children who have been brought up, unlike their parents, to put themselves at the centre
of their own life plans, to become choosers, or consumers of what life has to offer.
They argue that in this new 'second' stage of modernity, the 'quality of the social and the
political' will be changed so that individuals no longer locate themselves in traditional
communities, with traditional identities of class, gender and ethnicity. They argue that
ascribed statuses, such as class, gender ethnicity and regionality (which traditionally have
been associated with social inequality) will pale into significance - normative biographies
will be replaced by choice biographies and new alliances will be formed by individuals
on the basis of shared common risks rather than any restrictive notion of social contract
(Beck 1992).
This new culture is described as a self-culture which combines the 'indeterminancy of
self and of the ensuing conflicts, crises and developmental opportunities and a binding or
bonding of self-oriented individuals to, with and against one another' (op.cit : 42). Central
to this self- culture are the processes of reflexive individualisation in which individuals
come to see themselves as centres of their own life world. People's lives become an art
form - something to be created. In the first stage of modernity, the ethos was of 'being
individual' and reflective - in contrast, the new generation of youth are now 'becoming
individual' through reflexivity. The new credo is not 'I think therefore I am' but rather 'I
am I' (Bauman, 1999: vii).
3
Evidence of the development of this self-culture is already visible in a variety of social
changes:






the new forms of social movement that act as forms of 'resistance within civil
society';
'the many kinds of moral and aesthetic experimentation' by people on how they
live their lives, with their emotions, their personal relationships, 'parenthood, sex
and love'.
the 'great unfinished experiment' with healthy eating shifting people's relationship
to nature and their bodies;
'the new forms of active empathy' with animal rights, asylum seekers, AIDs
victims, drug addicts;
the new forms of vigilantes protecting 'niches of prosperity';
the conflicts, great and small, between men and women in all spheres. (Beck and
Beck-Gernsheim, op.cit.:44 )
The political implications are major. In this century, Freedom’s Children will experience
difficulty in being directed from above or being forced into particular identities or types
of commitment, preferring their own self organisation and political action which is
focused on different activities rather than participation in a given democratic order. They
have after all already moved outside the left-right spectrum, their identifications are
already more fluid.
Young people’s politics now involves ‘complaining, campaigning and acting about all
things possible and impossible'. It develops through the centrifugal dynamic of a 'life of
one's own'. Such politics is not trapped within traditional conventions or boundaries. The
form of civic participation for them is not the ballot box, but rather the right to take
charge of matters that are thought to be important. The self-culture represents a third
sphere or sector - outside the money economy and political ballot box. What
characterises this culture is an 'internationalised practising consciousness of freedom'
(Beck and Beck Gernsheim, op.cit, p 43).
This increase in freedom, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim argue, is not a crisis - it is only a
crisis if such freedom is understood as a threat to the traditional authority structures and
forms of social privilege which sustained the first stage of modernity. Changing values
(especially those of self-development) and acceptance of democracy arguably can go
hand in hand. There is no necessary connection between this legally sanctioned
individualism and either an inflation of material demands or a breaking down of altruism
and community. Indeed such individualisation might even lead to a rejection of the
domination of work-focused 'growth oriented labour society' (ibid: 162) a questioning of
the custodians of public interest and a great desire for more personal fulfilment, time and
pleasure. Reflexive individualisation could also, if focused, ensure more co-operative or
altruistic individualists who is able to think for themselves and live for others at the same
time (ibid: 162).
4
Beck argues that if we are fortunate, in the new world, traditional certainty will perish
and be replaced by 'legally sanctioned individualism for everyone' (ibid,.157). The new
forms of society will provide the conditions for an internalised democracy which is an
extension of the Western heritage - another stage in the pursuit of individual development
and social fulfilment In this context, Western European democracy reaches its zenith.
Clearly, educating Freedom's Children with new sets of values and a sense of belonging
is quite a challenge. Crude moral codes or simple national identities already look very
dated and inappropriate but then so do the forms of educational knowledge in current
curricula. Critical thinking will need to address major cross -generational chasms about
what forms of knowledge are valued. Young people as another German commentator
argued, now:
Find the face a world that no longer falls into two camps, but rather into
a vast group of fracture lines, cracks and gaps among which no one any
longer knows the way. The future has become multi-dimensional; the
patterns of explanation offered by older people are no longer effective...
There are many more riddles than solutions, and even the solutions,
looked at more closely, prove to be sacks full of riddles
(Sichtermann quoted in Beck and Beck-Gernsheim op cit., footnote 11,
p 161/171).
In the new social order, educational institutions should be able to provide basic social
and political rights and offer opportunities to: develop an informational base; acquire
the skills of preparedness for conflict, capacity for compromise, civic courage, curiosity,
tolerance of ambiguity and the making of alliances. These forms of education would
also have to stress the malleability of knowledge, the uncertainty of explanations and
the relativity of perspective. Knowledge would be non-linear, as would institutions.
There would not necessarily be interlocking system of institutions since strong
connections would be established between individuals and the socio-technical world
(Bauman, 2002).
In such a future it may make little sense in talking about knowledge as property or
subject positions - rather that reflexive modern individual could be offered knowledge
that was 'possibilistic, probabilistic and uncertain' (Lasch, 2002). Learning in the future
is likely to be intense, at speed, with ranges of choice and opportunities for immediate
decision- making. The individual would be nomadic, finding the rules and roles
himself or herself - there would be a de-normalisation of roles.
This transformation of the learner citizen is to some extent now underway but not
necessarily in the utopian fashion described by Beck. As Bernstein (2000) argued, the
UK has recently seen a major shift away from child centred progressive pedagogies
towards the paradoxical if not 'pathological/schizoid' position' associated with the visible
performance-based pedagogies of the late twentieth century. Today we have a unique
coupling - a 'pedagogical janus' combining, on the one hand, self -regulating autonomous
modes and, on the other hand, market oriented modes. Retrospective (backward looking)
5
and prospective (forward looking identities are combined (Beck, 2002). Neo-liberal
agendas can be found clustered around the complex and often contradictory notions of
possessive individualism coupled with moral agendas worrying about social exclusion
and creating new citizenship identities to hold society together, whilst tearing apart the
social fabric.
Needless to say, neo-liberalism is not that enamoured with the notion of Freedom´s
Children. The freedom associated with individualisation is in good hands according to
Beck if institutions react with 'composure'. However, it is hard to say that the UK
government has acted with composure. Whilst promoting freedoms especially in the
discourses around choice and consumer needs, it has nevertheless been fearful of the
consequences of such freedom. Education is associated now with increased rather than
less regulation. We have the most tested children in Europe. At the same time we have
encouraged materialism and high levels of competitiveness. Such institutional and
political responses create what Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002:165 ) called the 'ugly
citizen' - where civic virtues turn ugly and aggressive (ibid 165). Freedom is associated,
for example, with the possessive and ego-istical individualism of l990s neo liberalism (c.f
Thatcher, Reagan, Bush). Instead of seeing such opportunities as a desirable and
inevitable product of democratic evolution, individualism is demonised and treated as
anomic.
