Citizenship Education: The Feasibility of a Participative Approach

This art icle was downloaded by: [ Universit y Library Ut recht ] On: 12 Novem ber 2013, At : 06: 33 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK Educational Research Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions for aut hors and subscript ion informat ion: ht t p:/ / www.t andfonline.com/ loi/ rere20 Citizenship education: the feasibility of a participative approach a b c L.J.F. Guérin , P.A. van der Ploeg & P.H.M. Sins a School of Educat ion, Saxion Universit y of Applied Sciences, Devent er, The Net herlands b Facult y of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Universit y of Groningen, Groningen, The Net herlands c LOOK Scient ific Cent re for Teacher Research, Open Universit y, Heerlen, The Net herlands and School of Educat ion, Saxion Universit y of Applied Sciences, Devent er, The Net herlands Published online: 11 Nov 2013. To cite this article: L.J.F. Guérin, P.A. van der Ploeg & P.H.M. Sins (2013) Cit izenship educat ion: t he feasibilit y of a part icipat ive approach, Educat ional Research, 55:4, 427-440 To link to this article: ht t p:/ / dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/ 00131881.2013.844945 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Taylor & Francis m akes every effort t o ensure t he accuracy of all t he inform at ion ( t he “ Cont ent ” ) cont ained in t he publicat ions on our plat form . However, Taylor & Francis, our agent s, and our licensors m ake no represent at ions or warrant ies what soever as t o t he accuracy, com plet eness, or suit abilit y for any purpose of t he Cont ent . Any opinions and views expressed in t his publicat ion are t he opinions and views of t he aut hors, and are not t he views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of t he Cont ent should not be relied upon and should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources of inform at ion. 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Sinsc School of Education, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Deventer, The Netherlands; bFaculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; cLOOK Scientific Centre for Teacher Research, Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands and School of Education, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Deventer, The Netherlands Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 a (Received 12 May 2013; final version received 30 August 2013) Background: European and national policies on citizenship education stimulate the implementation of a participative approach to citizenship education, fostering active citizenship. The reason given for fostering active citizenship is the decline of participation in political and social life jeopardizing democracy. Schools have to implement a participative approach through stimulating participation within school and its direct environment, while fostering a certain kind of political literacy, critical thinking and analysing skills, certain kind of values, attitudes and behaviours. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to problematise the participative approach of citizenship education advocated by policy makers and several researchers. In order to do so, four different categories that citizenship education has to cover will be theoretically and empirically analysed: political knowledge, critical thinking, values, attitudes and behaviours, and active participation. The practical implications for educational practice will be discussed. Source of evidence: Two types of documents have been analysed: The 2005 and 2012 Eurydice reports and the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) research reports. These documents are exemplary of the mainstream idea of citizenship and citizenship education held by policy makers and many researchers on citizenship education. The Eurydice reports have analysed citizenship education in more than 30 countries while promoting a certain concept of citizenship education, namely active citizenship. The ICCS has researched pupils’ competencies on citizenship education and school practices in 38 countries. It is an interesting source because it had to define and operationalise the different constituents of citizenship education. Main argument: In jurisdictions where citizenship education is compulsory, schools have to implement this participative approach and account for it. We suggest that this educational approach to citizenship education may be problematic because each aspect – political literacy, critical thinking and analysing skills, values, attitudes and behaviours, and active participation – presents challenging demands on the curriculum, head teachers and teachers. We argue three kinds of constraints that make the implementation of such a participative approach unrealistic: (1) insufficient specialist knowledge on the part of teachers and head teachers, (2) time and budget constraints and (3) an overcrowded curriculum. We demonstrate that the broad range of themes that political literacy has to cover demand specific knowledge on the part of teachers regarding each of the themes. Then we argue that critical thinking skills are hard to learn and demand continuous practice. Implementing and sustaining active participation structure within school and in the direct environment, again, require specific skills and curricular organisation. The demands made by values, attitudes *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] © 2013 NFER 428 L.J.F. Guérin et al. and