Pupils’ accounts confirm the transmission of a conception of the purpose of citizenship education as a tool to tackle social problems. Talk of empowerment was, however, lacking, as ideas of citizenship as a subject to be studied, rather than practised, predominated. The idea of right answers was therefore fundamental to
pupils’ understandings of citizenship, and this set the parameters for their considerations of balanced discussion and pupil voice.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, pupils’ understandings of citizenship were very closely linked to their experiences of citizenship education. The expansiveness of the subject was often characterised by references to “society” and “life”, which one pupil related to “different things that you have to do like pay taxes. How not to act in different situations” (year eight pupil, North West School) For this pupil, citizenship was synonymous with activities one is compelled to participate in, as well as learning to conduct oneself according to a negative framing of undesirable behaviours in certain contexts. He identified school as the origin of this understanding and the school ethos was invoked by another pupil to explain his understanding of citizenship as “being part of a community ... like a school or the world or anything like that”, elaborating that “it’s a community school, so that’s what we’ve been taught” (year eight pupil, Midlands Community School). Again, this pupil saw his understanding of citizenship as a direct translation of his school-based learning, but he expressed this view as derived from his relationship with the school, rather than abstract knowledge about rules of conduct. Others provided a fuller account of where values might come from, as in this pupil’s response:
Well I guess some are like personal, how I feel how I should be, and then I guess school kind of reinforces it as well ... like how my parents say how you should act towards others ... I guess everyone needs to learn it at one point cos then it’s like they know how they should be and if they act the wrong way then it’s their own decision, they can’t blame anyone else, so I kind of go by it cos I understand it as well, and I agree with it, some of the stuff. Year ten pupil, Midlands Community School
This pupil felt the main source of his ideas of citizenship was his parents, with school serving to “reinforce” their message. His primary reason for using this ‘moral compass’ was to avoid the “blame” inherent in knowingly committing social misconduct; secondary to this was his own sympathy with some citizenship values.
Another pupil talked about citizenship education’s concern for responsibility as focused on:
... the responsibility you have as just being a human, sort of, not doing anything bad, kind of, living how you were brought up by, if you had acceptable parents that
taught you, you know, the right morals and kind of sticking by that and living by that.
Year ten pupil, South East High
This interpretation suggests elements of both reinforcement of parental values and possible supplementation of values for those whose parents who lacked the capacity to impart “the right morals”. In teaching these right answers, citizenship lessons were largely seen as fulfilling a purpose with outcomes concerned with a positive impact on young people’s future lives, as these pupils reveal:
... now I know if I want to choose a job I’ll know which ones will make more of a difference. Year eight pupil, Midlands Community
because you’re obviously going out into the community, learning new skills about how to work and like, I don’t know, becoming a citizen really; a normal, average worker. Year ten pupil, Midlands Community
It’s like basically how – not how to live your life but, what’s right from wrong, in your life, in the future and kind of basically, doing the right and wrong choices and learning about life really. Year eight pupil, North West School
These pupils’ interpretations demonstrate the differing degrees of agency young people assumed would characterise their futures. Midlands Community pupils were concerned with how they would be defined by work. Although she stopped herself from describing citizenship education as prescribing a way of life, the respondent from North West School saw her future as best understood in terms of normative values of “right” and “wrong”. One of her peers was concerned about a lack of responsibility:
I’m not picking people out cos I might need a bit more but I think we all need [a greater sense of] responsibility and need to learn a lot more about, like life. Year eight pupil, North West School
This respondent was keen not to exclude herself from a deficit model of education for social and moral responsibility and, interestingly, she saw an increased sense of responsibility as a product of receiving greater knowledge about the world, rather than stemming from assuming different roles in it. Inherent in some pupil’s accounts were notions of a need for more active citizenship and that Britain had experienced a nationwide phenomenon of decreased public engagement. One pupil commented that she felt the most important strand of the curriculum was social and moral
responsibility because of its positive potential for individuals; a change of focus from judgemental overtures that tended to be made to young people as a group:
... I mean some people in our school, they think oh I can do this and they don’t know the consequences that’s gonna happen so they need to learn to take responsibility as a person and how to be around others ... because it’s quite rewarding if you’ve got responsibility and it actually goes through something positive, that’s a rewarding experience rather than the actual law side of it cos, I hope they won’t but they might learn about the law in another way (!) but it might stop that from happening if they actually feel like an important part of the community ... I think if you’ve got responsibility you grow up faster and you’re a more rounded person. Year ten pupil, East Coast College
It is interesting to observe this young person’s construction of a “more rounded”
character. She saw this ‘grown-up’ incarnation, rooted in a sense of responsibility, as beneficial to both the individual and society. Being given responsibility is seen here as providing a rewarding diversion from activities that harm society.