It is in this somewhat complex and problematic context that we as educators have had to
come to terms with individualising processes. What we can see is that new discussions
about citizenship education, about democratic learning and about pupil voice and
consultation are trying to revitalise the democratic debate - debates about freedom,
rights, solidarity and social justice - over and above such increases in state regulation and
surveillance. It is at the level of classroom learning that these tensions between
individualisation and democracy are played out.
Citizen as Learner
Individualisation is already affecting schooling in a diverse range of ways. We are
already discussing the flexible school the role of ICT learning which can be highly
individualised, flexibilisation of the curriculum etc. Schools in the UK now stress the
independent learner taking control over their own learning. The discourse of independent
learning and of the self-managing pupil has now shaped the language of teaching.
Children are encouraged to see themselves as choosers making their own choices about
school, about work, about life plans.
However, the process of reflexive individualisation when recontextualised within
essentially modernist institutional settings and regimes can look rather different from that
described by Beck and Beck Gernsheim. Rather than generate counter narratives and
alternative 'mindsets' , (Rowan et al, 2002) exploring the 'kindness and beauty' of the
citizen (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002:165), the processes of individualisation is
associated with high performance cultures and expectations, rather than democratic
freedoms.
6
Individualisation, from this point of view, becomes a mechanism of surveillance and
regulation more than freedom. Individual learner citizens are now expected to assess and
evaluate their own learning and have been given the responsibility of improving their
own performance - they are expected to acts as clients or patients in their own treatment.
At the same time, they are not expected to take control of the nature of their learning and
its processes. Such individualisation, therefore, is not coupled with strong notions of
civic agency in relation to learning and the learning experience.
As the Finnish sociologists Tuula Gordon, Elina Lahelma and Janet Holland (a British
sociologist) argued, schooling represents the stage of transition from pupil to citizen.
Education prepares children to take up their place as future citizens. A process of
normalisation takes place in schools, which is based on conceptions of proper
adulthood and the rights and duties of citizens. In this process, children and
young people are seen as abstract 'pupils', abstracted from diverse social and
cultural contexts, and trained equally to become the future citizens. (Gordon et al,
2000:188-9).
In their study, they found that there were few spaces in the schools in the UK for
example, where pupils can achieve what they call agentic embodiment - opportunities to
enact their agency. In the English and Finnish secondary schools they researched, young
people followed the route from pupil to citizen within the official school, the informal
school and the physical school without being able control the forms of educational
knowledge taught to them, or the curriculum of the body which organised them through
varied time-space paths.
The authors point out therefore that the spaces for agency, negotiation, avoidance,
opposition and resistance are limited. When exercised such spaces are significant in the
context of tensions between emancipation and regulation, control and agency (187-8).
Within the strongly externally controlled pedagogies of marketised economies, the
concept of agency within learning is heavily circumscribed. The route to citizenship
through these levels of schooling is also socially differentiated : boys for example were
found to be provided with more space to exercise agency, whilst far less physical and
emotional space is offered to girls. 'Patterns of student agency are thus prefigured by
existing gender inequalities' (200).
What we learn from such research is that social differences such as those of gender,
ethnicity and class from the 'external environment' (Jorgensen, 2004) enter into the
learning process and deeply distort the 'inner environment' of learning outcomes often
and perhaps increasingly in very subtle ways. Although Beck argues that traditional
social identities and relations will be transformed through the processes of reflexive
individualisation, contemporary research suggests that social inequalities instead will
shape such processes of individualisation. Social relations increasingly become
'masked' in the pedagogic relationships of individualised learning. At the heart of
market oriented performance pedagogies lie social constructed and value laden concepts
7
of the learner and appropriate learning relationships. However we are not necessarily
able to see or recognise such social constructions. Learning styles, assessment modes,
even the seemingly democratic process of student consultation on which contemporary
notions about 'the independent learner' are based encourage us to misrecognise learning
as socially neutral cognitive processes. They redirect attention away from the
fundamentally social nature of knowledge transmission and acquisition (Bernstein,
2000).
For example, currently those interested in independent learning and the self- managing
learner have focused attention on the importance of eliciting and working with pupil
voice. They emphasise the importance of pupil voice as a means of improving
individual learning (Arnot and Reay, 2004). Thus, the voice of the child currently has
symbolic significance for supporters of a range of democratic educational agendas.
Increasingly the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1989) is
brought to bear on educational debates (Rudduck and Flutter, 2004:125) . Article 12 is
of especial relevance today since it declares the right of children to participate in their
own life – in accordance with age and maturity, children should be heard and taken
serious in all matters affecting them including judicial and administrative matters. This
declaration implies that pupils should have not just a voice in relation to their own
learning but also have the capacity and confidence to intervene in the principles which
govern their learning experience.
The question, for example, of Swedish writer Ekholm (2004) is how much do we want
to change classrooms to establish this principle. If we are to promote the principle of
children’s rights in learning then we would need to think carefully about the selection,
evaluation and transmission of knowledge. We would need to teach children about the
language of teaching and learning that teachers learn in their training. However, in the
context of social inequitable societies, this global human rights agenda can become
converted into alternative purposes. Pupils can be consulted in order to judge the
effectiveness of school's engagement with performance cultures their voices can
become the means by which teachers and pupils themselves are individually surveilled
and regulated (Fielding 2000). Rather than promoting higher levels of reflexive
subjectivity, participation and self direction, pupils can become merely the focus of
greater state control. In this context it become extremely important to consider as
Bernstein (2000:xxi) argued, whose voice is heard and whose voice is listened to in
what he called the 'acoustic of the school'. Our data suggests for example that it is the
professional middle class pupils who is most likely to be hailed, called, to be consulted,
listened to and valued.
In a recent study I conducted with Diane Reay (Reay and Arnot, 2004; Arnot and Reay,
2004a; b) we set up group discussions with groups of 14-15 year old male and female,
higher and lower achieving pupils from different ethnic and class backgrounds. In each
secondary school, all pupils in one tutor group1 participated in two group discussions.
Sixty two children were involved in a total 24 discussion groups. Five lower achieving
pupils were observed in Maths and English classes and were interviewed individually. In
Stage 2 of the project we asked the form tutors and Maths and English teachers to build
strategies of pupil consultation into their lessons and we evaluated these initiatives.
8
We asked pupils to comment on their degree to which they felt able to define their own
abilities and learning progress. Did they feel included and respected by teachers in
classroom learning? Did they feel they could control the pace and content of their
learning and the rules of the pedagogic encounter? Our discussions, for example, focused
on whether they were ever consulted about how they learnt, about whether they could
communicate their needs (in terms particularly of the pace of learning) to teachers, about
whether they were consulted about what they learnt and why. What we were tapping on
reflection was whether they were really self -managing pupils – independent learners.
