Kristina R. Llewellyn

Educating for active compliance: discursive constructions in citizenship education

This article examines the discursive construction of ‘active citizenship’ within recent civics curriculum documents across three provinces in Canada. New secondary school civics curricula have emerged across liberal democratic states since the year 2000, presumably in response to the perception of youth as disengaged from political involvement. Many of the new curricula subsequently emphasize ‘active’ engagement within the polity. The central task of this paper is to better understand what such ‘active citizenship’ actually means, via the methodological tool of discourse analysis. Engaging a theoretical frame that incorporates Foucauldian governmentality theory and cultural theories of the role of the state in creating subjectivities, the paper ultimately argues that the ‘active citizen’ of contemporary civics curricula is, in fact, a deeply neoliberal subject. The article then draws on feminist theories of citizenship in order to assess the forms of exclusion that the curriculum documents inadvertently create, arguing that they ultimately participate in a long tradition of devaluing such elements of citizenship as relationality and emotional ties. We conclude that one of the fundamental goals of citizenship education – to expand access to citizenship participation for all – has failed.

Civic learning: moving from the apolitical to the socially just

This study examines the knowledge and skills that characterize civic learning for young people. Building on a literature review, it reports an exploratory case study with students and teachers in four secondary schools in the Ottawa, Canada region. The perspectives of researchers co‐operating with educators and students against a backdrop of provincial government curricula and secondary literature on youth citizenship engagement provide an enriched understanding of the state and potential of civic learning. It concludes that current civic learning is primarily characterized by procedural knowledge and compliant codes of behaviour that do not envelope students in collective action for systemic understandings of political issues. This study argues for renewed efforts to put social justice at the heart of student learning. To present a convincing civic educational programme, schools should prepare students to analyse power relationships, investigate the ambiguities of political issues, and embrace opportunities for social change.

Oral History as Peace Pedagogy

Llewellyn and Cook argue in this chapter for oral history as a form of historical thinking that supports peace pedagogy. From the work of oral historians of mass atrocities to oral histories within truth and reconciliation processes, the connection between oral history and human rights is clear. Few scholars have articulated, however, how oral history education may support more robust peace education in the face of its languishing status in Canadian schools. Peace education attempts to address systemic injustice, including underlying causes, through (re)-building healthy relationships. Oral history can support such learning. Drawing on critical pedagogy, they focus on the democratizing and consciousness-raising potential of oral history for peace education. Oral history provides perspectives of those who have been marginalized over time, which potentially shake our historical consciousness and redress harms. Furthermore, oral history methodology, in particular shared authority, opens space for dialogic encounters that may disrupt injustice and build community. Llewellyn and Cook provide exemplars of oral history projects for peace education from an extensive survey of international education initiatives that focus on teaching about conflict and/or reconciliation. These exemplars illustrate how oral history can renew peacebuilding pedagogy in education—learning that is humanized, transformative, and affective.