Commissioned Research Article
Title: Education for democratic
citizenship and community involvement
Author: John Annette
Produced by citizED
(supported by the Training and
Development Agency for Schools)
AUTUMN 2006
More information about the series of
Commissioned Research Articles can be
found at www.citized.info
Education for Democratic Citizenship and Community Involvement
Professor John Annette, Professor of Citizenship and Lifelong Learning, Birkbeck College, University of London
Active Citizenship, Citizenship Education and Civic Renewal
Given the introduction of the new Citizenship curriculum in England and other developments in the rest of the UK
(Annette, 2003) and following the subsequent publication of the report of Sir Bernard Crick’s second Advisory Group
which examined Citizenship provision for 16-19 year olds in education and training (DfEE-FEFC, 2000), opportunities
to develop new models of Citizenship learning across the developing 14-19 phase and into adult education are now
emerging.
Crick’s second report viewed Citizenship less as a ‘subject’ for the classroom and more as a life skill for the maturing
student, arguing that all young adults should have an entitlement to Citizenship Education based on participation and
that they should all have the opportunity to have this participation academically recognised. As a result, September
2001 saw the launch of a developmental programme of pilot projects centrally co-ordinated by the new Learning and
Skills Development Agency (LSDA) and managed locally by groups as diverse as Education Business Partnerships,
LEA’s, LSC’s and the Citizenship Foundation. As this text goes to press (July 2004) the programme is completing its
third year, is about to enter its fourth, and has been given a new impetus with the work of the Tomlinson committee’s
research into 14-19 learning (DfES, 2003). As a result, some, including the editors of this collection, now see Crick’s
second report as best read as a 14-19 rather than 16-19 document.
Citizenship’s place in the National Curriculum, the publication of this second report and the associated pilot
programme (and, more recently, the issuing of Crick’s third report into the educational needs of newcomers to Britain
during 2003) together provide the basis for establishing Citizenship Education as a key component within not just
schooling but within ongoing (or ‘lifelong’) learning provision. Especially, beyond the school the focus is likely to be on
active citizenship, civil renewal and regeneration. Indeed, the third Crick report expressly, if controversially, links adult
learning, volunteering, community involvement and the process of becoming a UK citizen.
Citizenship Education, Active Citizenship and Service Learning
So, what is the link between ‘Active Citizenship’, Citizenship Education and service learning? And what role might
Service Learning play in delivering the objectives of Citizenship Education? As readers will be aware, Crick’s first and
seminal report, Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (DfEE, 1998), resulted in the
addition of Citizenship to the National Curriculum. This report also recognised the importance of active learning in the
community, learning that is, by definition, experiential in nature.
This pedagogy of experiential learning is based on the learning cycle of David Kolb and is now beginning to establish
itself in schools, colleges and in higher education and in professional development and training programmes. As a
form of learning it is based not just on experience but on a structured learning experience with measurable learning
outcomes. A key element of Kolb’s model is that learning emerges from the structured reflection of the learner. Thus,
as applied to Citizenship Education, the student learns not just through, for instance, volunteering or civic engagement
but through their reflections on this. Thus, Carnegie Ypi, CSV Education for Citizenship, Continyou, Changemakers,
the Citizenship Foundation, Envision and other voluntary sector organisations have highlighted the importance of
encouraging the development of, for example, citizenship education through reflective service learning. Many schools
in the UK and the United States now provide school students with the opportunity to engage in this kind of Service
Learning (to use the prevalent US terminology), learning that derives from the offering of service in the community:
‘active learning in the community’, ‘community based learning for active citizenship’ , or active citizenship in the
community’ as different UK based programmes frame such activity (Wade,1997 and for the UK cf. Annette, 2000;
Potter, 2002 ). A key challenge facing such programmes is to go beyond traditional volunteering and doing good
works and link the service learning with political knowledge, skills and understanding.
While there has been a tradition of community-based internship and experiential education since the 1960's, the new
emphasis in the USA since the early 1990's has been on the link between Citizenship Education and Service
Learning. (Rimmerman, 1997; Battistoni, 2002). There is also an increasing emphasis on the need for Service
Learning programmes to meet the needs of local community partners (Cruz and Giles, 2000, and Gelmon, et.al.,
,2001). Thus, Service Learning helps to build a type of ‘bridging as well as bonding social capital’ (cf. Putnam, 2000)
and may also develop the capacity building for democratic citizenship within civil society. (Annette, 1999; Kahne and
Westheimer, 2000 and 2003;) An important research question that needs to be examined, albeit one beyond the
reach of this chapter, is: “what are the necessary elements of a Service Learning programme which can build not only
social capital but also active citizenship?” (Eyler and Giles, 1999; Kahane and Westheimer,2000 and 2003; Annette,
2004, forthcoming).