Our research (Arnot and Reay, 2004a; Reay and Arnot, 2004b) suggests that the forms of
pedagogic communication are heavily class and gender nuanced. Many pupils in our
study were aware that neither they nor teachers had control over the content of lessons
and this affected the motivation of working class pupils who wanted what they saw as
'useful' knowledge. If any pupils was likely to gain some limited (discretionary) control
over the choice of activity, the pace of classroom learning or even their seating in this
situation, it was the higher achieving upper middle pupil (especially the girls).
Irrespective of the perceived relevance or irrelevance of the curricula, the highest
achieving (often professional middle class), girls were found to be able to exploit the
pedagogic agendas of the individualised learner uncoupling themselves from constraining
and stereotypical models of femininity.
Higher achieving professional middle class girls seemed to have an appropriate
pedagogic language and emotional competence when relating to teachers. They were
rather nonchalant about consultation, possibly because they felt that, unlike less
successful pupils, they had a voice and felt more in tune with the school's purposes. They
were able to manage informal dialogue between themselves and their teachers. As a
result they were asked, listened to and heard. These pupils thought themselves to be in
control of their learning even within the constraints of the compulsory curriculum. They
worked with notions of individual choice in terms of when to co-operate, when to slow
down, speed up (or zoom) through their work. They worked independently but they also
made considerable demands on the teacher to deal with their needs for extension work.
High achieving middle class boys, in contrast, spoke less about the pace, difficulty and
ease of their work.
The threat to these girls' academic control of their learning was, on the one hand, teachers
who failed to cope with their needs. But as important was the need for the teacher to cope
in a mixed ability mixed sex environment with the demands of boys, especially working
class lower attaining boys. The threat to upper middle class girls control over their
learning were male powers of manipulation using disaffection, endless demands for
attention, disruption of the rules, requests to repeat work from earlier stages and teachers'
acquiescence. Perceiving this as a threat, the white middle class girls suggested ability
setting. In contrast, the black working class girls suggested a change in their own
attitudes to try and understand the boys and the rest of the girls expressed frustration.
Working class lower achieving girls were left to negotiate personal relationships with
teachers and rely on inter-personal skills to acquire some modicum of control in the
9
classroom setting. In both these latter groupings, male and female pupils had little sense
of control over their learning .
Controlling the pace and level of work for working class boys appeared to be deeply
affected by the image of the curriculum as irrelevant to their interests and needs. They
attempted to be independent, but they were, in effect, deeply dependent learners –
assuming on the one hand that intelligence was the key to achievement ( not hard work)
and that it was the teachers´ responsibility to help them and get it right. Getting control
over their learning was a risky business since they might not be able to perform well
publicly and be ridiculed by the teacher. There were only negative consequences if they
said the work was too easy or too difficult, the pace too fast or too slow. One of the only
possible ways for them to get control was to break behavioural rules.
Despite girls' view of male power within the classroom setting which is capable to
controlling the learning of others, boys themselves appear to experience strong control by
teachers who intervened on their seating, their learning, and their demands. These boys
therefore appeared to have least control over their learning, to be least able to
communicate with teachers and received the least help even though they were the group
that most needed it. They experience this lack of control through forms of resistance that
involve physical disruption of the classroom. Whilst teachers struggled to maintain
control, these lower achieving boys appear to be trapped in a dynamic that was hard to
break. Boys' lack of power was expressed in dysfunctional attention seeking and
classroom dominance. Thus, those who most needed to have control over their learning
had the least control. These were clearly not independent learners.
Our limited project suggested that the social basis of classroom language has becoming
increasingly more important - as Bernstein (1971) argued, the elaborated codes of the
middle classes would become the mechanisms by which they appropriate the conditions
for educational success. Social mobility which has become so key to the post-modern
project will be heavily dependent on groups of children knowing and learning the
language of teaching and learning - the pedagogic language. Children themselves
articulated this well in our project. There are those who speak the language of the school
and there are those who speak the language of the home. Abby for example was asked
whether teachers listen to pupils in her school.
Some of them do and some of the don't. … I think the teachers listen
to, like, (those) who knows the most and what they're doing, what
they like, because the naughty people they're like normally, because
they don't like care or talking like, "oooh, yeah!…" but there's people
who actually want to learn like that, they know what to do but they
just don't somehow, and then the bottom people are like, "please
help", and then the teacher's actually busy with the top group
because they find it easier to talk to them instead of the others.
Why?
10
I think it's because of detail, because they just say the same
language to the top people and then to like lower people, the bottom
set, when they talk they find it harder, hard, or something like that.
A bit long, they have to say the same thing over and over and over
again.
Schools have long been aware of the sometimes quite substantial differences in the
culture, ethos and language of the home and the school. There has been much discussion
about the differences in particular between working class homes and schooling and the
synchrony of middle class families with the educational languages, approaches and
expectations encouraged by teachers . Yet is rare that teachers have the opportunity to
discuss such conflicts with pupils. Consulting pupils about their learning can bring these
issues to the fore. As Sean told us: 'My mum tells me something, the teacher tells me
different'. Craig is even more informative about such differences
Like your parents give you like different methods of learning and then
when you come in school, they say something different and you get
confused and then you mix it like together and then you get it like
wrong because you get confused.
The model of the independent learner assumes that all students can speak the language of
learning - the sorts of pedagogic language being used by teachers in the classroom
(whether traditional or progressive in style). Being a learner involves considerable skill
and familiarity with the expectations of such a communicative setting. It does not just
entail having the appropriate vocabulary that a teacher can recognise but also the
appropriate relationship with the teacher in order to be able to communicate effectively.
Paradoxically the most dependent learners required the greatest maturity in handling their
relationships with teachers, especially if their work and classroom behaviour was not in
line with teacher expectations. Of particular importance was the problem of achieving
some sort of communicative competence and effective pedagogic relationships in the
classroom setting. Pupils when consulted recognised that a number of elements would
be needed to ensure such communication about learning:






Communicative Competence
Emotional Maturity
A High Level of Trust
Patience
Motivation to Learn
Appropriate Family Support
The discussions we held with lower achieving pupils particularly boys often from working
class backgrounds, allowed pupils to articulate how tense and vulnerable they felt in the
classroom and how they tried to find ways of learning but had difficulty with so many aspects
of classroom life. They did not feel trusted by teachers and were therefore not confident about
their learning. Working with the notion of independent learning, meant that these pupils
11
experienced seating, homework, teacher attention, teacher help as a form of regulation rather
than as aids to learning. Once pedagogic communication had broken down, the main source
of support in learning were their friendships and peer groups cultures. Paradoxically therefore
the assumptions of the independent learner with its communicative elements appeared to
reinforce strong male peer group cultures and male dominance in the classroom.
The data from these two secondary school settings suggest that we need to examine the
extent to which a positive pedagogic identity is achievable for, in particular working class
boys and girls in the current learning environment. Bernstein writes about how
socialisation within schooling can be 'deeply wounding' either for those who wish for, but
do not achieve a pedagogic identity, or for the majority for whom the pursuit of an
identity is early made irrelevant (Bernstein 1975:250). If an increase in individualisation
means that the images, voices and practices that the school makes it even more difficult
for working class children to recognise themselves in schooling, this is likely to be
particularly problematic for working class pupils of both sexes but particularly boys who
experience daily the strong regulative culture of the classroom and confrontational
relations with teachers whilst they are still expected to be independent learners. This
clearly has profound consequences for the production of positive pedagogic identities so
desired by the new goals of life long individualised and independent learning.