behaviours on teachers and pupils could not be explored because of the lack of conceptual clarity in the documentation under scrutiny. Conclusion: The feasibility of a participative approach to citizenship education has been questioned through theoretical and empirical critical analysis. On this basis, we suggest that the scope of the citizenship education curriculum should be reconsidered or that teacher and head teacher should receive the necessary and adequate training, and support to implement such a participatory structure. Keywords: civic education; citizenship; citizenship education; participation; active participation Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 Introduction Citizenship education should prepare and stimulate pupils to engage in political and social life (Eurydice 2005, 2012; Schulz et al. 2008, 2010; Schulz, Ainley, and Fraillon 2011). In order to do so, pupils should gain knowledge about political and social issues, learn to become critical thinkers, learn to exert certain kind of values, attitudes and behaviours and learn how to engage actively in political and social life. Therefore, citizenship education should focus on teaching participation in and outside school. This educational goal and approach to citizenship education are advocated by the Eurydice reports (2005, 2012), national policy documents in, for example, the Netherlands, England, Germany, USA, and also by many researchers in the field of citizenship education (e.g. Bron and Thijs 2011; Geisel et al. 2012; Osler 2011; QCA 1998; Schulz et al. 2008; The Education and Skills Committee 2007). The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is a comparative study, which has researched the way citizenship education was implemented at school level and carries the same conception of citizenship education. As Olson (2012) points out, the ICCS enables comparison among countries by setting criteria on the content and goals of citizenship education, but by doing so also takes a stance about what kind of democracy and what kind of citizenship such education should prepare for. In addition, this way of measuring citizenship education does not enable one to take into account the variation in conceptualisation of citizenship existing among countries, cities, towns and people. In other words, this conceptual uniformity comes at the expense of diversity (Olson 2012). Another of the European Commission’s comparative studies are the Eurydice reports. They show that the participative approach to citizenship education is the leading approach taken in Europe. This means that schools usually have to implement it, because in most European countries, citizenship education is compulsory. Therefore, schools have to account for the way they implement the different aspects of citizenship education. The problem is that schools often do not know how to do this (Peshar et al. 2010). One solution, according to policy makers, is giving schools more support (Educational Council 2012; Eurydice 2012; Onderwijsraad 2012) and some countries have developed programmes in order to help schools implement and sustain a participative structure (Eurydice 2012). Programmes that support schools should be clear about the kind of citizenship that is being implemented and should empower schools in such a way that they are able to implement and sustain each aspect that citizenship education has to cover. Besides the theoretical critique in Olson (2012), there is also a more practical difficulty with this conceptualisation of citizenship education. One reason for not knowing how to implement such citizenship education could lie in the fact that each aspect that citizenship has to cover is in itself complex or has certain drawbacks. Educational Research 429 Several researchers have pointed out the gap between policy demands and its implementation at school level (Bron and Thijs 2011; Peterson and Knowles 2011). In this article, we question whether this perspective on citizenship education can be realistically implemented in the school curriculum. For each aspect that citizenship education has to cover, the feasibility of the approach will be discussed. Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 Perspectives on citizenship education This article problematises the participative approach to citizenship education, the mainstream perspective on citizenship education among policy makers and most of the research community on citizenship education. For this purpose, we will use, as examples, the following key documents: (1) the European Commission 2005 and 2012 Eurydice reports and (2) the ICCS conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in 2008–2009. The Eurydice reports are policy documents analysing the implementation of citizenship education in the national policy of European countries, whereas the ICCS research analyses the implementation of citizenship education at school level in Europe and other countries. The goal of the Eurydice network is to analyse and compare national education systems and policies on various topics, in order to provide national governments with European analysis. The Eurydice network is composed of 40 Eurydice units representing 36 European countries. The Eurydice reports are relevant because they analyse the way citizenship education is embedded in the curriculum of nearly 30 European countries, while promoting a certain conception of citizenship and citizenship education. For the analysis, different questionnaires were developed, then sent out and answered by the different Eurydice