I'm posting my submission to the curriculum review in case it's of wider interest. As ever, I'm very happy to discuss this with colleagues, and hope we might have some further opportunities to help improve the curriculum as part of this process.
The following section headings refer to the questions in the review. The review is open until 22nd November 2024: https://consult.education.gov.uk/curriculum-and-assessment-team/curriculum-and-assessment-review-call-for-evidence/
11. What aspects of the curriculum should be targeted for improvements?
Citizenship education was introduced into the curriculum in 2002 and the subsequent longitudinal evaluation showed that, where it was taught routinely and accorded a status commensurate with other subjects, it is likely to lead to improvements in a range of outcomes, including increasing young people’s intentions to vote and participate in a range of citizenship activities in adulthood [1]. My own recent research with 2,800 students across 16 secondary schools participating in the Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT) National Citizenship Education Study (NCES) also found that higher levels of reported citizenship education were associated with greater intention to vote, increased political efficacy, and greater support for democracy [2].
If the curriculum is intended to ‘prepare young people for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’, this seems an essential element to a balanced curriculum and yet many schools do not teach Citizenship as a discrete subject. Whilst Citizenship is a national curriculum subject in key stages 3 and 4, in many schools it is one component of a broader PSHE programme, which means students are unlikely to be offered a consistent Citizenship education, or to be taught by a specialist teacher. In key stage 4, given the pressure to teach GCSE subjects, Citizenship is very often relegated to the PSHE programme, if it is taught at all. Even in those schools offering GCSE Citizenship Studies, many teachers have to manage with less time than is allocated to other GCSE options [2].
On 15th November 2024 the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Democracy and Local Growth wrote a letter to the electoral sector giving them notice they should prepare for the introduction of votes at 16 [3]. It is essential that schools play a part in preparing for this policy innovation as there is evidence to suggest that where voter age reform is introduced without adequate preparation, this may result in low rates of turnout and that these are likely to be consolidated. In other words, if 16-year-olds vote, it is likely to lead to improved voter turnout in subsequent elections, but if they do not, this is likely to set up poor habits that will continue into adulthood [4].
As 16-year-olds will be given the right to vote, Citizenship takes on even greater significance. But its uncertain status means it is not currently experienced by all students in state-funded schools. This is likely to exacerbate inequalities and may threaten to weaken our democracy further. It is essential that a new curriculum clarifies a minimum entitlement for all students to prepare them for their role as active citizens.
The threat to democracy does not just come from voter apathy and a decline in the ‘representative’ nature of government. There are also good grounds to be concerned about the impact of social media and the proliferation of conspiracy theories and disinformation. A recent survey of 7,000 teachers found that the spread of conspiracy theories was relatively widespread but that teachers felt ill-equipped to deal with them [5]. A new improved version of Citizenship would certainly have to engage with this as a major new political phenomenon. There is little evidence that this will be tackled by skills programmes alone. Developing a deep sense of what constitutes political knowledge and reasoning, as well as how the digital media landscape works, will be essential elements of an educational response [6].
[1] Keating, A. & Janmaat, J.G. (2016) Education Through Citizenship at School: Do School Activities Have a Lasting Impact on Youth Political Engagement? Parliamentary Affairs, 69(2), 409-429; Keating, A., Kerr, D., Benton, T., Mundy, E. & Lopes, J. (2010) Citizenship Education in England 2001-2010: Young people's practices and prospects for the future. Research Report DFE-RR059. London: Department for Education.
[4] Kisby, B. & Jerome, L. (forthcoming) Votes at 16: Empowering Young people and Revitalising Democracy in Britain. Bloomsbury.
[5] Jerome, L., Kisby, B. & McKay, S. (2024) Combatting Conspiracies in the Classroom: Teacher Strategies and Perceived Outcome. British Educational Research Journal, 50, 1106-1126.
[6] Hayward, J. & Gronland, G. (2021) Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom: Guidance for Teachers, Association for Citizenship Teaching.
12 In the current curriculum are there any barriers to improving attainment (class ceilings) for learners experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage?