Let us turn now to the second major theme - that of learner as citizens. Here the narrative
takes a different turn. Contemporary discussions about citizenship education - education
for citizenship - appears precisely to suppress individualisation (and yet again to mask
social inequalities) in the name of social solidarity and order.
LEARNER AS CITIZENS
Pupils as citizens should be autonomous, knowing, responsible and aware
of their culture, but the emphasis is on future citizenship. (Gordon et al.,
2000, 199)
Preparation for adult citizenship now represents a stronger strand within Western
European nations, especially in light of calls to use citizenship education to recreate the
forms of moral solidarity threatened by aggressive individualism and materialism. Calls
for citizenship education to be introduced, amended, developed can be heard in various
national and global contexts (Cogan and Derricott, 2000). Citizenship education
programmes are being set up through the Asian Centre for Citizenship Education
networks, the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth Secretariat. Eastern European
countries are reforming their communist inflected models of citizenship education in
order to democratise the Western way, African countries are developing civic
programmes as part of their response to international aid agendas, citizenship education
courses are designed by the American agency Civitas in post-conflict societies
(Mustagrudic, 2000). In most of these programmes, strong Christian moral codes and
liberal democratic models of governance are likely to be promoted.
12
'The good citizen' rather than the critical or protesting citizen is the model being used in
neo-liberal contexts although in the UK there is an attempt to combine such a moral goal
with that of the civic republicanism (Arnot, 2004). In neither case is the goal one of
addressing through citizenship education the goal of challenging social inequality and/or
promoting egalitarianism as a democratic ideal (Garmarnikow and Green, 1999). In
citizenship education we can find an idealised return the forms of mechanical solidarity
which Emile Durkheim (1933 trans) associated with pre-industrialisation where
punishment and shame are the basis of the social order rather than societies based on
contract (organic society). Citizenship education under pressures of individualisation and
globalisation now appears to have more to do with establishing nationalist identities and
conservative hierarchical social orders rather than addressing the refashioned social
relations which are associated with a globalising and individualising society. One
example of this paradoxical response is evidenced in the ways in which this political
education agenda manages to ignore the very processes of individualisation to be found in
liberal democratic Western economies – that associated within gender relations.
Social theorists of globalisation all too often use as their primary example the
transformation of gender relations associated with the twentieth century and with
predicted changes in the 21st century. The education of girls over the last century as is
precisely symbolic of the processes of individualisation and the fight for greater
autonomy and freedom (Beck 1992; Beck and Beck Gernsheim, 2002; Sen,1999).
Women have fought for the opportunity to become full autonomous citizens in their own
right, to become I am I.
Evidence of the impact of individualisation can be found in the range of youth cultural
studies which identify the individualistic, hedonistic life -values amongst young women
today. We talk now in the UK about the Can Do girls, girls who think that the world is at
their feet – at least in their teenage years. The extraordinary transformation of white
working class girls’ discourse to one of possibility and the language of choice is mapped
in our book Closing the Gender Gap with Gaby Weiner and Miriam David (Arnot et al,
1999). Here we see the key role which education has come to play in so many young
women’s lives, with many now achieving higher level qualifications and higher
education. The shift in gender values, about whether women have a right to work, to be
independent earners, to share childcare has been found to be one of the strongest
generational gaps in modern society (Wilkinson, 1994). Grandparents and grandchildren
disagree most over gender issues – over and above politics, environment, health.
Girls have finally been given the right to be educated not just nationally but also globally.
It is highly significant that the new millennium development goals for this century are
gender ones. All nations are now urged to meet internationally agreed gender targets
(UNESCO 2003) to promote gender parity in access to basic schooling by 2005 and
gender equality by 2015 as part of the agenda of sustainable economic and social
development. Such targets are being monitored even if unfortunately, as is often the case
with gender, the money is not necessarily there.
13
From Ulrich Beck’s point of view looking at the German experience, these 'irreversible
shifts' in gender relations internationally precisely mark the beginning of a liberation of
a new generation from the feudally ascribed roles for the sexes, with all their associated
antagonisms. Young women are uncoupling themselves from 'the clutches of family life'
and a life of caring service to take control over their own lives. Freedom’s children at the
moment appear to be largely female. Men, in contrast, have appeared to be deeply
committed to traditional identities in work and domestic spheres, identities that might
well be a response to social change:
All the factors which dislodge women from their traditional role are missing
on the male side. In the context of male life, fatherhood and career,
economic independence and familial life are not contradictions that have to
be fought for and held together against the conditions in the family and
society: instead their compatibility with the traditional male role is
prescribed and protected. But this meant that individualisation ...
strengthens masculine role behaviour (Beck l992: 112).
If this continues, it is likely that the position of men and women will become
'increasingly unequal, more conscious and less legitimated’ (Beck 1992:104). There are
limited signs in the UK that young working class men might be displaying signs of
individualisation, although as Miles (2004) points out, this may only reflect what he calls
a ‘mezzanine’ condition – of wanting to acquire some of the accoutrements of a middle
class status without rejecting a working class collective culture.
The experience for many women in Western industrialised societies is one of greatest
contradiction - never have they been so qualified and never has the gap between
educational success and access to high status decision making positions in the labour
market and political life been so great. In contrast, the experience of male
underachievement contrasts with men's success in civic and economic spheres and
dominance of different forms of privilege (Arnot et al., 1999). The gender story therefore
is getting more not less complex as we progress into the future. The challenge for
citizenship education is to engage with this constantly shifting and contested terrain. Can
schools, have schools, address these unequal processes of individualisation and the
complex gender relations which result? How do schools see their contribution to these
spiralling gender differences? How do schools prepare boys and girls for social change?
Traditionally schools have promoted not just a notion of the 'abstract pupil' but also an
abstract notion of citizenship which all could ascribe to. However, the more developed
the women's movement, the more this abstract concept of citizenship has been shown to
be gendered and one of the main devices for the exclusion of women from power. In our
book Challenging Democracy, Jo Anne Dillabough and I brought together a powerful
range of feminist critiques of liberal democratic models of citizenship, exposing in how
many different ways, this abstraction becomes the means of containing gender into
traditional masculine notions of polity and political power (Arnot and Dillabough, 2000).
14
What is now clear is that, often without realising the significance, Western European
educational systems (particularly Anglo Saxon models) have been promoting and
exporting through colonial structures a notion of citizenship that is premised upon what
Carol Pateman (l988) called a 'civic brotherhood'. Underlying liberal democratic
concepts of the social contract was a sexual contract that circumscribed male power over
women. This sexual contract, symbolised by the marriage contract, was rarely recognised
by male political theorists even though it represented a pivotal set of social relations
which legitimated female subordination. Implicated in the sexual contract were women's
sexual, economic and political dependencies on men, their exclusion from the public
realm, and the control of women's child-bearing and sexuality.
