Participedia is a collaborative, digital learning tool for the co-production of knowledge about new forms of citizen participation across the world (www.participedia.net). In this paper, we analyse using the platform as a learning resource for adult learners who are democracy practitioners and for undergraduate students. We examine Participedia's…

Commemorations are events or actions that honour and memorialize significant events, people, and groups from the past. In recent years there have been numerous contentious debates about commemorations of historical events and people in countries around the world, including Canada. In this article I argue that commemoration controversies should be…

Globalization and neoliberal practices have influenced leadership in education in various ways, including through curricula. One of the most vital sections in curricula is citizenship education. Supranational and international organizations, as well as governments, have advanced interest in elementary school, particularly kindergarten, curricula.…

This essay proposes a conception of citizenship that highlights its political aspects. Based on the work of Balibar, Rancière, and Biesta, it is argued that democratic citizenship education must include the education of equality. This means that students must have the opportunity to experience not only the membership aspect of citizenship that…

One of the biggest criticisms of international law is the lack of effective enforcement, often compounded in human rights law by the system of treaty reservations that detracts from the main object and purpose of human rights protections. Ideally, once a country has ratified a treaty, it may create domestic law that provides an enforcement…

The progressivist education reforms that swept across Canada's Ontario province during the interwar periods of the late 1930s included a focus on character education, social justice, and social reconstruction. This article offers a glimpse at the evolution of school curriculum and values associated with school education, with increasing emphasis…

Citizenship education is a popular and contested phenomenon in liberal democratic societies. It is difficult to imagine a school system that does not contribute to the preservation and improvement of society through education of democratic, responsible and tolerant citizens. On the contrary, the execution of such education is full of caveats,…

Purpose: This article focuses on the role of school and district leadership in the development and implementation of reform aimed at increasing racial and religious tolerance. It chronicles the rise of intercultural and democratic citizenship curriculum in three North American sites--Springfield, Massachusetts, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, and San…

This paper reports upon the findings of a research study conducted with British Columbian university youth in Canada, investigating youth beliefs about, and actions towards, civic life and the connections between these factors and youths' personal conditions and surrounding contexts. The findings illustrate the complexity of connections between…

The main thesis we want to defend in this article is that learning about nationalism from a historical, sociological, and normative point of view constitutes one important, but rather neglected, dimension of a good citizenship education. Although the debate about nationalism and education has received considerable attention from political and…

In this paper we argue that the inherent flaw in the current Ontario civics curriculum is that it is too heavily influenced by the functional aspects of "what is" Canada, rather than giving the opportunity to experience the emotional qualities of what it means to be Canadian. Creating a community of learners based on the caveats of…

The new Social Studies curriculum recently introduced in Alberta proposes to encourage students to affirm their place as citizens in a democratic society. Grounded in Biesta's (2007) argument that regardless of a Program of Studies' best stated goals and intentions, if a school is not structured democratically the chances of the program being…

Asking hard questions is just that--hard. But if we are truly committed to teaching for social justice, we need to encourage our children to find as many points of view as they can, and to ask questions we may never be able to answer, knowing that education for citizenship lies in the process of thinking critically about the many sides of a…

Anti-intellectualism and political illiteracy are sweeping across the American media and cultural landscape, giving rise to discourses that are unabashedly nativist, racist, and reactionary. Populist sentiments drive the rabid individualism and anti-government rhetoric of right-wing groups such as the Tea Party movement. Underlying these…

This paper explores educating for democratic citizenship with a focus on the intersection between reading and values, specifically the nurturing of social responsibility. Using a pre-designed framework for teaching for social responsibility, excerpts from a young adult historical fiction series are used to consider learning possibilities in the…