In this article, the author talks about citizenship, which raises raises a question whether the good citizen is the one who fits in, the one who goes with the flow and is part of the whole, or whether the good citizen is the one who stands out from the crowd, the one who goes against the flow and bucks the trend, who is, in a sense, "out of…

Much work in the field of education for democratic citizenship is based on the idea that it is possible to know what a good citizen is, so that the task of citizenship education becomes that of the production of the good citizen. In this paper I ask whether and to what extent we can and should understand democratic citizenship as a positive…

How might European higher education contribute to the promotion and development of European citizenship? In this article, the author addresses this question through a critical discussion of the notions of "active citizenship" and "civic competence", which play a central role in current policy and research on the role of…

Background/Context: In discussions about democratic education, there is a strong tendency to see the role of education as that of the preparation of children and young people for their future participation in democratic life. A major problem with this view is that it relies on the idea that the guarantee for democracy lies in the existence of a…

In this article we present insights from research which has sought to deepen understanding of the ways in which young people (aged 13-21) learn democratic citizenship through their participation in a range of different formal and informal practices and communities. Based on the research, we suggest that such understanding should focus on the…

Background/Context: Ever since the Enlightenment, there has been a strong tendency in educational theory and practice to think of education as the "production" of a subject with particular qualities, most notably the quality of rationality. This way of thinking has deeply influenced the theory and practice of democratic education and has led to an…

In this article we argue for a shift in educational research, policy and practice away from teaching citizenship to an understanding of the ways young people learn democracy. In the first part of the article we identify the ways in which the discussion about citizenship in Britain has developed since the Second World War and show how a…

Many educational practices are based upon philosophical ideas about what it means to be human, including particular subjectivities and identities such as the rational person, the autonomous individual, or the democratic citizen. This book asks what might happen to the ways in which we educate if we treat the question as to what it means to be…