Module EDUC3291: Citizenship Education

Department: Education

EDUC3291: Citizenship Education

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To enable students to reflect critically on the main issues that have come to dominate the current debate in citizenship education.
• To put current education policy apropos citizenship education in its historical and regional context.

Content

• The course content will reflect a number of key themes:
• citizenship education over the past 250 years;
• the influence of the state on citizenship education;
• current debates on the need for citizenship education - despotism or paternalism?;
• the growth of the state in the lives of individuals;
• the increased politicization of education;
• the ways in which the education system seeks to encourage future citizens to accept the norms of society;
• the impact of this on the way the school curriculum is organised and taught;
• the movement of 'citizenship education' into higher education, with the increased emphasis on utilitarianism and university students contributing to the economy and development of local, national and international communities.

Learning Outcomes

• a knowledge and understanding of the development of citizenship education from the voluntary efforts in the nineteenth century through to current government policy, acknowledging the contribution of the ancient world;
• a knowledge and understanding of the perceived breakdown of society in post-1945 England and successive governments' responses to this;
• an increased awareness of the social, political, economic, religious and cultural reasons for the provision of education in its current form;
• an understanding that the antecedents of citizenship education is a radical study which teachers dismiss at their peril.

• the ability to utilise a range of relevant primary and secondary sources, including theoretical and research-based evidence, in order to expound and defend a thesis in writing;
• an ability to assess the significance, relevance and value of literature, iconography and broader cultural genres in the study of the development of citizenship education;
• an ability to critically analyse and evaluate policy concepts, theories and issues in a systematic way by placing them in their historical context;
• a familiarity with the debates surrounding citizenship education;
• an ability to discuss different reactions and responses to citizenship education;
• an ability to review changing trends in pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

• a deepening ability to select and organise material so as to expound and defend a thesis in writing; and to articulate opinions and arguments in a manner relevant and appropriate to the aims and objectives of the module;
• the acquisition of a range of thinking and problem solving skills, including the ability to evaluate evidence, and using this evaluation to propose an hypothesis and subsequently reach a conclusion;
• sound judgement in the selection and use of a wide variety of sources;
• an increased ability to communicate effectively in written form, with the appropriate use of specialist vocabulary.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Teaching and learning will be through formal lectures, the content of which will be broken down into seminar discussion - to which students will be required to make a positive contribution, including the opportunity to deliver a formal presentation during the year. The summative essay, in which students will critically analyse an issue from the content of the module, drawing upon their own experience of education as a source of evidence for applying tools of historical reflection. There will be a 2 hour examination based upon the module content.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Tutorial tasks, typically small research commissions. Additionally, oral presentations arising as a result of such research.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University