In my younger years of elementary education, the focus of citizenship education was how to be a personally responsible citizen. We were taught to follow rules, help others, and be responsible. I don’t remember this being done in any particular way other than just by subconsciously instilling these values in all of our classes, like playing nice with others in kindergarten and handing in homework on time. In middle years and high school, the focus changed to participatory citizenship education. For example, students were encouraged to join the Student Activity Council and work with other students to organize efforts for the community, such as a food drive at Christmas. In social and history classes, we also learned how government systems work, and how to participate in our democratic voting system. As for justice-oriented citizenship education, I cannot recall any examples of this in my schooling other than in grade 11 or 12; when discussing left-wing versus right-wing politics, we had class debates that helped us examine some of the reasoning behind laws and current ways of thinking. These class debates helped me to examine my own biases and prepare me for the justice-oriented citizenship education I would later receive in university. However, in my k-12 experience, justice-oriented citizenship was not the focus of my citizenship education. 

The focus of citizenship education leaning toward being personally responsible and participatory in the curriculum helps create a certain type of citizen, or a certain “product” of the curriculum. It creates one who will follow the rules and participate in democracy, who gets a job and pays taxes. However, by not placing more of an emphasis on justice-oriented citizenship, it makes it somewhat impossible for new generations to take action and create social change. Students will think of a citizen who actively seeks out injustice and affects social change as being intangible, someone far away and somewhere else. By not placing more of an emphasis on this type of citizenship in our curriculum, it takes away any responsibility and drive to actively seek out oppression. Through my own k-12 education, I never thought of myself as being someone who could be justice-oriented; I always felt as though I did not have enough knowledge to even assess what was wrong, let alone bring about social change. 

The types of citizenship education that are focused on could tell us about the place. For example, in a more conservative location, citizenship education would likely focus more on the personally-responsible citizen. A more conservative curriculum maker would likely want to reinforce the status quo, and by placing value on a personally responsible citizen, it does just that. A more liberal curriculum maker would perhaps place more focus on a justice-oriented system and encourage its citizens to fight for social justice. I personally believe all three types of citizenship are important, but if we hope to fight the oppressive systems currently in place, we must teach younger students to be more justice-oriented, or we will continue to reinforce the status quo.

Written in response to the reading:
Westheimer,J. & Kahne, J. What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy, American Educational Research Journal, Summer 2004, Vol. 41(2), pp. 237-269.