Active Citizenship, Service Learning and the delivery of the National Curriculum
In schools, the problem for teachers is to integrate Citizenship Education, including the opportunity to engage in
Service Learning, into a National Curriculum, which many view as already overcrowded (although Tomlinson may
help here). And the Service Learning element poses an additional burden: providing the opportunity for students to
participate in Service Learning requires strong partnerships with local community based organisations, businesses
and service providers and timetable flexibility. Nonetheless, it is important if Crick’s ambitions are to be fulfilled:
We aim at no less than a change in the political culture of this country both nationally and locally: for people to think of
themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life and with the critical
capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting; to build on and to extend radically to young people the best
in existing traditions of community involvement and public service, and to make them individually confident in finding
new forms of involvement and action among themselves.
(DfES, 1998, p. 7 and cf. Crick 2000b and 2002)
The vision of Crick’s Advisory Group is a formidable one and there are, of course, many challenges to be faced if it is
to be realised. Terence McLoughlin, among others, has raised a number of issues arising from the Advisory Group’s
report (McLaughlin,2000 and cf. Osler, 2000a). Here I want to build on these and encourage further debate and
discussion about how Citizenship Education through Service Learning might help to bring about the more participative
democratic political culture that Crick seeks. An excellent example of this type of participative service learning that
enables young people to address citizenship issues of concern to themselves is the Youth Act! Programme which is
being managed by Carrie Supple of the Citizenship Foundation.
Youth Act! is about campaigning for and achieving change in your community. Two groups
of young people from Seven Sisters [in London] are doing just that.
“When we came to Youth Act we discussed what was important to us,” says 15-year-old
Francion, part of a group from Gladesmore Community School. “We found that each of us
was affected in some way by gun crime whether it was ourselves, our family members or
just being scared of living in an area affected by gun crime.” “The NDC had already formed
a youth residents group for Stonebridge estate,” says youth worker Hayley Jukes. “They’d
already been discussing a lot of the issues affecting them when we found out about Youth
Act. Youth Act gave the group skills they could use to actually change some of these things
they were talking about.”
“Youth Act teaches us how to work as a group,” says 15-year-old Sasha, part of the Value
Life team. “We have weekly meetings for six weeks and there was a residential weekend to
learn basic skills about getting on with each other and communicating better.”
“If it wasn’t for Youth Act we wouldn’t have come up with the idea,” says Sharon Williams, a
citizenship administrator at Gladesmore School working with the group. “They’ve shown us
how to run a campaign, how to get what we want and let us know that we have the right to.
“We’re hoping to raise awareness of the effects of gun crime and re-educate the younger
people, to change their mentality towards gun crime. We’re going to kick start our campaign
with a Walk For Peace from Gladesmore to Bruce Grove. We’re just trying to make
changes.
Even if they’re small they’ll still be significant.” Carrie Supple, Youth Act Project Manager
at the Citizenship Foundation, says: “When the training finishes we stay in touch. I send
them funding ideas, contacts, newspaper articles, all sorts of things that crop up, but then it
really is up to them.
Youth Act is for young people aged 11-18 who want to make a difference to their
community
Cf. www.citizenshipfoundation.org.uk.
Civil Renewal, deliberative democracy and Active Citizenship
David Blunkett in his Edith Kahln Memorial Lecture and more recent publications and speeches has called for a new
civic renewal, which emphasizes new forms and levels of community involvement in local and regional governance.
This new democratic politics, which would include referendums, consultative activities, and deliberative participation,
has found support from organizations as diverse as the Local Government Association and the prominent think tank
IPPR has called for greater and more creative forms of civic engagement (IPPR, 2004). One outcome of this shift in
thinking, which might be termed a switch from government to governance, is the obligation upon local authorities to
establish Local Strategic Partnerships, a duty arising from the Local Government Act 2000. These partnerships seek
to involve local communities in the development of Community Strategies. More recently, the Home Office has
established a Civil Renewal Unit, which has begun piloting an ‘Active Learning for Active Citizenship’ programme
through which it is intended that adult learners will develop the capacity to engage in deliberative democracy at a local
level.