Units. Official regulation documents or guidelines issued by national education authorities were also used. The analysis of national policy documents is relevant as they set the boundaries of how citizenship education has to be implemented at school level in their country. In many countries, citizenship education is compulsory. In 2010, all countries belonging to the European Union signed a charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education, which has been actively promoted throughout Europe since then. The charter states, among other things, that citizenship education should foster ‘the readiness to take action in society’ (Council of Europe 2010, 9) namely, active citizenship, and citizenship education should embrace a ‘learning by doing’ educational approach, namely a participative approach. The 2012 Eurydice report follows these ideas. At the same time, the European commission coordinating the Eurydice network supports further development of the concept of ‘active citizenship’ through financing research such as the development of an instrument to measure active citizenship in Europe. The fact that the Council of Europe stimulates a certain vision of democracy, citizenship and citizenship education does not imply that national policies have to follow them, but as the 2012 Eurydice report noticed, more national policies seem fully or partly to endorse this vision of citizenship and citizenship education since the 2005 analysis report. The other document to be problematised is the 2009 ICCS international survey conducted in 38 countries by IEA. IEA is a consortium of policy makers and researchers evaluating certain aspects of education worldwide, such as publishing comparative analysis of educational systems, analysing educational reforms, providing data that contribute to the monitoring and assessment at a national, European and international level. One of the co-funders of IEA is the European Commission who also funded, in 2009, the IEA’s third evaluation of citizenship education since the first one in the Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 430 L.J.F. Guérin et al. 1970s. According to the ICCS, the 1999 IEA Civic Education Study (CIVED), comparing the civic competences of 14-year-old pupils in 28 countries, had a profound influence on European and national policy development with regard to citizenship education. Several countries, such as the UK, the Asia-Pacific region or South-America re-analysed CIVED’s data in order to draw conclusions for national policies or set out further research based on the questionnaire developed for the CIVED study (Schulz et al. 2008, 7). For five years, IEA worked together with 20 countries on the development of an instrument to measure civic education competencies, used and modified by the ICCS. The ICCS is another good example of a dominant perspective on citizenship as it claims to ‘Reflect contemporary research understandings of manifestations of civic and citizenship education in school students’ (Schulz et al. 2008, 11). Furthermore, the ICCS is interesting because it has operationalised the concept of citizenship and the different aspects citizenship education has to cover. This means that the ICCS had to define and justify the different dimensions given to citizenship and citizenship education. Three ICCS research reports have been consulted: The ICCS Framework, Technical Report and International Results. The report mostly used is the ICCS Framework (Schulz et al. 2008). According to the Eurydice reports, the goals of citizenship education are: ‘(a) developing political literacy (knowledge of basic facts and understanding of key concepts); (b) acquiring critical thinking and analytical skills; (c) developing certain values, attitudes and behaviours (sense of respect, tolerance, solidarity, etc.); (d) encouraging active participation and engagement at school and community levels’ (Eurydice 2012, 27). Therefore, citizenship education has to cover these four categories. The documents will be critically evaluated in reference to the four aspects – knowledge, thinking skills, values and attitudes, and participation – that citizenship education has to cover. Schulz et al. (2008) give a different description of the aspects, as in their analysis it is divided into three categories: content, affective-behaviour and cognitive domains. The cognitive domains equal Eurydice’s first two categories, the affective-behaviour domain contains value beliefs, attitudes and behaviours and the content domains specify the content of the others and include civic participation and identity. In the ICCS, the role of citizenship education in fostering participation is also seen as crucial. The major difference conceptually between the two is that the ICCS includes the notion of identity. Here, we will discuss the four categories similar to those both in Eurydice and the ICCS and, therefore, exclude the notion of identity. Developing political literacy For both Eurydice and the ICCS, political literacy is broader than merely teaching an understanding of the political system and its institutions. In the 2012 Eurydice report, for example, social system, societal issues, European and international dimensions are the main themes (Eurydice 2012, 27, 30–32). Here, societal issues are taken to mean the concepts of: equity and justice, cultural diversity, tolerance and discrimination, sustainable development, national identity and belonging. Schulz et al. (2008, 16–22) and Schulz, Fraillon, and Ainley (2011, 15) divide the content domain