Critical citizenship education in England and France

A comparative analysis

Bibliographic Data

ID11893503
AuthorsLaura Johnson (0000-0002-1882-8186, University of London, corresponding author), P Morris (0000-0002-7448-0727, University of London)
Year2011
Volume48
Issue3
Pages283-301
Publication date2011-10-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-0068 • E-ISSN: 1360-0486
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03050068.2011.588885
OpenAlexW2014503082
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited37

The promotion of ‘critical citizenship’ has become a key objective of official school curricula around the world. Using an analytic framework developed by the authors, this paper identifies the diverse conceptions of critical citizenship that are promoted, by comparing the official school curricula for citizenship in England and France. The analysis goes beyond the dichotomous distinctions prevalent in comparisons of education in the two countries, especially those that focus on the contrasting degrees of centralisation–decentralisation, and suggests that there were significant differences in the goals promoted in their curricula with regard to four key dimensions: ideology, the collective, the individual and action. While these differences reflect historical, political, social, economic and cultural differences between the two nations, the analysis indicates a lack of symmetry across the levels of the curriculum, which contributed to the significant spaces that were found to exist which have the potential for teachers and students to creatively interpret how critical citizenship can be understood and implemented in the classroom

Centralisation · Citizenship · Critical theory · Curriculum · Decentralization · Ideology · National curriculum · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Promotion (chess · Social science · Sociology · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Law · Religious Education and Schools

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