Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia

Challenges, Practices and International Perspectives

Andrew Peterson, Libby Tudball

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781350069985
• eBook ISBN: 9781474248204
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Comparative Education

Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia provides a comprehensive analysis of teaching and learning in this field in Australian schools, drawing on case study material to demonstrate the current practice in the field. Reflecting on the issues and possibilities raised by the inclusion of civics and citizenship education in the new national Australian curriculum, leading national and international scholars analyse the subject's theoretical, curricular and pedagogical bases and approaches. Placing civics and citizenship education within historical and contemporary contexts, the book critically explores a range of issues concerning the development, organisation and teaching of the subject. These include how the subject might include indigenous, global and Asian perspectives, and how it may help students to engage with issues around sustainability, active citizenship, diversity, religion and values. The final chapters written by scholars from England, the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore adopt a comparative approach situating Australian civics and citizenship education in the wider international context.

Part One

The Context of Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia

1

The Recent History of Teaching Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia, 1989–2015

Murray Print

Introduction

Civics and citizenship education (CCE) has existed within Australian education systems, curricula and schools for more than a century. It played an important role in the early years of the new nation in helping to build a sense of unity and being ‘Australian’ as the new Commonwealth of Australia forged its identity (Thomas 1994; Print 2008). Yet despite a half-century of sustained presence of civic education in school curricula helping build the political cohesiveness and identity of the federated Commonwealth of Australia, civics was not immune to the curricular innovations and vagaries of the 1960s such as the creation of social studies as an integrated subject in school curricula (CEG 1994; Thomas 1994; Print 1999). Subsequently, deliberate education for civic and democratic citizenship was difficult to identify in Australian schools for the next three decades (CEG 1994; Print 1999, 2008). In a country where voting has been compulsory for national government elections for some ninety years, and where the population became increasingly multicultural in nature, with many migrants originally from non-democratic or quasi-democratic countries, this situation was ironic and disingenuous to Australian democracy. So by the late 1980s growing agitation for action to address this dearth became increasingly apparent (Thomas 1994; Print 1999, 2008).

However, the focus of this chapter is the most recent period of civics and citizenship education, namely the past quarter century. In that time the presence of civics and citizenship education in Australian education can be characterized as mercurial, its fortunes ebbed and flowed in response to political ideology, federal election outcomes and bureaucratic whim. It is possible to identify four periods within this quarter century, each with an emphasis in the way CCE was addressed in Australian education policy and school practice.

1989–1996: The Challenge

1997–2003: Discovering Democracy

2004–2009: Interregnum

2010–2015: The Australian Curriculum Civics and Citizenship

The aim of this chapter is to explore the key issues of each period with a view to explaining the key events that forged that period and their subsequent impact on CCE. I will draw on the available research and the literature in the field as well as personal insights from experience as one who participated in most of the key events during these years.

1989–1996: The challenge

Until the 1990s learning civics education, invariably hidden within a subject called social studies or similar, was characterized by studies of ‘government institutions and political processes liberally laced with adages about being a good citizen … taught in a rote, pedantic, and expository manner, with a heavy dependence on a conservative text book’ (Print 2008: 144). Regardless of the need created by post-war migration, which saw a rapid increase in Australia’s population initially from war-torn Europe and later from Asia, civics education received little emphasis in school curricula across Australia (Thomas 1994). The challenge of this period was how to change this approach.

By the late 1980s there was growing political support for exploring two key political issues. First, why were so many young Australians apparently ignorant of their system of government? Second, what were the implications of this situation for Australian democracy, compulsory voting as well as education in Australian schools (Davidson 1997)? The influence of Treasurer Paul Keating was also increasingly significant in the late 1980s in a broader political sense, as characterized by his personal preference for an Australian republic; a preference that provided political support to address these questions.

The pressure for change from the 1980s manifested itself in two reviews by the Australian Senate that investigated education for active citizenship in Australian schools – Education for Active Citizenship in Australian Schools and Youth Organisations (Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training 1989) and Active Citizenship Revisited (1991). While both were informative and stimulating in their investigation, neither made any significant impact on the policies or practices of the various governments of the day, typifying the mercurial nature of the earlier period. Nevertheless, together with the formulation of an accepted government direction for Australian education, The Hobart Declaration: Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling in Australia (Australian Council for Education 1989), which similarly made negligible impact in civics education, the Senate reviews, through the issues and suggestions raised, contributed substantially to the foundations for future change.