of citizenship education into four aspects: civic society and systems, civic principles, civic participation and civic identity. Themes such as globalisation, sustainable development, human rights, equity, freedom and social cohesion are included. The consequences of this view, in terms of how schools should contribute to developing their students’ political literacy, are twofold. Firstly, it requires the Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 Educational Research 431 development of an integrated curriculum, as these themes are not limited to one knowledge domain but involve the use of different kinds of knowledge such as geography, sciences, mathematics and/or history. In addition, these themes deal with complex issues that can be controversial and require the organisation of cross-curricular activities. Secondly, teachers have to possess the knowledge and skills required to teach such issues and the ability to challenge students to take different perspectives on them. This last aspect requires from teachers an elaborated epistemological knowledge, including insight into the limits of knowledge in various different disciplines such as sciences, economy, history and an understanding of what amounts to sound evidence in each of these disciplines, in order to teach pupils to understand the relevant knowledge relating to the issue. For example, sustainable development (SD) is a very broad domain because it includes all possible topics and deals mainly with controversial issues (Agenda 21; http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21). SD puts normative constraints on the way issues have to be considered, analysed and discussed. One is asked to look at an issue and to consider the economic, social-cultural and ecological aspects in order to resolve it. It also has a temporal dimension: past–present–future. The future consequences of potential solutions have to be scrutinised and the basic rights of future generations have to be taken into account. What these basic rights are is, however, not specified further than the broad idea of living a good life. Furthermore, it has a spatial dimension: local and global dimensions of the issue have to be considered. In order to understand an issue, pupils have to connect a wide spectrum of knowledge (including history, geography, economics, mathematics), knowing what kind of stakeholders are dealing with the issue and what their interests and perspectives are. It also means learning that a decision taken to solve an issue should optimise these three aspects, as well as the temporal and spatial dimensions, and that it can also have unexpected effects. This can create new problems and lead to a search for new solutions. It is necessary for pupils to learn that SD is not an ideal state that can be reached, but is an idea about how society can deal with issues, from local to global ones (Künzli 2007; Di Giulio 2004). Several empirical researches show that teachers lack the necessary specific knowledge of, for instance the economy, politics and even of government or European issues in order to teach these broad themes; they also lack knowledge of instructional strategies on how to deal with these complexities; or are simply not at ease to discuss controversial issues (Keating et al. 2009; Osler 2011; Oulton et al. 2004). In the study by Oulton et al. (2004), for example, only 12% of the teachers felt adequately prepared to teach controversial issues, due to a lack of training and guidelines. Teachers also agreed that active pedagogical techniques were best to teach controversial issues but they did not all feel well prepared to apply these techniques. In the longitudinal study conducted by Keating et al. (2009), teachers also mentioned the fact that active pedagogical techniques were time-consuming activities. It is not only within citizenship education that teaching controversial issues is delicate; it seems that this problem has also been acknowledged to be an issue in science education. Literature exists emphasising the fact that most science teachers, for instance, are not at ease in teaching socio-scientific controversial issues due to, on the one hand, a lack of knowledge and on the other a lack of educational approaches (Day and Brice 2011). A negative consequence of the lack of an integrated curriculum and well-equipped teachers could be that complex issues are dealt with on a superficial level, potentially giving rise to the adoption of naive beliefs about how to deal with and solve such issues. For example, when dealing with issues regarding sustainable development, such 432 L.J.F. Guérin et al. Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 as global warming, the pitfall of limiting teaching to the micro level, i.e. reducing one’s ecological footprint or adopting good ecological behaviour, should be avoided. Solutions to a lot of ecological problems, such as climate change or social problems, are only found at a macro level: new regulations and new technologies (Brunel 2005; Kyburz-Graber et al. 1997). Helping pupils discern what can be solved at a micro level and what at a macro level, seems to be necessary. One aim of citizenship education should be getting pupils acquainted step by step with the complexity and controversy of different kinds of issues and learning how to deal with them. This means providing teachers with the professional support and tools needed to teach such controversial themes. Giving pupils a realistic view, we would argue, also involves teaching them that some issues require time, effort