Feminist critical analyses have revealed that because of the sexual contract, women were
all too often marginalised from the formal public realm and the project of citizenship.
State education systems supported these social contracts by differentiating the education
of girls and boys and providing forms of education that reproduced the superiority and
authority of the white European male. These gendered notions of citizenship taught often
through education which were premised upon notions of the male warrior, soldier, worker
and voter demonstrably represent major obstacles to female citizenship. Underlying
liberal and even civic republican traditions was the separation of public and private
spheres on the basis of alleged biological difference. Essentialist thinking placed men,
as the main breadwinners, in masculinised public/civic sphere and women were
represented as symbolic of family and private life (Arnot and Dillabough 1999).
Although there have been many attempts to redesign education to value such female
roles, especially in Nordic countries, it is still a matter of concern whether we as
educators are working with such traditional gendered spheres. This political legacy is
perhaps the hardest to shift, so deeply ingrained is it in the patriarchal institutions of
Western European societies.
The findings of a European research project Promoting Equality Awareness: women as
citizens funded by the European Commission illustrate the relevance of the last point.
(Arnot et al., 1996; 2000) The research which my European colleagues in Spain,
Portugal, and Greece and I conducted in l995 explored some 300 student teachers'
conceptualisations of citizenship2. The qualitative data generated in this project
uncovered some of the different political discourses used by male and female student
teachers.
A strong political discourse of duty based on civic republicanism and classical Greek
theory was found in countries that had experienced dictatorship and have provided civic
education programmes in schools (Greece, Spain and Portugal). Indeed these continental
political philosophical traditions supported notions of a citizen's duty to encourage
democracy over and above the action of the state. By contrast, student teachers in the UK
(not surprisingly given their lack of civic education), only made reference to limited
political activities such as voting. However in those countries where a strong civic
republican discourse of duty was found, it tended to be used mainly by male teachers in
the sample.
15
Women appeared neither to use the discourses of civic republicanism nor to find a
position for themselves in it. Female teachers in all national samples were more likely to
employ the Judaeo-Christian discourses of morality emphasising the ethics of care and
community involvement or contemporary egalitarian discourses around state provided
social rights and social justice. The 'good citizen' for them was more often than not the
grandmother, the mother, or the carer in the private sphere rather than the civic leader,
representative or voter.
Student teachers in our UK study supported the aims of promoting greater harmony
between different social groups, and of encouraging individual responsibility and their
active participation in society. However, when English and Welsh teachers described
their version of the 'sceptical citizen' was supported more by disillusionment with politics
than with insightful political agendas (Arnot et al, 1996). The data from this project
however suggested a deeply gender and class biased notion of ‘the good citizen’
This concept tended to elicit (even as recently as l995) class biased caricatures of the
bowler hatted gentlemen of the l950s with associated images of male respectability,
employment and ‘normal’ but ‘exceptionally boring’ family life. Typical representations
of the 'good citizen' of Welsh male student teachers were:
A middle aged balding fellow with a nice garden and semi detached
house.
A citizen is a necessarily a nice man in a bowler hat who had a job of
work in the city and then comes back to his nice semi-detached house
with a wife and 2.5 kids.
The dominance of men in the public sphere was central to the view of citizenship held by
most of the student teachers in each of the countries involved. It appeared hard to conjure
up any positive involvement of women within the public sphere. Men were perceived to
have most control over policy decisions and public appointments and an especially strong
influence over economic and foreign policy. Women, on the whole, were perceived to
have negligible influence on policy and influencing public appointments. Gender and
generational differences were noticeable in the UK although it seemed that young student
teachers were less likely than their college lecturers to see it as important that women
should occupy public positions.
This association of public /private with the sexual division of labour was also carried
through to the representations of men and women in each sphere. We could not identify
any consensus about the image of women in public life in all of the five countries. Over
62% of these student teachers in the UK sample selected the word ‘competitive’ and 51%
chose the image of ‘powerful’ to describe men in public life. In contrast, weaker
representations of women in public life were found with 34% of student teachers
describing women as ‘efficient’, 27% as ‘competitive’ and 25% as ‘independent’ rather
than powerful.
16
In contrast the images of women in private and domestic life were strong (‘caring’ and
‘efficient’) whilst those for men were absent or, if present, rather negative. Forty three
percent of the sample of English and Welsh student teachers described men in private life
as ‘disorganised', ‘hesitant’ (31%) and ‘dependent’ (18%) in domestic life. This absence
of a collective representation of women in public civic sphere and of men in the private
sphere, if left unchallenged, could have major implications for the education of girls/boys
especially in relation to their adult lives and their future role as citizens (Arnot 2002;
Arnot et al, 1996; 2000)
Particularly relevant to this analysis is that, in this research, there were few indications
amongst student teachers that the masculinisation of public life and citizenship could be
changed and that women would be needed to help transform such structures. The source
of male power in the public realm was partially taken for granted despite a strong
awareness of sex discrimination. Male student teachers in different European countries
appeared to collude with differentiated gender roles and expressed little personal
commitment to challenge masculine associations surrounding the public realm. There
was a seeming naturalness of male power based on gender role difference. The
juxtaposition of power and femininity represented by women in public life disturbed
traditional notions of femininity and was expressed as a kind of corruption in which
women, in public life were either over assertive (autocrats) or sexually predatory.
There also appeared in some instances to be deep anxiety amongst men about their loss of
control over the public sphere which led to polarised constructs of femininity. Men, for
example, used the distinction between reproduction and sexuality to categorise women in
public domains as either Mothers and Madonnas or as whores/sluts/bimbos (Arnot et al,
2000). Women therefore were not represented as legitimately successful and autonomous
in public life (Arnot, 2002).
Given these findings, it is rather unfortunate if citizenship education curriculum are not
backed by major government support for professional training of the teaching profession
(many of whom will contribute to cross-curricular citizenship activities) or extensive
mandatory initial training on citizenship3. A lack of government support suggests the
processes of deconstructing the old, and constructing new, political discourses around
citizenship will not happen. Instead there is the danger of reproducing conventional male
and female citizenship identities (c.f. Arnot, 2004).
What lies at the heart of the feminist difficulties with the modernist concepts of citizenship
often taught through the school civics curriculum is that, whilst it represents a socially
unifying force, it is deeply ambivalent about the status and role of collective identities and
collectivities and how to address issues of difference. These issues are especially difficult
in liberal democratic models of citizenship which stress, for example, the importance of the
individual over community and social/collective groups and the centrality of individual
choice over social intervention in the name of the common good (Nussbaum, 1999). This
begs the question about how to discuss the communality of women's experience and
whether to frame policy on behalf of women as a social group. As Martha Nussbaum
points out, what is at issue for feminists in relation to liberal democratic citizenship are the
17
assumptions behind the abstract notion of the individual which cannot easily recognise
pluralism - the differences between men and women in terms of life situations and
experiences and the differences between women and between men in terms of ethnicity
and social class (Ibid).