Generally the intention of these initiatives, especially where they are targeted at poorer areas, is to tackle social
exclusion and promote regeneration and civil and civic renewal by promoting engagement and building social capital
through active citizenship and linking this activity with the learning strategy of the Neighbourhood Renewal
Programme, which includes community empowerment networks and New Deal for communities programmes. As
such, though, they provide important pegs on which schools and other educational institutions can hang Active
Citizenship Education programmes based around real Service Learning.
The DfES has published a report entitled ‘Mapping children and young people’s participation in
England’ based on research carried out by The National Youth Association (NYA) and the British
Youth Council (BYC).
Carolyn Oldfield from The NYA's Information Services team, along with Claire Fowler from BYC,
surveyed both the voluntary and statutory sector organisations between November 2003 and January
2004 to assess the level of children's and young people up to 19 in public decision-making.
The study maps the increasing range of young people’s participation in local government through local
youth forums and other government bodies like the Connexions Service. While this type of activity is
increasing it is still the case that the organisations and not young people determine the extent to which
young people can influence decision making.
www.nya.org.uk
The Carnegie YPI is an innovative set of programmes to encourage and facilitate youth participation in
decision making. Its recent research publication ‘Expanding and Sustaining Participation’ provides some
important insights into the nature of youth participation in the UK.
www.carnegietrust.org.uk/cypi
Service Learning and political awareness: the evidence
Until recently there has been relatively little empirical research into Citizenship and Citizenship Education beyond
some pioneering studies of youth political socialisation. Ivor Crewe and his colleagues noted that much of the debate
about Citizenship is “conducted in what is virtually an empirical void” (Crewe,et.al.,1997) There has been more
recently an increasing amount of research into Citizenship Education and its learning outcomes internationally. In the
UK there have been a number of small scale studies since 1998 and more recently the eight year Citizenship
Education Longitudinal Study has been launched. Outlined elsewhere in this text, the study has been commissioned
by the Department for Education and Skills and is being carried out by David Kerr and colleagues at the National
Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) (Kerr, et.al., April 2003). This will, for the first time in the UK, provide a
comprehensive understanding of the outcomes of Citizenship Education as a compulsory core National Curriculum
subject at Key Stages 3 and 4 and it will complement the Post-16 Citizenship Education Survey that is also being
funded by DfES and undertaken by NFER. There are a number of contextual factors raised in the first report of the
longitudinal study, and in other research. Critically, these focus on the competing definitions of Citizenship with which
practitioners contend, the lack of a coherent vision for Citizenship Education but here and elsewhere there are also
concerns about the “definitions, purposes and outcomes” of Citizenship Education, particularly given the competing
claims for emphasising “equality, identity and diversity”, global citizenship,etc.
If though research into Citizenship Education in the UK remains in its infancy, there is an extensive range of research
studies in the USA into the learning outcomes of Service Learning programmes for students in both secondary
schools and higher education. What is especially interesting about this research is the almost universal finding that
Service Learning, where volunteering is part of a formal Citizenship curriculum, is more effective in its link with
‘Citizenship’ outcomes then with ‘Community Service’ or volunteering itself. That is, it serves to develop just the type
of political awareness and literacy that Crick and his colleagues intended the new UK curriculum to do: A Service
Learning, which builds Citizenship knowledge and develops Citizenship skills. (Melchoir and Bayliss,2003 and
Annette, forthcoming)
‘Real’ community involvement: the case for service learning
Crick’s three strands of Citizenship (Social and Moral Responsibility, Political Literacy and Community Involvement)
are interwoven into a set of knowledge and skills within the National Curriculum that has subsequently emerged. I
remain concerned, though, that the interpretation of “community involvement” that underpins the Citizenship
curriculum will involve a conception of the community that sees it simply as a place or neighbourhood where students
are merely ‘active’: doing good rather than political good (ie informed, effective citizens). That is, the new curriculum
will result in forms of volunteering that will fail to challenge the students to think and act ‘politically’: volunteering
without Service Learning. (cf. Crick, 2002, p.115).
This raises the issue of how we develop through community involvement, especially on the local level, a more
deliberative and democratic politics that can also provide a more active and political framework for enriching
Citizenship Education. Thus, learning about Citizenship through active Community Involvement within the framework
of the new curriculum should, at least in part, be based on the pedagogy of overtly reflective experiential Service
Learning. Here, the key to success is to be found in asking how community based or focused learning experiences
can best be structured to challenge students to become ‘political’ such that they become more aware of the political
significance of civic engagement in local communities. As Breslin and Dufour argue in the opening pages of this text,
digging a pensioner’s garden is itself an act of doing good rather than an act of good Citizenship. The Citizenship
learning begins when the student gardener begins to question why the pensioner is in the position that they are: In
short, they may learn a thing or two about gardening, but the greater lessons are less about the pansies and more
about the politics.
