A. Britton

A school curriculum for the children of space settlers

If present day projections in relation to the future of space exploration are realised, at a point approximately midway through the current century humankind may witness the first generation of children to be born on another world. These young people will need to be nurtured and educated in a very different spatial, technological and cultural context. What knowledge, skills and values will have to be inculcated in these young people in order to equip them for life on another world, or in an orbiting habitation? In short, what school curriculum needs to be developed for the children of space settlers?155

Review of: Roth, K. & Burbules, N.C. ‘Changing Notions of Citizenship Education in Contemporary Nation-states’

This recent publication adds to a small but growing body of literature that is beginning to acknowledge, challenge and critique the emergence of citizenship education as a core policy goal across nations. While some formulations of citizenship education, broadly understood, have been in place in a number of countries over a long period of time, notably in France (where its lineage can be traced back to the 19th century), there has been an exponential growth in its status as an explicit component of educational policy making and curriculum across the globe in the past decade or so. Some previous studies and publications sought to catalogue, codify and compare the various approaches to citizenship education in a large number of different national contexts. What emerged from these transnational and comparative studies is the sense that there are a number of broad-based political, economic and social concerns that are common to each country that has chosen to embark on some form of citizenship education programme. A number of similarities and differences in approach can also be codified and identified. For example, a country’s citizenship education programme will tend to be either ‘values-explicit’ or ‘values-neutral’. It might be ‘thick’ or ‘thin’, to use the terminology of the late Terry McLaughlin; in other words, a deep-seated programme that seeks to inculcate critical values, attitudes and dispositions in participating school pupils; or it might be predicated on a shallower approach that provides a knowledgebased grounding in civic structures, perhaps alongside a limited emphasis on skills development for enhanced civic activism. While these meta-analyses have much to commend them, Roth and Burbules do not attempt to replicate their direct comparative nature; rather, the collection they have edited represents a relatively short (six chapters) yet eclectic survey that manages to encapsulate some of the key areas of contestation that have characterised the recent policy shift in favour of citizenship education. For example, a number of the contributors highlight the tension that is inevitable in educational programmes relating to citizenship when citizenship is envisaged either in ‘traditional’ terms and bounded by the nation state or in a more contemporary model that sees citizenship as a complex transnational, global or multi-layered phenomenon. They also acknowledge the spectrum of perspectives on which, at one end it is suggested that citizenship as a normative label Journal of Moral Education Vol. 37, No. 2, June 2008, pp. 257–270

Managing the Learning of New Arrival Children in Mainstream Schooling

As the authors point out, this case study has much wider implications beyond managing the integration of New Arrival children into mainstream schooling. There is a great deal of political controversy and social hostility reported in mass media communication over increasing immigration to Western countries.