Admittedly there is always the danger that by recognising gender differences, beliefs about
essential biological/natural sex differences are legitimated. Nevertheless, recognition of
the particular circumstances which have shaped women's lives and the contributions they
can and have made to the development of society is central to the achievement of gender
justice. At a minimum level, this entails teaching about men's and women's social
positions, values and expectations. It means thinking about the gender assumptions behind
current notions of citizenship.
The absence or marginalisation of the private sphere from definitions of citizenship are
linked to deeper notions about rationality and the resulting exclusion of 'the affective
domain' (Nussbaum and Glover (1995) - the field of personal/emotional relationships
from civic discourse. The focus on rationality as the basis of civic life results in the
failure to value 'the caring ethos' and maternal values (Noddings 1998) found in the
private and familial sphere which might provide alternative models of citizenship and
civic virtues. Thus whilst the principle of excluding private sphere from state control,
surveillance and intervention appears beneficial especially to women within the family, it
has the disadvantageous effect of marginalising and discursively subordinating women as
non-rational beings and of reducing the potential impact of other sets of civic virtues
from a discussion of citizenship education. Further, the neglect of the affective domain
has major consequences for the education of children in their entitlements and rights in
their personal lives.
The late Sue Lees (2000), for example, when exploring the ways in which the 'personal' is
divorced from the 'political' in the new English citizenship education programme
challenges the failure in citizenship education to recognise complex changes in gender
relations in the private sphere. Individualising processes precisely have led to the
uncoupling of women from traditional family structures and a search for alternative
sexualities and life styles. By the early 1990s for example, 27 per cent of births in
England and Wales were to unmarried mothers, that women were marrying later and
getting divorced earlier. Divorce has increased sixfold over the last 30 years. Citizenship
rights for women as head of household and single parents nevertheless are limited. Indeed
female single parents are now classified as 'an excluded group' (ibid, pp 261-2). Such
change in gender relations should surely be central to the civic project.
Yet the
normative stance taken by the citizenship education in England in relation to marriage is
problematic, not least because of its confusions and obfuscations. For example, the
Statement of Values produced by the National Forum for Values in Education and the
Community for the Conservative government encourages schools to engage with the
diversity of moral values but at the same time to support family and marriage, on the
basis that there is a 'general agreement' in schools about such pro-family values (QCA
2000:195). Also in the new citizenship curriculum there are only passing references to
18
the need for young people to be taught about changes in personal relationships - ‘about
the impact of separation, divorce and bereavement on families’ (ibid., 193).
National security is often sustained through a form of citizenship education which
protects a stable model of good citizenship based upon heterosexual (married) nuclear
families (Richardson 1998). As a result, lesbian and gay men carry an uncomfortable
relationship to the ‘nation’ to which they belong but to which they are considered a
threat. The restraints on teachers which prevent the schools promoting alternative life
styles is symptomatic of such a moral panic. Tolerance of gay and lesbian groups is only
on the condition that they remain within the boundaries defined by society. Lesbians and
gay men are only ‘partial citizens’ since they are often excluded from civil, political and
social rights, left unprotected from discrimination and harassment on grounds of sexuality
by the law and the police, and experience prejudicial treatment in relation to social rights
of welfare. Lesbian and gay men are thus 'dehumanised' by a 'disembodied' concept of
citizenship (ibid). Yet such contemporary debates about sexuality and citizenship, whilst
often openly discussed in government, have not challenged the conventional political
view of citizenship reproduced in the new citizenship curriculum. The programme
sustains conventional models of heterosexuality. Had it not done so, the curriculum
reform might not have been acceptable to government or particular constituencies.
The marginalization of the personal domain in definitions of citizenship is contradictory
since citizenship education can be linked with personal, social and health education. Yet,
despite such links, in the English citizenship education programme we find a failure to
engage in discussions about the nature of contemporary shifts in gendered power
relations. Adolescents are to be taught to be 'aware of exploitation in relationships' and:



To challenge offending behaviour, prejudice, bullying, racism and
discrimination assertively and take the initiative in giving and receiving
support.....
To be able to talk about relationships and feelings
To deal with changing relationships in a positive way, showing goodwill to
others and using strategies to resolve disagreements peacefully (QCA 2000,
193)
Yet as Lees noted, the failure to interconnect sexuality education and citizenship
education (despite the latter's recognition of the importance of civic dimensions in
personal and social education) means that young people are not encouraged to develop, in
the context of civic rights:
an understanding of their sexuality, the choices that flow from it and the
knowledge, understanding and power to make those choices positive,
responsible and informed’ (Hanson and Patrick, quoted in Lees 2000,
262).
Citizenship education in the broad sense could become an invaluable space in which
young men and women are taught about the way sexual identities today are constructed
19
and how they shape sexual behaviour/orientation. The rights to know about such things
should be just as important as the mechanics of contraceptive devices. Extensive
sociological research is now available for teachers and schools to draw upon as to
demonstrate how young people construct femininity and masculinity and relate to each
other. The institutional and cultural constraints which shape sexual identities and the role
of sexual performance in relation to normative notions of compulsory heterosexuality
could be addressed. With this sort of education, the ‘issues of responsibility and moral
choice' (which are mentioned in the government reports on citizenship education) could
be related not just to political and economic rights but to questions of sexual power
relations, and to the different forms of male and female moral reasoning, and conflicting
male and female responsibilities in society.
The international human rights community, according to Bunch (1995:17) has begun to
recognise 'gender-based violations as pervasive and insidious forms of human rights
abuse'. However the mass violation of women's human rights through such gender based
violence is not generally considered an appropriate topic for citizenship education in
schools:









the battery of women,
their physical and psychological imprisonment in the home,
the violent entrapment of women in prostitution,
pornography
domestic service,
compulsory pregnancy,
rape,
female infanticide
the malnutrition of girls
These are human rights violations that demand urgent attention. However, as Swedish
anthology edited by Sunnari et al., (2002) has demonstrated, gendered and sexualised
violence are also part of educational environments. There is clearly much work to be
done to address such violence particularly in relation to the education of boys (Breines,
Connell and Eide, 2000). However, even the most critical models of liberal education are
simply not sufficient to address such issues. Citizenship education itself would require
far more extensive politicisation in order to address such real but usually hidden gender
violence in the public and private spheres.
Masculine notions of citizenship associated with liberal democracy (also with civic
republicanism) promoted through education is really no longer appropriate for these
changing gender relations and gender ethics. The women's movement has fundamentally
changed the civic agenda. The processes of individualisation is expressed in the struggle
by women globally for autonomy and agency, the expansion of education and the
resulting growth in female credentials, women's contribution to the economy has grown
rapidly (UNESCO, 2003). The family structure has also been transformed by the
diversity of life styles in contemporary society. Young women have started to uncouple
themselves from economic and social dependency upon men. In the future, women may
20
no longer rely on men to offer support for childrearing and family income. They wish to
focus on their own life plans irrespective of heterosexual relationships.