A few years later, and sensing a change in the Australian people’s attitudes towards a future republic, then Prime Minister Paul Keating formed the Civics Expert Group (CEG) early in 1994 to inquire into the condition of civics and citizenship education in Australian education. The report Whereas the People … Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia (1994) confirmed a national chronic deficit of civic knowledge and concern about the levels of commitment to Australian political institutions. Identifying a grossly inadequate education for democratic citizenship in Australian schools, the report recommended an extensive programme to educate young Australians based on civic knowledge and skills. Significantly, the report also signalled the importance of citizenship and the values associated with democratic citizenship. Yet despite this identification the report did not recommend civics and citizenship become a separate subject in the school curriculum and the subsequent blended approach of integrating civics and citizenship within a broader school subject reinforced a quintessential approach to Australian social education. The report was widely accepted by educators and governments, and in 1995–1996 the Keating government commenced translating the report into a practical school approach through the auspices of the Curriculum Corporation. However, after positive preliminary planning had commenced in 1995, the Keating government was defeated in the early 1996 federal election.

Meanwhile between 1986 and 1993, also under a federal Labour government, Australia developed an approach to a national curriculum through the creation of a framework of statements and profiles in eight learning areas, including studies of society and the environment, which included some civics and citizenship. This process was part of a national curriculum reform movement, enabled by a federal Labour government and many state Labour governments, based on assumptions and goals driving the broader agenda for educational reform during the 1980s, especially a more centralized, consolidated approach to education as seen in Labour’s Unified National System, which created universities from the former colleges of advanced education. The individual states and territories, however, had already begun their own curricular reforms for schools by the time the national agenda began implementation in the 1990s and consequently this attempt at a national curriculum, including interest in civics and citizenship, together with the publication of the Hobart Declaration in 1989, failed to gain traction in most states, especially those that had changed governments during this period.

What can be concluded from this phase? After a period of inaction, the challenge was posed and, for various reasons, was met in part with the 1994 report and subsequent government initiative through the development of the Discovering Democracy programme. The two Senate reviews had heightened awareness of the need for increased citizenship education in schools, but by themselves were insufficient to generate action. Without the 1994 report the ‘civic deficit’ identified in those reviews would likely have continued. What did Prime Minister Keating hope to achieve in this period? Certainly he sought the stimulation of the republican cause within Australia, both in the short and longer terms. Before that could be achieved, however, the Labour federal government was defeated at the 1996 general elections and replaced by a Liberal-National coalition with a clear conservative agenda. The following year the new minister for education, a former professor of politics, released Discovering Democracy, the government’s policy on education for democratic citizenship in Australia (Kemp 1997). This sought, in part, to counter the educational directions of the former Labour government, but also to forge a conservative sense of democratic citizenship in Australian schools under a neo-conservative government.

1997–2003: Discovering Democracy

The period between 1997 and 2003 could best be described as the halcyon days of what had become known as civics and citizenship education in Australian education. Those days were dominated by the Discovering Democracy programme and characterized by resource availability from governments, federal government support, especially financially, and widespread interest in academic and education circles generally. In the final review of the Discovering Democracy programme the evaluators stated that the programme ‘produced a substantial amount of very useful, effective resources that were generally appreciated by teachers’ (Erebus 2003: 99).

From its genesis in 1997, Discovering Democracy was widely accepted by the state and territory governments, and the broader education community, with little controversy, as the principal source of education for democracy and CCE. Its primary purpose was to build Australian students’ understanding of, and participation in, their democracy through the provision of curriculum resources and support directly to schools and teachers (Kemp 1997; Print 2000). In this way the Australian government injected some $32m directly into the project, with further resources and funds provided by the states and territories over the period 1997–2003 (MCEETYA 2006). The signature feature of Discovering Democracy was several sets of the centrally devised curriculum resources produced over 1997–2003 and distributed, at no cost, to all of Australia’s 9,600 schools. These materials provided essential knowledge and skills for the content to be taught and importantly articulated a clear set of values underpinning democracy that were ‘encouraged within Discovering Democracy in order to reflect and enhance the cohesive, pluralistic nature of Australian society’ (Print 2008: 101).