References
Advisory Group on Citizenship (Crick 1), Education for Citizenship and the Teaching for
Democracy in Schools, QCA, 1998 (nb. Available at www.dfes.gov.uk/citizenship )
Advisory Group on Citizenship (Crick 2), Citizenship for 16-19 Year Olds in Education
and Training, Further Education Funding Council,2000 www.dfes.gov.uk/citizenship)
Annette, John., “ Education for Citizenship, Civic Participation and Experiential Service
Learning in the Community,” in R.Gardner,et.al.,eds., Education for Citizenship,
London: Continuum, 2000
Annette, John., “Community and Citizenship Education” in Lockyer,Andrew, Bernard
Crick and John Annette, eds., Education for Democratic Citizenship,
Ashgate,2003
Annette, John., “Where’s the Citizenship in Service Learning?” (forthcoming)
Battistoni, Richard, Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum, Campus Compact,2002
Blunkett, David., Civil Renewal- a new agenda, (Edith Kahn Memorial Lecture), CSV, 2003
Crewe, I.,Searing, D., and Conover,P., Citizenship and Civic Education
London: Citizenship Foundation, 1997
Crick, Bernard., Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002
Cruz, Nadine and Dwight Giles,Jr.., ”Where’s the Community in Service-Learning
Research?” , Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Fall, 2000
Eyler, Janet., and Dwight Giles,Jr., Where’s the Learning in Service Leaning?, San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.
Gelmon, Sherrill,et.al., Assessing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, Campus
Compact, 2001
IPPR, the Lonely Citizen, IPPR, 2004
Kahne, Joseph.,and Westheimer,Joel., ”Service-Learning and Citizenship: Directions for Research”,
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Fall 2000)
Kahne, Joseph and Westheimer, Joel, eds.,’Special Section on Education, Democracy and civic Engagement, “Phi
Delta Kappen, vol.85,1,2003
Kerr, David., Citizenship Education Revisited-National Case Study-England, National
Foundation for Educational Research(NFER),1977, rev.ed.1999)
Kerr, David.,et.al., Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study: First Cross-Sectional
Survey 2001-2002, National foundation for Educational Research, April 2003
Kolb, David, Experiential Learning, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,1998
McLaughlin,Terence., “”Citizenship Education in England: The Crick Report and
Beyond” Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol 34, 4, 2000
Melchoir, Alan and L.Ballis,”Impact of service learning on civic attitudes and behaviours
of middle and high school youth: Findings from three national evaluations,” in A.Furco
and S.Billig,eds., Advances in service learning research, Information Age
Publishing,2002
Osler, Audrey.,”The Crick Report: difference, equality and racial justice,” The
Curriculum Journal 11, 1, 25-37, 2000a
Potter, John., Active Citizenship in Schools, Kogan Page, 2002
Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone in America, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000
Rimmerman, Craig., The New Citizenship, New York: Westview Press,1997
Wade, Rahima, ed., Community Service-Learning, SUNY Press,1997
Further Reading
Annette, John., “Community and Citizenship Education” in Lockyer,Andrew, Bernard
Crick and John Annette, eds., Education for Democratic Citizenship,
Ashgate,2003
Crick, Bernard., Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002
Faulks, Keith.,Citizenship, Routledge Falmer, 2002
Potter, John., Active Citizenship in Schools, Kogan Page, 2002
Some Organisations and Web Links
The Active Citizenship Centre of the Civil Renewal Unit of the Home office- cf. www.activecitizenship.org.uk for information about the civil renewal agenda
Voluntary organizations which run service learning type programmes are:
Changemakers – cf www.changemakers.org.uk
Citizenship Foundation – cf. www.citizenshipfoundation.org.uk
CSV- Education – cf. www.csv.org.uk
National Youth Agency – cf. www.nya.org.uk
Biographical Note
Professor John Annette is Professor of Citizenship and Lifelong Learning and is Pro Vice Master for Widening
Participation and Community Partnerships at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has published articles on
citizenship and service learning, community development and community leadership and his latest publication will be
‘Education for Democratic Citizenship” co-edited with Sir Bernard Crick and Professor Andrew Lockyer published by
Ashgate in December 2003. He is on the advisory board of the DfES ‘Young Volunteer Challenge’ and advising the
Civil Renewal Unit of the Home Office on their ‘Active Citizenship and Community Leadership’ adult education
programme.