and the application of thinking skills. Acquiring critical thinking and analytical skills According to the Eurydice reports (2012), critical thinking and analysing skills are crucial in order to understand political and social issues; for the ICCS (Schulz et al. 2008), reasoning and analytical thinking skills are relevant for the same reasons and encompass skills such as: interpreting information, justifying, solving problems, evaluating. These thinking skills are the ones generally used to define critical thinking skills, even if in critical thinking research there is no consensus on a definition (Kuncel 2011). A great deal of research has taken place on how to foster students’ critical thinking (Abrami et al. 2008; Bailin et al. 1999; Butler et al. 2012; van Gelden 2005; Halpern 1999; Kek and Huisjer 2011; Kuhn 1999; Kuncel 2011; Papastephanou and Angeli 2007). One common conclusion arising from these studies is that these thinking skills are hard to learn. One reason for this difficulty relates to several thinking biases that distort thinking, such as prior knowledge and beliefs (of an epistemological, religious or moral nature), that can hinder taking alternative perspectives or evaluating sound evidence (van Gelden 2005; Kuhn and Udell 2003; Marques 2012; Stanovich and West 2007). Another reason is that these thinking skills require cognitive effort (Halpern 1998; Kuhn and Udell 2003): various thinking skills have to be coordinated, accompanied by simultaneous reflection on how and what one is thinking. Research on critical thinking shows its teaching requires continuous educational effort and does not always yield good results (Abrami et al. 2008; Cotter and Tally 2009; van Gelder 2005; Halpern 1998). A meta-analysis is conducted by Abrami et al. (2008) shows disparity and consolidates this concern: ‘The data (161 effect sizes from 117 studies, including 27 true experiments) suggest a generally positive effect of instruction on students’ CT skills. However, the findings are not uniformly positive, and we found some evidence of negative effects.’ Critical thinking skills are context-sensitive and transfer does not occur automatically (Butler et al. 2012; Halpern 1999; Halpern et al. 2012; Marin and Halpern 2011; Willingham 2007). The training of these thinking skills within each subject and also through cross-curricular activities is required (Halpern 1999). Halpern (1999) argues in favour of cross-curricular educational practices because, often, teachers are more focused on teaching content knowledge than working on enhancing critical thinking skills. What complicates the matter for citizenship education is that the themes are, by nature, complex. This has far-reaching consequences for current curricula and teachers’ expertise. Based on our exploration of the research on critical thinking and rationality, we would argue that in order to teach critical thinking skills, teachers and schools: Educational Research 433 Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 (1) Have to be sure that teachers themselves master these critical thinking skills and possess the required knowledge and pedagogic background to teach them. (2) Have to exercise explicitly these thinking skills in each subject domain and in cross-curricular activities in order to cultivate them and enable transfer. (3) Have to create a school culture that values such thinking skills. (4) Have to ensure that pupils possess enough knowledge in order to be able to reason on different kinds of issues. (5) Have to ensure that pupils and teachers possess an elaborate epistemological understanding. One could argue that training critical thinking skills is something that school does already. Marin and Halpern (2010) discuss two interesting studies conducted in 1997 by Paul, Elder and Bartell and in 1999 by Thomas. In the Paul et al. (1997) research, teachers were interviewed about their conception of critical thinking and were requested to specify it. Teachers were also asked if they were stimulating critical thinking in their classes; 89% claimed that critical thinking was one of their main goals, but only 19% could give a clear definition of critical thinking and based on the teachers’ answers only 9% were teaching it on a daily basis. Thomas (1999) repeated this research and included observations. The results of Thomas’ study confirmed those of Paul, Elder and Bartell. This means that with regard to critical thinking, teachers and schools may well think they are working on improving these skills while actually they are not, or not entirely. This can be due to a conceptual difference between teachers’ conception of critical thinking and that of the experts. But even if this explanation is feasible, it still indicates that teachers are missing some aspects of critical thinking that experts consider relevant. Programmes have been developed in order to help schools and teachers implement a structure that fosters critical thinking skills (e.g. www.criticalthinking.org). Teaching critical thinking skills requires effort on the part of both teachers and pupils. As participation is considered the best route to active citizenship, policy makers and researchers on citizenship education might tend to underestimate the effort required of schools and teachers, when learning how to think critically is considered as essential. Developing values, attitudes and behaviours Here we will explore the demands that developing values and attitudes put on the curricula and on teachers’ expertise. The problem encountered is that the lack