The breaking of traditional gender boundaries in the late twentieth century therefore has
opened the door to substantial new needs in relation to the education of the learner as
future citizen. Schools arguably need to address these significant social changes,
controversial through they be, to prepare the next generation for social and moral flux.
Education for citizenship surely cannot just be about retrieving past moral codes and
national identities.
Conclusions
I have covered a lot of territory but I hope that in so doing I have got across some of the
worries about individualisation as a transformative process that impinges directly upon
egalitarian and democratic education agendas. Educating the learner citizen is a complex
phenomenon. It involves educating children to be fully participatory citizens. This means
looking critically at both the education of citizens and education for citizenship (Beck,
1998). As I have argued, these two projects at the level of schools are not always linked.
Both aspects of education are being challenged by the processes of individualisation and
in both context, existing social divisions have an impact. On the one hand, we have new
discourses around the independent learner encouraging full participation but no control
over learning and on the other we have the struggle by women to achieve autonomy over
and above dominant definitions of gender citizenship being taught in schools. Schools
from this perspective appear to be addressing the issue of individualisation in a rather
complex, contradictory and confused way.
In the classroom, children are encouraged to manage their own learning. Teachers
increasingly will be asked or expected to consult students about their learning. As I have
shown, the process of consultation and indeed the experience of learning is deeply shaped
by social inequalities. Social class differences and within class, gender differences, affect
the extent to which children participate as independent learners. Individualised learning
and the independent learner as a concept may well be what Bernstein called a
mythologizing discourse masking external social inequalities and thus adding to them. In
rather brief notes, Bernstein (2000) argued must be that people have a stake in society, in
the sense of both giving and receiving. They must have ‘confidence that the political
arrangements they create will realise this stake’. These conditions can only be realised in
a school if it could ensure what he called, the three pedagogic democratic rights.
1. Enhancement
'The ability of individuals to experience boundaries, be they social, intellectual or
personal, not as prisons, or stereotypes, but as tension points condensing the past
and opening possible futures. The condition for achieving this individual right is
critical understanding and confidence to act'.
2. Inclusion
21
'The right of individuals to be part of a community (communitas) and at the same
time to be separate and autonomous. The condition for achieving these social rights
must be the presence of a collective in which individuals have a sense of belonging
but are also valued as individuals'.
3. Participation
'The right to participate in procedures whereby order is constructed, maintained and
changed. The right to be party to decisions about the ways in which teaching and
learning is organised how pupils are grouped and the principles which govern the
expressive and moral order of the school. The conditions for such ‘civic practice’
are political and engagement must have outcomes. (Bernstein, 2000:6)
It seems as if the positive aspects of individualisation described by Ulrich Beck and
Elizabeth Gernsheim Beck can only be mobilised in a context where pedagogic
communication is not premised on, or masks, social hierarchies and difference. The
independent self-managing learner it appears at the moment is the mechanism for the
reproduction rather than the erasure of social inequalities. In this context, social class
inequalities mediate gender relations and the tensions between the sexes are constructed
through particular class based forms of pedagogy. It is precisely because of such social
inequalities that we might begin to consider children's pedagogic rights.
The potential of Freedom's Children (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002) is not being
harnessed within schools. Many governments have tended to be more concerned with
sustaining an aggressive competitive individualism and/or reasserting the moral order
than capturing the knowledge, the energy and the coping strategies of children they
intend to teach. Young people are not treated as citizens in their own right, nor indeed
are they assumed to be familiar with the challenges which the world offers to them in
their daily lives and through the media. Further, the models of citizenship taught to
children in citizenship education courses and through teachers knowledge is equally
problematic. I have shown just how far citizenship education courses are from addressing
gender dualistic thinking, the separation of public and private spheres, homophobia and
violence.
If as the Danish writer Per Schultz Jorgensen (2004) argues, the notion of character
formation is now very different from what it was 50 years ago, then we will have to think
carefully about what sort of education we want to achieve. Conformity is a hindrance to
adaptation and growth. He asks, can we design an education system in which every
individual achieves an inner stability and self understanding in a fragmented, constantly
changing world. Should we as educators seek to retain rites and rituals to mark their
passages into adulthood or should we create links between the self - culture of individuals
and social change. What sort of links between schooling and social change should be
forged? What seems clear is that educational institutions now need to teach children to
approach the world as Amartya Sen (1999) argues with 'courage and freedom' :
22
The general enhancement of political and civil freedoms is central to the
process of (economic) development itself. The relevant freedoms include
the liberty of acting as citizens who matter and whose voices count, rather
than living as well fed, well clothed and well entertained vassals. (Sen,
1999: 288)
References
Advisory Group on Citizenship (The Crick Report) (1998), Education for Citizenship and
the Teaching of Democracy in Schools. Final Report. London: Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority (the Crick Report).
Arnot, M (2002), ‘Teachers’ Conceptualisation of Men and Women in the Public
Sphere’,
Gender
Research
Forum,
http://www.womenandequalityunit.gov.uk/research/gender research forum/grf_ papers_
feb_ june/cabinettalkd9.pdf
Arnot, M. (2004) 'Gender and Citizenship Education', in A. Lockyer, B.Crick and
J.Annette (eds) Education for Democratic Citizenship: issues of theory and practice,
Aldershot: Ashgate.
Arnot, M. Araujo, H. Deliyanni-Kouimtzi, K, Rowe,G. and Tome, A (1996), ‘Teachers,
gender and the discourses of citizenship’ International Studies in Sociology of Education,
Vol, 6, no, 1, pp. 3-35.
Arnot, M., Araujo, H. Deliyanni, K. and Ivinson (2000), ‘Changing Femininity, changing
concepts of citizenship in public and private spheres’ The European Journal of Women’s
Studies, Vol, 7, pp. 149-168.
Arnot, M., David, M. and Weiner, G. (1999) Closing the Gender Gap: postwar education
and social change, Cambridge: Polity Press
Arnot, M. and Dillabough, J. ( 1999) 'Feminist politics and democratic values in
education and citizenship, Curriculum Inquiry, 29,2, 149-158
Arnot, M. and Dillabough, J. (Eds) (2000), Challenging Democracy: international
perspectives on gender, education and citizenship, London, RoutledgeFalmer Press.
Arnot, M and Reay, D. (2004a) ‘The social dynamics of classroom learning’ in Arnot,
M., McIntyre, D., Peddar, D. and Reay, D. (Eds) Consultation in the Classroom:
Developing Dialogue about Teaching and Learning,
Cambridge: Pearson Books
23
Arnot, M. and Reay, D (2004b forthcoming) 'The framing of pedagogic encounters:
regulating the social order in classroom learning' in J.Muller, B.Davies, A. Morais (Eds),
Reading Bernstein, Researching Bernstein. London, RoutledgeFalmer.
