ERIC Number: EJ1338936
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022-May
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1474-9041
EISSN: N/A
Citizenship-as-Competence, "What Else"? Why European Citizenship Education Policy Threatens to Fall Short of Its Aims
Joris, Margot; Simons, Maarten; Agirdag, Orhan
European Educational Research Journal, v21 n3 p484-503 May 2022
The topic of citizenship education and the promotion of democratic citizenship in schools has risen to the top of educational policy agendas in Europe over the past three decades. This rise in attention, however, appears to be accompanied by an apparent lack of attention to the specific manner in which citizenship, education and the assumed relationship between both are currently conceptualised and understood in this policy context. The currently dominant notions of citizenship education centre around a concept of "citizenship-as-competence," illustrating a certain assumption of equivalence between citizenship and formal education in schools, without further elaborating on this assumption. By means of a critical re-reading of key European educational policy texts referring to citizenship education, and their use of the key concepts of citizenship and education, our analysis shows how the competence-based approach to citizenship education in European educational policymaking entails tensions with its own assumptions, therefore falling short of its own proclaimed purpose of emancipating young people in Europe to become autonomous, engaged and critical democratic citizens.
Descriptors: Citizenship Education, Democratic Values, Educational Policy, Foreign Countries, Competence, Citizenship
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Information Analyses
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
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Identifiers - Location: Europe
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A