There is a well-documented civic gap, which reflects the attainment gap between students from higher and lower socioeconomic groups [1]. Young people from poorer backgrounds have lower levels of knowledge about citizenship, lower participation rates in citizenship activities, and lower intentions to vote in adulthood than their more advantaged peers. The gap generally widens through the course of secondary education. The gap is often exacerbated by differentiated curriculum experiences, or by reduced take-up rates where opportunities are offered. Even within the same classrooms, students may report different levels of participation, due to prior perceptions and lower levels of cultural capital.
However, there is also evidence that citizenship education can have a disproportionate impact on students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, precisely because school can give them an experience and knowledge which they are less likely to receive at home or in their communities [2]. Some of the evidence points to the importance of ‘open classroom climate’ as an important pedagogic approach to encourage interest in politics [3]. My research for ACT’s NCES project has shown that students attending Citizenship-rich schools report very similar levels of open classroom climate across socio-economic groups, which lends credibility to the idea that citizenship education may be a practical way to reduce the civic gap [4].
G-Epic, an international research project which is currently underway, led by Professor Bryony Hoskins, has produced early findings to suggest that a tailored teaching intervention, focusing explicitly on political action, can have a positive impact on working class girls’ political efficacy [5].
[1] Hoskins, B. (2019) Disadvantaged young people don’t vote, and why education is making this worse. Comment Central, 9th December. https://commentcentral.co.uk/disadvantaged-young-people-dont-vote-and-why-education-is-making-this-worse; Hoskins, B. & Janmaat, G. (2019) Education, Democracy and Inequality: Political Engagement and Citizenship Education in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan; Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J.G. & Melis, G. (2017) Tackling inequalities in political socialisation: A systematic analysis of access to and mitigation effects of learning citizenship at school. Social Science research, 68, 88-101.
[2] Jerome, L., Hyder, F., Hilal, Y., & Kisby, B. (2024) A systematic literature review of research examining the impact of citizenship education on active citizenship outcomes. Review of Education, 12, e3472.
[3] Godfrey E.B. & Grayman J.K. (2014) Teaching citizens: the role of open classroom climate in fostering critical consciousness among youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(11), 1801-17.
22 Are there subjects where content is missing, out of date, poorly sequenced, or where greater flexibility is needed?
There is no continuity in Citizenship between key stages 1-2 (where it features as part of the PSHE framework) and key stages 3-4, as these were written at different times by different groups with little reference between the latter and the former.
The bullet-pointed content in the key stage 3 & 4 programmes of study is very heavily skewed towards traditional civics knowledge (primarily concerned with institutions) and personal finance (with very little reference to public finance). Human rights are only mentioned in key stage 4, whilst in key stage 3 there is reference to the ‘precious liberties enjoyed by citizens of the UK’. This undermines the UK’s commitments to promote children’s rights as a signatory state to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and ignores the requirements of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. Nevertheless, this single curriculum reference to human rights in key stage 4 is the sole basis of the UK government’s claim to be teaching human rights education [1].
As a consequence of this focus on civics knowledge there is very little engagement with the lived experience of citizenship, and very little attention paid to the skills and experiences associated with citizenship. Given that so much of the research evidence about what makes citizenship education successful is concerned with how it is learned as well as what is taught, this weakens the programmes of study as potential sources of positive practice [2]. Experiencing opportunities for sustained and open dialogue and gaining experience of active citizenship (both real and simulated) have a significant positive effect on young people’s intention to participate in community activities, intention to vote, and sense of efficacy [3]. But, because the current programmes of study do not spell out these opportunities (unlike previous versions in 2002 and 2007), there are doubts about how impactful it could be. A new version of citizenship education should foreground these approaches to learning and the skills associated with them.
A recent consultation exercise included 25 secondary school students acting as co-researchers, who all conducted focus groups in their schools [4]. The overwhelming feedback was that they wanted to learn about how politics worked in real-life and how it affected real people. They also felt very strongly that school-specific curricula for Citizenship should reflect the local context and respond to young people’s lives.
The students involved in that consultation also recognised that PSHE and Citizenship are often issues-based or engage with separate topics but they felt that this could lead to a superficial ‘coverage’ model. They suggested that one-off topics should be avoided as it often takes time to think about some of the bigger issues discussed. They felt that it would be much more fruitful to engage in sustained inquiries with multiple case studies so they could learn about how various issues were interconnected. My responses to questions 23 and 26 expand on the findings from this study.