Substantial teacher professional development was also funded through Discovering Democracy, though managed by the states, in order to familiarize teachers with the programme and the materials as well as to provide basic content knowledge. Much of this state-based application occurred with a focus on supplementing teacher knowledge and pedagogy as well as behaviour-related attitudes for citizenship. Several small projects were also funded to engage parents, teachers, academics and others involved with civic education for democracy (Print 2000). School and teacher competitions were conducted in part to identify and highlight best practice.

In 1999 Discovering Democracy was reviewed, with the conclusion that progress had been adequate, though rapid acceptance and use of Discovering Democracy curriculum materials was not identified in schools and many teachers were even unaware of these resources (Erebus Consulting Group 1999). Nevertheless, funding continued in the same manner and several projects were supported including case studies of exemplary programmes and schools. In 1999, the Adelaide Declaration on educational directions was announced with another clear identification at the policy level of the need for CCE in schools. As with the earlier Hobart Declaration, however, direct translation of policy to practice was difficult to identify.

Despite clear policy advocacy and the injection of considerable federal funding together with the apparent cooperation of the states and territories, the Discovering Democracy programme, or even some form of a CCE programme, was not mandated for implementation in schools and consequently schools implemented the programme at will. The federal government funding of itself was not sufficient to embed CCE or Discovering Democracy securely in curriculum practice within Australian schools. Despite evidence of many innovative school programmes in CCE across Australia, the Evaluation of the Discovering Democracy Program (Erebus Consulting Group 2003) found that implementation of the programme was highly variable in schools in terms of expanding student civics and citizenship knowledge, understanding and dispositions, and it recommended the project’s termination. This recommendation coincided with the interests of Brendan Nelson, the recently appointed Minster for Education, who later had another initiative to support in the form of a national approach to developing good practice in values education in schools.

Clear evidence of policy-level support for CCE in Australia can be found in the Adelaide Declaration of National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century (MCEETYA 1999). These educational goals, or national statement of educational intent, were endorsed by all ministers of education from the states and territories and the Commonwealth. In the Adelaide Declaration two goals specifically relate to elements of CCE. Goal 1.3 states that when they leave school students should

have the capacity to exercise judgement and responsibility in matters of morality, ethics and social justice, and the capacity to make sense of their world, to think about how things got to be the way they are, to make rational and informed decisions about their lives and to accept responsibility for their own actions.

Adelaide Declaration Goal 1.4 states that when students leave school they should be

active and informed citizens with an understanding and appreciation of Australia’s system of government and civic life. (MCEETYA 1999)

Although these goals clearly support CCE and by implication Discovering Democracy, reinforced by the timing of the Adelaide Declaration coinciding with the first phase of Discovering Democracy, there appears to be little recognized connection between the two. The declaration, for instance, makes no direct mention of CCE or of the Discovering Democracy programme, which, given the goal statements above, appears incongruous. This lack of connection and reinforcement was one of many lost opportunities to consolidate CCE within educational policy and school curricula.

What can be concluded from this phase? The period 1996–2003 was a remarkably productive and successful period for CCE through the vehicle of and funding support for Discovering Democracy. The programme heightened awareness and understanding of Australian democracy among teachers and students and encouraged greater civic, citizenship and political participation by Australian youth. Discovering Democracy initiated the development and distribution of a large range of curriculum resources for students and teachers, initially in hard copy and later online. This was supported by extensive teacher professional development on the subject matter, materials and teaching of CCE across the states and territories. Further, a government-endorsed report National Key Performance Measures in Civics and Citizenship Education (Print and Hughes 2001) to create a structure to include CCE within the National Assessment Program was transformed into the first national assessment in 2004. Subsequently, the National Assessment Program Civics and Citizenship has collected sample data on student knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour every three years. As such, all these activities were a valuable investment in supporting Australian democracy and Dr David Kemp as the responsible minister could claim success.

The great tragedy of this period, however, was that despite such interest and even political will, the states and their curriculum agencies failed to translate the CCE initiative into a subject within the school curriculum. The most that was achieved was to integrate CCE, supported by Discovering Democracy resources, into existing subjects in the latter prim...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents 
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part One: The Context of Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia
• Part Two: Perspectives and Aims
• Part Three: Civics and Citizenship Education and the Curriculum: Comparative Insights
• Conclusion
• Index
• Imprint