Citizenship is a statutory National Curriculum area of study in state maintained secondary schools and a non-statutory subject with a national framework in primary schools in England.
What is citizenship education?
Citizenship involves individuals acting together to address matters of common concern to maintain our democratic culture and to strengthen society. To achieve this goal, Citizenship education teaches awareness, appreciation about politics, the law and the economy and abilities to participate effectively and responsibly in public and democratic life.
Through citizenship education, learners:
- explore queries about democracy, justice, inequality, how we’re governed and organised;
- learn to work together to develop solutions that try to address challenges facing neighbourhoods and wider communities;
- develop political literacy to make a positive contribution to society as informed and responsible citizens.
Some things you should know about citizenship education…
- Citizenship is the only area of study in the national curriculum that teaches about the approach democracy, politics, the economy and the law work.
- Half a million younger people have achieved a GCSE or A level qualification in citizenship to date since 2002.
- Younger people have initiated over 100,000 active citizenship projects in their communities since the GCSE was introduced.
- Citizenship is not about indoctrination: educators and local authorities are required by the Education Act 1996 to ensure that learners are presented with distinct points of perspectives so that they can make up their own minds.
- Citizenship education is additionally not only a Labour project: it was introduced as a cross-curricular theme by a Conservative government in 1990.
- It’s been in the national curriculum in secondary schools in England since 2002.
- It was a long time coming – politicians and educators alike had been lobbying for citizenship to be a fundamental element of education for 100 years.
What do students think?
In this video from 2009, learners from Deptford Green school explain why they valued their Citizenship Studies GCSE. For further guidance, see the relevant UK information.
Can’t see the film? Watch it on YouTube.
Resources
On this site
- Going to a party conference? Take our Party conference briefing.
- For more about citizenship education, read our Parliamentary briefing.
- For more about the current curriculum review read our National Curriculum Review summary.
- For reasons to retain citizenship in the curriculum read our Evidence for citizenship education.
Elsewhere
- The current National Curriculum 2014.
- The Association for Citizenship Teaching has produced a useful material answering the query ‘What is citizenship education?’.