[1] UK Government (2022) Combined sixth and seventh periodic reports submitted by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under article 44 of the Convention. CRC/C/GBR/6-7
[2] Jerome, L., Hyder, F., Hilal, Y., & Kisby, B. (2024) A systematic literature review of research examining the impact of citizenship education on active citizenship outcomes. Review of Education, 12, e3472.
[4] Jerome, L., & Hyder, F. (2024) Agenda for Citizenship Education (ACE). British Educational
Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/agenda-for-citizenshipeducation
23 Are there changes that would make the curriculum more diverse and representative?
In previous versions of the Citizenship programmes of study there has been more attention paid to the nature of diversity in the UK. In the 2014 curriculum this is limited to the statement that in key stage 4 students should learn about ‘diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding’. This represents a significant backward step from the 2007 curriculum which included references to the diversity of beliefs, cultures, identities and traditions in the UK; reasons for migration; and the implications of the interconnections between the UK and the rest of the world.
A recent representative survey on race and faith at school [1] found that fewer than half of students felt their schools taught them about real life issues that affect their lives or taught them about people from their ethnic background.
The students who participated in a recent curriculum consultation [2] argued that it was important to learn about the lived realities of citizenship in the UK, including the multiple forms of inequalities. They wanted to learn about the diverse nature of the UK, including the histories of various communities and the current challenges (as well as benefits) associated with migration and diversity. This strongly suggests that young people do not simply want schools to promote an ethos of equality, but they also need a space to consider why diversity is often experienced as a source of tension. They are interested in how people’s lives are influenced by different factors (including race, gender, class, religion etc) and the diverse experiences of people in different parts of the UK.
In discussing these issues the students also recognised that it was important to consider a diverse range of perspectives on a wide range of citizenship issues, especially when discussing controversial and sensitive issues. They welcome a range of speakers on topical issues in addition to their teachers and also felt their own voices were important.
The Citizenship curriculum should be more explicit about the political nature of debates about diversity, equality and inequality and enable students to explore diverse views and experiences related to these issues.
[1] Rahman, M. S., Kitching, K., Gholami, R., Kandemir, A., & Khokan, M. R. (2023) Youth engagement with race and faith at school: National pupil survey headline findings report. University of Birmingham.
[2] Jerome, L., & Hyder, F. (2024) Agenda for Citizenship Education (ACE). British Educational
Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/agenda-for-citizenshipeducation
24 To what expect does the curriculum support students to respect others?
Because the current Citizenship programmes of study do not consistently address issues related to respect, this is an opportunity lost to many students. I believe there is a problem inherent in treating ‘mutual respect and tolerance’ merely as values to be promoted (as required by DfE guidance on the fundamental British values) [1].
In ‘The Deliberative Classroom’ project students were encouraged to learn about the fundamental British values as political concepts to be understood and applied, rather than values to be promoted. Here the ideas of respect and tolerance were related to human rights and democratic norms as a form of knowledge, and these in turn were used to frame discussions about a series of case studies dealing with minority beliefs and behaviour. There was evidence that the students were able to combine enhanced conceptual understanding with practical respect, through an ethics of care for those involved in the classroom discussions [2]. Given that there are so many well-documented concerns about promoting the FBVs in schools (especially the potential to alienate BME teachers and students), I believe that incorporating this more explicitly within a Citizenship curriculum could both be much more effective and much more inclusive [3]. This point resonates with the concerns raised in the House of Lords debate on the Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [4].
For those 2,800 students in ACT’s NCES survey [5] there was a clear correlation between levels of citizenship knowledge and levels of political toleration (a survey measure which includes several questions about acceptance of minority rights). This is important because it strengthens the claim that there may be value in engaging students in explicit learning about minority groups and human rights, rather than simply treating ‘respect’ as a value to be promoted.
Ultimately it does a disservice to young people to imagine that the rule of law, democracy and toleration are matters of personal values, as opposed to political principles that must be learned, critiqued, and used to understand the world politically. Embracing the language of ‘values’ risks ignoring the very real task of developing political literacy so that students are equipped to understand the world around them (full of conflict and disagreement) as inherently political.
