Promoting citizenship and values education in primary schools facing challenging socio-economic circumstances: an exploratory pilot
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Nations involved
Scotland England |
Project leads
Dr Jane Brown, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh Dr Hamish Ross, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh |
Project timeline
September 2011 to August 2012 |
The connection between promoting active citizenship, citizenship education, and disadvantage is a relatively new area of interest in the field of citizenship studies. The research aimed to address the following questions: How do teachers in socio-economically challenged areas describe their approaches to citizenship education? How do these teachers perceive their local communities in relation to citizenship education? How do these teachers understand the purposes and products (the ideal citizen) of their citizenship activity? Were there differences between the English and Scottish cases that might be attributed to national policy differences? Download the report
Aims
- To identify the challenges teachers encountered in primary schools located in an area of socio-economic disadvantage.
- To explore the extent to which citizenship education was articulated as a response and viewed as a potential solution to the local environment.
- To support a teacher exchange between a primary school situated in England and one primary school located in Scotland.
Actions
- Interviews with teachers
- Analysis of interview data
- The teacher exchange
Outcomes
Download the report to read about
a. Key findings on:
b. Impact and lessons learned, including:
Future plans are to produce one conference paper based on the pilot project - this is likely to be at a Scottish based conference (e.g. SERA) in 2013 – and to submit one paper to a peer-refereed, quality journal (currently underway with the applicants working towards submission in 2013).
a. Key findings on:
- Citizenship and its place in the formal and informal curriculum
- Citizenship as “informed awareness”
- Policy, local contexts and exercising choice
- Political literacy and tackling controversial issues
b. Impact and lessons learned, including:
- Evidence of impact
- What they learned about planning an exchange visit
- Exploiting links with a subsequent research project
- Replicating the project
Future plans are to produce one conference paper based on the pilot project - this is likely to be at a Scottish based conference (e.g. SERA) in 2013 – and to submit one paper to a peer-refereed, quality journal (currently underway with the applicants working towards submission in 2013).