Responsibility was also seen as instructive by this respondent:
... cos if you’re not responsible, you don’t know what trouble you’ll be in, so you have to take responsibility to insure your life. Year eight pupil, North West School
It is the pupil that is cast as the principal beneficiary of taking responsibility for her actions in this context. Pupils commonly reported that their citizenship education taught them how to stay out of trouble, as this pupil explains that without it:
I’d be missing out on facts on how life runs, because I think citizenship is a good way to teach us, what happens, how it happens and when it will happen ... you’ve got a lot of bad things happening in Britain at the moment and I think to learn about this it gives us a warning. Year eight pupil, Northern Academy
Theories of citizenship were then far from abstract, as they were seen as dealing with real-life “bad things” that many pupils identified as the dangers of alcohol and drugs identified by their teachers and, perhaps most interestingly, “people not having any money because of all the stuff they spend it on” (year ten pupil, East Coast College). School’s role is therefore seen as tackling the norms of some pupils’ home lives, which might be lacking in certain values. One pupil from South East High did not see much added value from citizenship education as she highlights other sources that serve to reinforce appropriate messages:
I think the things that we need to know that we get from the citizen lessons can easily be supplied by parents. And lessons go into a bit more detail about it, then at the same time I don’t think we need that much information on it. If there wasn’t any citizen lessons anymore then I don’t think it would be too much of a big problem ...
cos we have the news, we have the internet, we have parents again, so if you wanted to know something you could ask your parents... Year ten pupil, South East High
Drawing on her own experience, this pupil concludes that parents are a constant, available to be tapped for citizenship information, and that utilising resources at home is a matter of choice. Learning about citizenship in school is not then seen to represent any uniquely enlightening opportunities. When considering their experiences of learning and teaching, however, pupils reported some differences between the pedagogy of citizenship and that of their other lessons that might justify citizenship’s inclusion in the National Curriculum. In this respondent’s view:
It’s a lot more pupil-involved. There’s not as much writing, there’s not as much listening and textbooks, it’s more about the way you think and the way you act ...
you’d see a lot more talking between teacher and pupils. Year eight pupil, Midlands Community
This pupil saw citizenship lessons as less focused on absorbing information from the teacher and traditional resources. Not all young people in the sample felt their lessons differed significantly from other learning experiences, however, as this pupil’s testimony illustrates:
We watch more videos than in other lessons but otherwise it’s much the same cos we still work off the board. Year ten pupil, East Coast College.
Pupils’ responses suggested differences in teaching methods were negligible.
Across the sample, pupils reported little novelty in the style of lessons:
I: So would you have the teacher at the front talking or would it be more like you’re talking to the teacher?
R: ... Both, like if teacher’s saying something like asking questions, we communicate more with each other and if there’s something we don’t understand he’s going to come up and tell us. Year eight pupil, Northern Academy
Although there may be more discussion, the teacher’s role is still one of delivering right answers. At Midlands Community School, there is little difference between the format of the lesson and that of other subjects:
R: ... sometimes Miss has got the posters out or something on the interactive whiteboard so you’ve got pictures to explain it as well.
I: And do people interact the same as in other lessons?
R: Yeah, yeah, people still put their hands up and ask questions and stuff... Year ten pupil, Midlands Community
The use of more visual content is considered a slight novelty here but the teacher’s task of explaining and pupils’ task of asking questions of the teacher are reinforced The young people did not expect to take on a different role when they entered their citizenship lessons so any sense that citizenship was more about their active contribution may have been the result of what Peter McLaren (2013) called small victories, an element of novelty to pique their interest in a subject of a supposedly different nature, which allayed any real questioning of its presence on the timetable.
So small were these victories that some respondents struggled to find features of citizenship lessons that set them apart from those of their other subjects. Some, however, reported occasions that reflected an ethos of social awareness:
R: ... [Sometimes] we get in groups and then we work together, which I think is a good idea, cos ... it helps us to get along with each other – it gets us together like a community basically.
I: So what happens when you are having a discussion and people have different views?
R: Well everyone has the right of free speech and if I’m saying something like I believe and then they say something they believe, I respect their views and I think to have different views ... is good. Year eight pupil, Northern Academy
In his reference to the concept of free speech, this pupil demonstrates an ability to apply citizenship values (at least within citizenship lessons) fostered by a collaborative environment that replicates the public forum of a community. Teaching methods were widely reported to be inconsistent, however, rather than driven by a desire to foster a particular learning environment. Perhaps most revealing was one
year ten Midlands Community pupil’s comment that she had experiences a variety of approaches, from “book-based” to more open discussion and preferred the latter.
She went on to describe the many community projects she volunteered for, which she did not feel were connected to anything she had learnt in citizenship lessons.
6.3.2 Balanced Discussion
Where pupils had experienced such an atmosphere of debate, the teacher’s role was often seen as less dominant than in other subjects, as this pupil reflected, “She agrees with everybody, she’s not biased” (year eight pupil, North West School).
