Keith Heggart – författare

This book explores alternative models of civics and citizenship education. Specifically, it uses Justice Citizens, a participatory research and film-making project, as a tool to examine young people’s ideas about active citizenship and participation in public spaces. It introduces a framework that seeks to explore the diverse and apparently contradictory nature of young people’s active citizenship. The framework draws on complexity theory combined with critical pedagogy and democratic education to formulate an approach to developing active citizenship among young people. This approach extends theories of both critical pedagogy and education for citizenship, and by doing so seeks to explain the variegated nature of young people’s engagement with civil society. 

This book contains a valuable repository of ideas and resources for application for teachers to use in schools and classrooms. Academics engaged in initial teacher education, at both primary and secondary levels, will find the framework of use when describing the importance and new approaches to civics and citizenship education within the current school and policy environments.

This book serves as a starting point for pre-service teachers and researchers by providing a concise and thorough summary of key themes within the field of civics and citizenship education. The field of civics and citizenship education is both complex and contested in local and international jurisdictions. It is also a key site for political and policy interventions by governments and other interested parties. While this activity makes the field a vibrant one, it also means that it can be challenging for teachers and researchers to enter and understand the ongoing debates and discussions and the implications these present for their research and educational practice. The book begins with a detailed examination of the history of civics and citizenship education from a variety of perspectives and in different locations. It recognizes and documents how the place and importance of civics and citizenship education has changed over the last century and how this has been realized in various educational initiatives. It also examines the current state of educational and policy-level initiatives in civics and citizenship education, noting the differences between different state and country approaches. This book also undertakes a detailed consideration of the different typologies of civics and citizenship education that have been formulated by various researchers, including notions like justice-oriented citizenship, activist citizenship, and critical citizenship. It examines the theoretical foundations of both active citizenship education and global citizenship education and how these have been enacted in school settings. Furthermore, it examines the place of citizenship in higher education institutions and non-formal educational settings, including practices and statements about the importance of developing global citizenship in these arenas. It also presents a number of different case studies showcasing the variety of approaches to civics and citizenship education and discusses the opportunities and challenges educators and researchers face when researching and implementing it.