Bauman, Z. (2002) 'Individually, Together',
Gernsheim Individualisation, London: Sage
Foreward to U. Beck and E. Beck-
Beck, J. (1998) Morality and Citizenship in Education, London: Cassell
Beck, J. (2002) 'The sacred and the profane in recent struggles to promote official
pedagogic identities', British Journal of Sociology of Education , 23,4, 617-626
Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: towards a new modernity, London: Sage
Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E (2002) Individualisation,:
individualism and its social and political consequences, London: Sage
Institutionalised
Bernstein, B. (1971) Class, Codes and Control, Vol 1: London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Bernstein, B. (1975) Class, Codes and Control. (Volume 2, 2nd edition London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: theory, research and
critique revised edition, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Breines, I. Connell, R. and Eide, I. (eds) (2000) Male Roles, Masculinities and Violence:
a culture of peace perspective, Paris: UNESCO
Bunch, C. (1995) 'Transforming human rights from a feminist perspective' in J.Peters and
A. Wolper (eds) Women Rights, Human Rights: international feminist perspectives, New
York: Routledge.
Department for Education and Employment/ Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
(1999), Citizenship: The National Curriculum For England, Key Stages 3-4, London:
HMSO
Cogan, J.J. and Derricott, R. (2000) Citizenship for the 21st Century, London: Kogan
Page Ltd.
Dillabough , J. and Arnot, M. (2002), 'Recasting educational debates about female
citizenship, agency and identity', The School Field, Vol. XIII, No. 3/4, pp. 61-90.
Durkheim, E. ( 1933 trans. 1964 edition) The Division of Labour in Society, London:
MacMillan
24
Ekholm, M (2004) 'Learning democracy by sharing power: the student role in
effectiveness and improvement' In J. Macbeath and L.Moos (eds) Democratic Learning:
the challenge to school effectiveness, London: RoutledgeFalmer Press.
Fielding, M. (2001) Beyond the Rhetoric of Student voice: new departures or new
constraints in the transformation of 21st century schooling? Forum, vol 43, 2, Summer , p
100-109
Garmarnikow, E and Green, A. (1999), ‘Social Capital and the Educated Citizen’ The
School Field, Vol. X, No. 3-4, pp. 103-126.
Gordon, T. Holland, J. and Lahelma, E
difference in schools, London: MacMillan
(2000)
Making Spaces: citizenship and
Habermas, J. (1976) Warum braucht Europa eine Verfassungt (Why does Europe need a
constitution?)
Die
Zeit,
27
(http://www.zeit.de/2001/27/Politik/200127_verfassung_lang.html)
Hanson, B. and Patrick, P. (1995), 'Towards some understanding of sexuality education'
in S. Inman and M. Buck (eds) Adding Value? Schools' responsibility for pupils'
personal development, Exeter: Trentham Books
Jorgensen, P Schultz (2004) 'Children's participation in a democratic learning
environment' In J. Macbeath and L.Moos (eds) Democratic Learning: the challenge to
school effectiveness, London: RoutledgeFalmer Press.
Lees, S. (2000), Sexuality and Citizenship, in Arnot, M. and Dillabough, J. (eds)
Challenging Democracy: international perspectives on gender, education and
citizenship, London, RoutledgeFalmer Press, pp, 259-276.
Lasch, S. (2002) 'Individualisation in a non-linear mode', introduction in Beck, U. and
Beck-Gernsheim, E. Individualisation, London: Sage
Lather, P. (1992) Getting Smart, London: Routledge
Macbeath, J and Moos, L. (eds) Democratic Learning: the challenge to school
effectiveness, London: RoutledgeFalmer Press.
Macbeath, J. (2004) ' Democratic learning and school effectiveness: are they by any
chance related? In J. Macbeath and L.Moos (eds) Democratic Learning: the challenge to
school effectiveness, London: RoutledgeFalmer Press.
Miles, P. (2004) ‘Educational transitions and late-modern anxiety: The impact of
credentialism and individualisation on working class youth’, Unpublished PhD thesis,
University of Cambridge.
25
Moos, L. (2004) 'Introduction' in J. Macbeath and L.Moos (eds) Democratic Learning:
the challenge to school effectiveness, London: RoutledgeFalmer Press.
Mustagrudic, A. (2000) 'Education for Citizenship; the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina'
(unpublished MPhil thesis, University of Cambridge).
Noddings, N. (1988) 'An ethic of caring and its implications for instructional
arrangements', American Journal of Education, 96,2, 215-230.
Nussbaum, M.C (1999) Sex and Social Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, M. and Glover, J. (1995) 'Emotions and women's capabilities' in Women,
Culture and Development: a study of human capabilities, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2000), Citizenship at Key Stages 3 -4: Initial
Guidance for schools, Suffolk, QCA Publications.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2002), Citizenship: a scheme of work for key
stage 4, Sudbury, Suffolk, QCA Publications.
Pateman, C. (1988) The Sexual Contract, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Pateman, C. (1989) The Disorder of Women, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Peters, M. Marshall, J. and Fitzsimons, P. (2000) 'Managerialism and educational policy
in a global context: Foucault, neoliberalism and the doctrine of self management' in N.C.
Burbules and C.A. Torres (eds) Globalisation and Education: critical perspectives, New
York: Routledge.
Reay, D. and Arnot, M. (2004). ‘Participation and Control in Learning: a Pedagogic
Democratic Right? Learning to Read Critically in Teaching and Learning. in C.Vincent.
London, Sage.
Richardson, D. (1998), 'Sexuality and Citizenship', Sociology, Vol. 32,No. 1, pp. 83-100.
Rowan, L., Knobel, M., Bigum, C. and Lankshear, C. (2002) Boys, Literacies and
Schooling, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Rudduck, J and Flutter, J. (2004) How to Improve your School, London: Continuum
Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Sunnari, V. Kangasvuo, J. and Heikkinen, M. (eds) (2002) Gendered and Sexualised
Violence in Educational Environments, Oulu, Sweden: Oulu University Press
26
UNESCO (2003) Gender and Education for All: the leap to equality. EFA Global
Monitoring Report, Paris: Unesco.
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) UN General Assembly
Resolution 44, 25
Wilkinson, H. (1994) No Turning Back: generations and the genderquake, London:
Demos.
1
The tutor group consisted of 28 and 34 children in Mandela and Greenfield respectively.
A similar design was followed in the two primary feeder schools, with approximately 120
children involved in the study overall.
2
Questionnaire data were collected from approximately 300 secondary student teachers n
Greece, 375 in England and Wales, 103 in Catalonia, Spain and 180 in Portugal. 8 single
sex focus groups were conducted with male and female students teachers in England, 5
groups in Greece, and 2 groups in Spain. Female student teachers in most countries were
aged between 20 and 30 while many of the male teachers (especially since teachers in
Greece) were much older (averaging 40). The data analysis was conducted in each
country before being translated into English.
3
The English Citizenship Curriculum is described in the Crick Report (Advisoryt Group
on Citizenshi, 1998; Department for Education and Employment/ Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority 1999; QCA 2000; 2002).
27