of conceptual clarity about what values and attitudes actually are, makes it difficult to understand what kind of expertise teachers need to possess and what kind of educational practices might foster these. For policy makers and researchers on citizenship education, knowledge and critical thinking abilities are in themselves not enough to stimulate the readiness to engage actively in political, civic and civil processes. These are even seen as ‘passive activity’ (Eurydice 2005, 23). Citizenship education must also aim at producing a certain kind of citizen through transmitting certain kinds of values and attitudes. Values are seen as relevant factors in influencing behaviour (Schulz et al. 2008, 22). The Eurydice reports give no definition of values and attitudes, but do provide clues as to what these might be, such as: ‘respect and mutual understanding, social and moral responsibilities, and … a spirit of solidarity with others’ (Eurydice 2012, 28). For an analysis, these descriptions are too vague and diverse. Furthermore, no conceptual distinctions are made between values, attitudes and behaviour. The latter relates to exhibiting behaviour consistent with values and attitudes held. Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 434 L.J.F. Guérin et al. For our analysis of values and attitudes, we will take the ICCS definition, as it is more precise. The ICCS defines values as a stable set of beliefs profoundly anchored in ourselves: ‘Value beliefs can be defined as beliefs about the worth of concepts, institutions, people, and/or ideas. Value beliefs are different from attitudes insofar as they are more constant over time, deeply rooted, and representative of broader and more fundamental beliefs’ (Schulz et al. 2008, 22). The domains of value beliefs are beliefs in democratic and citizenship values, which, according to the ICCS, influence attitudes and behaviours. Whereas attitudes are defined as ‘states of mind or feelings’ (Schulz et al. 2008, 23) towards an attitude object, they are less stable and a person can hold conflicting attitudes. The way attitudes are defined and operationalised means that they actually equate to beliefs. Attitudes are divided into three categories: (1) beliefs concerning rights and responsibilities, (2) beliefs concerning institutions and (3) self-cognition about civics and citizenship. Now, the questions to be raised are: (1) what is the qualitative difference between value beliefs and attitudes since both concepts are defined and operationalised as beliefs and (2) to what extent do these two differ as to their stability and strength? Importantly: what empirical evidence is there for this conceptual distinction and for their stability? The ICCS gives no answer to these questions. Even theoretically, the distinction made by the ICCS is not grounded. The only reference made in order to justify the definition of values is taken from Schultz et al. (2008) who defines ‘value’ as: ‘An enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence’ (Schulz et al. 2008, 22). There is also no justification of the way attitude is defined, although there has been quite a lot of research done on attitudes in general and, specifically, on political attitudes. Visser and Cooper (2007) listed some 50,000 articles, books, book chapters and dissertations on the subject of attitudes, published over the past hundred years. In the field of social psychology and political sciences, there also have been a number of discussions on the nature of attitudes and how attitude strength can be theorised and measured. Attitude strength is a multidimensional concept influenced by various factors such as accessibility, importance, ambivalence, extremity, knowledge and intensity, to name a few (Miller and Peterson 2004; Visser, Krosnick and Simmons 2004; Visser, Bizer and Krosnik 2006). In persuasion theories of attitude for example, people may hold stable and strong attitudes. In constructivist theory of attitude, people do not hold strong attitudes because, according to this theory, attitudes are always formed on the spot (Schwartz 2007). Therefore, affirming that values are stronger than attitudes would require defining the factors accounting for the difference in strength and the variation in strength between and within the two concepts. Such discussions and justifications are lacking in the ICCS documents. Because of the lack of a theoretical framework, it is difficult to map out exactly what is asked of citizenship education and how teachers can be prepared for this aspect of citizenship education using empirical literature. Encouraging active participation The role of participation has a special position in citizenship education, as it is both an educational strategy and an educational goal. It enables pupils to experience citizenship and it fosters future participation (Eurydice 2005, 7–10, 23, 60; Eurydice 2012, 7–11, 59; Schulz et al. 2008, 7, 35). The Eurydice reports (2005, 23; 2012, 28) mention that participation enables pupils to put whatever knowledge, thinking skills, values, attitudes Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 Educational Research 435 and behaviours they have learned into practice. Participation should be organised at two levels: within school through pupil councils and other forms of pupils’ involvement in decision-making and in the broader community through community service or other projects. Experiencing participation can help develop a sense of commitment to civic and civil behaviour (Eurydice 2005, 23). The ICCS (Schultz et