This article analyses the concept of political literacy (as introduced in the 1998 Crick Report) in relation to Citizenship in the English National Curriculum. It argues that political literacy has not been sufficiently emphasised or facilitated within this foundation subject and that the concept is particularly important for students at a time of…

Educational attainment measured by years of education has been widely reported as leading to higher levels of political participation. The theory is that education plays an important role in a person's civic skills and cognitive capacity that helps them understand and connect with the world of politics and be able to defend their interests (Nie et…

The League of Nations Union (LNU) was one among the many organisations, in different countries, that promoted internationalist education among the young in the interwar years. But it was a particularly large and prominent one and appealed to a wide cross-section of teachers and pupils in English schools. LNU junior branches were established in…

With school budgets at their tightest and a wealth of choices for teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD), how do senior leaders make the right decisions on training which will deliver real change to classroom practice? CPD must go beyond adding content and resources to an already overwhelmed curriculum but also consider how teachers…

This article explores possibilities for challenging liberal humanism, often expressed through cosmopolitanism, in global citizenship education (GCE) in European contexts, specifically England. Thinking with Sylvia Wynter's genealogy of the creation and universal imposition of "Man" as the dominant descriptive statement for the human and…

This article examines how 8-year-old children in a primary school in England develop new understandings of hardship and survival through the process of digital storytelling. The research presented here is part of a larger global literacy 'Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project' (2012-ongoing) working across 15 countries…

This report has been produced by Douglas Bourn, Director of Development Education Research Centre at UCL and Jenny Hatley from Bath Spa University, on behalf of the Our Shared World Coalition of organisations. The focus of Our Shared World is to lobby UK government and other policymakers on why Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals…

This paper deconstructs ways in which the white 'race' of Eastern European pupils and the class determination of their parents in the country of arrival combine to either afford or deny them racialised privileges in British education. Critically reviewing published research on Eastern European pupils in British schools, this article concludes that…

This article traces the evolution of the statutory Youth Service in rural Westmorland (now part of Cumbria), from its establishment in 1939 to the early post-war years. It focuses on how the county's Youth Service innovated and developed new ways of working with young country people in their spare time, and the challenges of introducing…

Research on the promotion of 'fundamental British values' (FBV) in English schools has tended to focus on its nationalistic and securitising elements. Its role within a broader, politically conservative shift in values education, both in England and beyond, has received less attention. This paper addresses the latter, reporting on research into…

Interactions within classrooms contribute to adolescents' democratic civic development by providing resources fostering students' political understanding. Many teachers participate in social or political groups in their communities and more broadly. These out-of-school experiences inform their classroom practices and are contextualized by national…

The transition from the 20th to the 21st century has been the stage of contradictory messages regarding youth citizenship. There is a powerful public and academic rhetoric on youth political disengagement and apathy and, concurrently, an assumption that young people are not knowledgeable, competent and responsible enough to be active citizens, and…

Long-established paradigms around intensifying global engagement, internationalism and 'borderless-ness' in the UK higher education (HE) sector are being challenged and disrupted by the nationalist drift of global political and socioeconomic forces. This article identifies the core policy themes facing UK international HE and reflects on how these…

Following remarks about the nature and significance of values and values education, generally and more specifically in China, England, Mexico and Spain, we explain the methods used to analyse official policies that apply to moral education, citizenship education and character education. We find similarity across the documents regarding five…

Recent critics have suggested that character education (either in and of itself or certain instantiations of it) is overly individualised and, as a result, fails to engage adequately with the political. In this paper, I offer an account of character education which takes issue with such criticisms, and seeks to make clear connections between the…