[2] Jerome, L., Liddle, A. and Young, H. (2021) Talking Tolerance: Being Deliberative about Fundamental British Values. PRISM, 3(2): 48-61; the teaching resources used for this evaluation have been published by the Association for Citizenship Teaching here: The Deliberative Classroom https://www.teachingcitizenship.org.uk/resource/the-deliberative-classroom-project/
[3] Busher, J. and Jerome, L. (Eds.) (2020) The Prevent Duty in Education: Impact, Enactment and Implications, Palgrave Macmillan.
26 What could be changed in the secondary curriculum to enhance skills for life?
The 25 secondary students who conducted focus group research in their own schools suggested the following changes to the secondary curriculum for Citizenship [1]:
Curriculum content
1. Ensure the curriculum addresses real-life politics and does not represent idealised textbook models.
2. Teach explicitly about the range of active citizenship, including voting, volunteering, activism
and strike action.
3. Address matters of equality and inequality relating to race, immigration, gender, disability and so on.
4. Teach explicitly about the NHS as an example of an institution that embodies British citizenship.
5. Connect the personal and public aspects of financial education.
Curriculum processes
6. Ensure a range of interactive learning strategies are routinely used, including experiential learning.
7. Ensure teachers are adequately trained and supported to maintain a safe environment for
discussing controversial and sensitive issues.
8. Include a diverse range of perspectives relating to content, for example, through case studies, guest speakers and visits.
9. Provide opportunities for students to produce learning materials and to engage in peer-education initiatives.
10. Create school-specific interpretations of the curriculum that reflect the local context and
respond to young people’s concerns, needs and interests.
These suggested changes indicate that students recognise there are some important elements missing from their current curriculum experience and demonstrate a yearning for a curriculum that will connect new knowledge to their everyday lives.
In addition to the students’ requests I would make two further suggestions. First, my research with teachers suggests that conspiracy theories are widespread, but they have few reliable strategies for dealing with them. I would therefore recommend that we include digital citizenship and disinformation as a core component of Citizenship. This would address knowledge as well as skills, as there is little reason to believe it can be dealt with purely as an extension of critical thinking or English skills [2]. My second additional suggestion relates to teaching about the climate emergency through Citizenship. My research with students suggests that they are learning about climate change, but surveys from Citizenship teachers suggest that, because it is not explicitly mentioned in the Citizenship programmes of study, it is not widely taught through this subject lens [3]. This gives rise to the possibility that students may not be considering how they can take personal action, contribute to collective action, or form political judgements about policy, all of which seem to be core requirements for a curriculum aiming to prepare young people for their future.
When the 2014 curriculum was introduced it was accompanied by rhetoric about being ‘knowledge-rich’ or promoting ‘powerful knowledge’ (inspired by Michael Young). In fact, much of the knowledge in the curriculum represents a rather inert body of general knowledge about British institutions and political processes. A new curriculum for Citizenship could be truly ‘empowering’ if it dealt with knowledge in a more sophisticated way. First such knowledge should be related to core concepts that genuinely help to transform how students understand the world (for example, understanding diversity, conflict, rights, power etc.). Second, such knowledge should be used to inform the development of students’ own political views and to open up possible avenues for action. Third, we should be much more deliberate about developing a political world-view, that is to say a way of seeing the world politically. These dimensions to Citizenship knowledge are being developed through the Teachers and Citizenship Knowledge (TACK) project led by Hans Svennevig at the UCL Institute of Education, where teachers, teacher educators and researchers are sharing their expertise to analyse the nature of subject knowledge in citizenship education [4].
Elsewhere in this submission I have noted the importance of establishing an ‘open classroom climate’ for young people to express their own views, hear others, and explore complex issues collaboratively. It follows that the curriculum should encourage teachers to promote such discussions about controversial and sensitive contemporary issues. Whilst guidance on political impartiality from the DfE [5] focuses on the risks to teachers associated with this, there is a much more child-centred and rights-respecting approach promoted in the guidance issued by the Welsh government [6]. This demonstrates the significance of foregrounding young people’s rights to engage with a variety of sources of information, develop their capacity for freedom of thought, and to be prepared to participate in political debates. This demonstrates the value in embracing a rights-respecting approach to citizenship education.