This respondent was aware of the dangers of bias he had been taught about and validated his teacher’s approach accordingly. Not favouring a particular view point was seen as good practice, as in this respondent’s understanding:
Normally our teacher would put forward a view that they’ve come at with lots of other teachers but I don’t think they’d put forward their personal view. Year ten pupil, East Coast College
Expressing a view that was validated by other teachers was therefore considered less controversial that a “personal view”. Across the sample, pupils reported their teachers as keen to appear balanced, a principle that was observed unless there was a right answer, as this respondent explains:
Miss probably wouldn’t like go off on the other side, she’d just say well you can think your views and that’ll be it or if there is a right thing she’ll tell us that we’re all wrong or something. Year ten pupil, North West School
In this way, pupils’ views were only focused on if they needed to be contradicted by the teacher. In some cases, pupils reported that their teacher would present their view, as in this account:
... one of my teachers, yeah, she erm she like, if somebody has a different opinion she’ll see why they’ve chose that ... and she’ll say you’re not wrong, it’s just your opinion and everyone has an opinion. Year ten pupil, East Coast College
Opinions in this context were not points of contestation, it was accepted that there are as many opinions as individuals and as they are equally valid they do not warrant volatile dispute. In this understanding, views are harmless and may be presented or not, with little change of effect. As another East Coast pupil saw it
when asked if the teacher would put forward a particular argument: “maybe, it depends... if they want to or not” (year eight pupil, East Coast College).
The presence of a view put forward by a teacher is not then seen as a vital driver of a lesson but, as another East Coast pupil illustrates, the teacher’s position in relation to the content they deliver is not thought about in any great depth:
I: So what happens when you are having a discussion and people have different views?
R: Normally, most people agree with the view. Not many people put their hand up and then disagrees but if they do ... It just kind of like shows how everyone’s like thinking and everyone’s opinions so it does make you accept other people’s point of view.
I: And would your teacher put forward a view?
R Not normally no... just in the middle! Year ten pupil, East Coast College
This respondent’s interpretation of the “different views” the question alludes to as
‘different from the teacher’s’ is revealed in her assertion that “most people agree with the view” and that expression of different views would involve a formal voicing of disagreement with what has been presented by the teacher. The teacher is then, unsurprisingly, positioned as “in the middle” of that argument. Another account from East Coast College implies that the teacher does represent a point of view:
[The teacher would] either give us a clue on her opinion and we’d work it out for ourselves so that gives us a bit of thinking time as well ... she tells us our opinion, she tells us all we need to know, she doesn’t tell us too much, we normally work it out for ourselves. Year eight pupil, East Coast College
In this context, the challenge of working out the teacher’s opinion is part of the lesson, with the concept of opinion a mere substitution for ways of referring to the right answer used in other subjects. Freire (1970) critiqued this style of teaching as a ‘ready-to-wear approach’ that ‘serves to obviate thinking’ (Freire 1970:50) as it requires pupils to adapt to the purposes of the teacher. These pupils’ accounts suggest their participation in discussion was limited to demonstrating their understanding that citizenship was about people having different views, characterised by bias and balance, rather than contributing their own thoughts.
Pupils were asked to consider their capacity to initiate discussion to explore teachers’ claims about opportunities for pupil voice in more depth.
6.3.3 Pupil Voice
The teacher’s role was not seen to differ greatly from other subjects and pupils’
roles were therefore equally familiar. Accounts of active participation at Midlands Community School were mixed:
I: Do you feel that if an issue was important to you and you felt it was relevant to citizenship, you could bring it up in class?
R: Not as much, because she usually has something set to learn and, there is a lot more involvement than other lessons but not so much the pupils talking back, it’s more us getting involved in what she’s already set out. Year eight pupil, Midlands Community
In this pupil’s experience, his input was not necessary for the achievement of the lesson’s objectives and he felt that a spontaneous contribution would be seen as unexpected and distracting from the teacher’s planned activities. Another Midlands Community pupil reported a different perspective, however, in response to the same question:
R: Oh definitely, Miss is always welcoming to those views and then maybe she’ll, like, help you express those views so you feel confident so you’re not scared to say anything, cos you know, no-ones gonna laugh at you.
I: Is that something you’ve done?
R: Yeah, I’ve brought something up ... I think it was like drug abuse and stuff like that, I felt that it was like, wrong and that most drugs should be banned if people are just using them for harm, and then other people agreed as well, and the teacher agreed – well she agreed, like, neutrally!
I: She neutrally agreed?!
R: She told us in a neutral way – ha ha! Year ten pupil, Midlands Community
While keen to portray his teacher as supportive in helping pupils to express their own views, this respondent ultimately revealed that the lesson environment was
one that fostered harmony through a kind of consensus that essentially trivialised
one that fostered harmony through a kind of consensus that essentially trivialised