al. 2010, 115) points out that civic engagement is a complex process influenced by many factors. Even though both Eurydice and the ICCS are cautious on some points with regard to the effect of active participation, it is still seen as the main path towards shaping and influencing political and social values, attitudes and behaviours, now and in the future. Let us consider two objections to this idea and one practical problem. The first objection deals with the difference between participating in a school context and participating in political and social society in the long term. Eurydice and the ICCS seem to assume a resemblance between participating in and outside school and in society. This means that the political and social experiences pupils will have within an educational context equate or at least resemble closely those they will be confronted with as adults. We argue that this is not the case in view of the educational context these projects are conducted in. The educational context may indeed motivate pupils’ participation in this particular context but motivation to participate now does not necessarily imply participation later on, in other contexts. There is discontinuity in the context the task is taking place. For example, participation within an educational context, even when this involves projects outside schools, is pedagogically framed. The projects have to be ones that pupils can handle, with defined learning goals and requiring a specific educational organisation. The subject of participation that adults will have to deal with later on is not framed. At school, pupils have time to work on these projects and teachers have time to supervise their advancement. Once they are adults, in order to participate they have to allocate an amount of their time and this implies a trade-off. This trade-off could be defined as follows: investing more time for the community means spending less time with one’s own family, friends or having less time for professional development (Brennan and Lomasky 2006). This aspect could lead adults to consider limiting their engagement in political and societal processes, besides other aspects such as interest, expected benefit, the local context that might or might not motivate them to participate (Kymlicka 2002). It seems that a similar discontinuity is involved when Keating, Benton and Kerr (2011) observe that intention to participate in voting does not mean actually doing so: However, it should be noted that there is often a considerable gap between voting intentions and actual turnout, and indeed, although 75% of the CELS cohort indicated in 2009 that they would probably or definitely vote in general elections in the future, the British Election Study estimated that only 49% of 18–25-year-olds (in the UK population as a whole) actually voted in the 2010 general election. (Keating, Benton and Kerr 2011, 227) Moreover, the interests at stakes in such projects and the nature of the relation among pupils, teachers, head teachers and the outside community are quite different from those that pupils will have to deal with in adulthood. The same applies to pupils’ participation within school; the context where pupils build their participative experience in councils stays within an educational frame. Furthermore, longitudinal research in England shows that pupils are less positive about their empowerment and its reach when participating within school than are teachers and head teachers (Keating et al. 2009). This research also reveals that the Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 436 L.J.F. Guérin et al. participation of English pupils remained low throughout the six years despite increasing participative opportunities at school. In addition to that, the context of the school is only a small part of the environment where pupils learn about citizenship. As Biesta, Lawy and Kelly (2009) point out, pupils learn and experience citizenship in their everyday life: in their homes, with their peers and in their activities. These extra-curricular experiences also shape their idea of citizenship and will influence their future potential participation. This last point brings us to the second objection. The second objection deals with the intended effect of participation on pupils’ citizenship. As noted by several researchers (e.g. Biesta, Lawy and Kelly 2009; McIntosh and Youniss 2010) political and social engagement is a complex process influenced by a multitude of factors. With regard to the effect of participation on pupils’ citizenship, research yields inadequate results. A meta-analysis by Conway, Amel and Gerwien (2009) measured the effects of service learning on academic, personal, social and citizenship outcomes. Citizenship outcomes were divided into three categories: personally responsible, participatory and justice-oriented citizenship. Within these three categories, outcomes were measured in terms of actual behaviour (frequency of volunteering), beliefs (about volunteering) and commitments or intentions towards volunteering. The effect of service learning found in citizenship was the smallest (d=0.17) in comparison to academic, personal and social outcomes. To complicate the picture, pupils also hold perceptions about what kinds of participation are relevant. Metzger and Smetana (2009) found that taking part in political activity such as voting was treated by adolescents as conventional in terms of justification and perceived as more important than community service, which was treated as more moral in terms of justification. As noted