[1] Jerome, L., & Hyder, F. (2024) Agenda for Citizenship Education (ACE). British Educational
Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/agenda-for-citizenshipeducation
[2] Jerome, L., Kisby, B. & McKay, S. (2024) Combatting Conspiracies in the Classroom: Teacher Strategies and Perceived Outcome. British Educational Research Journal, 50, 1106-1126; Hayward, J. & Gronland, G. (2021) Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom: Guidance for Teachers, Association for Citizenship Teaching.
41 Are there GCSE subjects where changes could be made to benefit student learning?
This is the only question I am responding to without hard evidence to support my position. As someone who has observed the GCSE changes and worked alongside teachers who have had to implement them, I would argue that the current GCSE for Citizenship Studies needs reform to make it more fit for purpose. It functions adequately as a mechanism for testing recall and basic comprehension of political facts, but the knowledge is not organised around core concepts or theories and therefore it appears to be a list of facts about civics, rather than a reasonable statement of what would constitute advanced understanding of citizenship as a field of enquiry and action.
It also functions rather poorly as a means for assessing students’ abilities to affect change and learn from experience – both of which were central to the original vision for Citizenship in schools. At the moment exam specifications require students to undertake some form of active citizenship project but this is assessed through an unseen exam. A shift away from 100% final exams would enable students to demonstrate what they had achieved and learned through participation in more authentic ways.
In addition, the eradication of short course GCSEs and the focus on the EBacc subjects have led to a significant decline in the number of students taking a qualification in Citizenship Studies.
54 Further views
The ‘knowledge turn’ that informed the last curriculum review has been problematic for a number of reasons, not least because it is equally important to specify skills and experiences to provide sufficient structure for teachers to implement with consistency. In Citizenship this is an obvious issue as the power of the subject resides in what it empowers young people to do, as well as what knowledge they acquire.
But the ‘knowledge turn’ also fails on its own terms because, in subjects like Citizenship, it has led to a rather one-dimensional view of what constitutes knowledge. Whilst supporting the re-introduction of skills and learning experiences, I would also suggest it is very difficult for teachers to organise their curriculum (and equally difficult for exam boards to devise meaningful exams) without some shared view of the core concepts and theories that help to organise a subject, and some shared sense of what kind of knowledge is produced in each area of the curriculum. I would therefore urge the review to introduce a common requirement for subjects to share a definition of each subject that organises knowledge in relation to concepts / schemas, and which addresses questions about how such knowledge is established and judged within each subject area.
This might represent an ‘epistemic turn’ which takes knowledge much more seriously. It is commonplace in some subjects to incorporate this, for example, the Science curriculum addresses how to work scientifically, including ‘scientific attitudes’ and establishes criteria such as objectivity, precision and reproducibility. But equivalent statements do not exist for other subjects. In Citizenship, teachers are told to help students ‘weigh evidence and make reasoned arguments’ but this is open to interpretation and very poorly implemented in GCSE Citizenship Studies mark schemes. A more powerful curriculum would be more explicit in helping students to understand how political arguments are constructed, and how they draw on evidence, theories, values and beliefs. This would help students to understand the different types of learning they are engaged in and create a shared language for thinking about some of the political threats to democracy represented by social media and the proliferation of conspiracy theories among young people. Supporters of conspiracy theories have lots of evidence at their fingertips and construct sophisticated arguments, but lack the knowledge, developed political worldview, and epistemic criteria to see through the falsehoods. This deeper approach to knowledge is important if the curriculum is to be relevant in a world where information is ubiquitous and unreliable.
Finally, I support the government’s enthusiasm for oracy in education but would counsel caution in the belief that oracy in itself will promote social justice and equal opportunities. Citizenship education provides a space in the curriculum where young people can develop a political voice, which is more than the ability to speak well to an audience. To truly empower young people to participate fully in our society they need to develop a sense of themselves as political actors, build sufficient political literacy to understand how to affect change, and work with others to make their voices heard. The best citizenship education provides a strong foundation of good practice on which such an entitlement can be built.
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