Active citizenship and the ‘making’ of active citizens in Australian schools

Active citizenship is an idea with a long history. While it remains subject to different definitions and interpretations, it is also an idea that has now been adopted across the political spectrum and across numerous jurisdictions, including Australia (Marinetto 2003). In fact, the proposition that citizens should play an active role in the political process and voluntarily contribute to the good of civil society and the community has become one of the ‘governing concepts’ of numerous nations (Appadurai 2007: 29). This proposition extends to young people who are increasingly expected not merely to ‘be’ citizens but to enact their citizenship in practical ways. The centrality of school education in fostering young people’s active citizenship has been widely promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the European Union as well as by numerous jurisdictions (Birzea, Losito and Veldhuis 2005). Over the past two decades, compulsory citizenship education has been introduced into the school curriculum of almost all European countries (Eurydice 2005) as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, the United States and Canada (Nelson and Kerr 2006). Although the nature of these citizenship education curricula differs, there is a common policy view that young people should be educated for active citizenship.