earlier, pupils’ view of citizenship is not formed only at school (Biesta, Lawy, and Kelly 2009). Background factors such as SES are still considered important factors contributing to citizenship outcomes. In brief, the potential outcomes of a participative approach to citizenship education on pupils’ citizenship are not conclusive. The last problem deals with implementing and sustaining a participative structure in schools. Keating et al. (2009) show that it is not an easy task, the challenges faced by English schools are: ‘Forging strong links with the local community and the wider world; Linking citizenship learning inside and outside the classroom; Engaging students; Democratising school culture’ (Keating et al. 2009, 55). Participation, in England, remains a school-centred activity and even at this school level the organisation of participation is no easy task, as the skills and knowledge of head teachers, teachers and pupils may be insufficiently developed for the decision-making process. This is also the case in the Netherlands where schools need external support in order to implement such structures (Onderwijsraad 2012). Even highly motivated Dutch schools experience this lack of competencies (Peshar et al. 2010). The fact that in different European countries, programmes have been developed to help schools implement and sustain such participative structures substantiates the idea that it remains a challenging task for schools (Eurydice 2012). The Eurydice analysis indicates that pupil councils suffer from a lack of empowerment, limiting their role to a consulting one. Furthermore, participating in pupils’ council is not always perceived positively among English students (Keating et al. 2009). Lastly, schools have to take into account pupils’ changing citizenship practices during their adolescence (Keating, Benton, and Kerr 2011). Here again, schools’ lack of time, expertise and budget can be challenging for the implementation of participative activities outside and within the school. Educational Research 437 Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:33 12 November 2013 Concluding discussion The aim of this article was to evaluate critically, theoretically and empirically, the mainstream conceptualisation of citizenship education. The objects of criticism were the 2005 and 2012 Eurydice reports and the 2009 international studies of the ICCS. The documents state that citizenship education should not be limited to merely providing an understanding of political systems but should focus on fostering active participation in communities within and outside school. Citizenship education has to encompass knowledge on political and societal issues, critical thinking skills, values, attitudes and behaviour and active participation. In this concept of citizenship education, active participation has a special status, as it is seen as a goal for citizenship education, as well as an effective educational approach. We argue that there are three kinds of drawbacks: citizenship education can lead to a superficial implementation due to a lack of expertise on the part of teachers and head teachers, time and budget constraints and an overcrowded curriculum. For the first aspect, knowledge, it was concluded that what pupils should learn in order to fulfil the intended goals, varies from knowledge about political systems to political concepts such as equity, freedom, to sustainable development, human rights and all kinds of socially relevant issues. Each of these domains is broad and complex and some evidence suggests that teachers often lack the knowledge to teach these issues and do not have the time to cover them all (Keating et al. 2009). With regard to critical thinking, it was argued that such thinking skills are very hard to learn, as they require a lot of teaching effort and exercise. They are hard to acquire because of thinking biases and the cognitive effort required of pupils to put them in practice (Kahneman 2003). For the aspect of value and attitudes, it was believed that their conceptualisation was lacking, both theoretically and empirically, making an analysis of the intended educational goals and content unviable. Active participation has a special status in citizenship education as it is defined both as an educational goal and as an educational approach. We criticize the educational goal of active participation because of the pedagogical optimism as to its long-term effects: namely that experiencing participation at school shapes future participative behaviour. This presupposes continuity in behaviour learned now and behaviour displayed in the future (Oelkers 1984, 1990). The reasons to participate, later, in political and social life are complex and can be influenced by a multitude of factors (Torney-Purta and Amadeo 2010). With regard to participation as an educational approach, implementing and sustaining it at school is time consuming, demands a certain kind of expertise from teachers, head teachers and pupils and requires strong leadership (Keating et al. 2009; Eurydice 2012). Schools are facing a challenging situation that can lead to making choices as to which aspects citizenship education has to cover. This is due to the tension between, on the one hand, the broad range of skills, attitudes and behaviours citizenship education has to cover and, on the other hand, the time and budget available to schools to implement and carry it out, the overcrowded curriculum and lastly the available expertise to do so. 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