[What kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy]: What examples of citizenship education do you remember from your K-12 schooling? What types of citizenship (e.g. which of the three types mentioned in the article) were the focus? Explore what this approach to the curriculum made (im)possible in regards to citizenship. What does the approach we take to citizenship instruction in any given place tell us about that place? About what the curriculum makers value? About what kinds of citizens they want to produce?
In the article “What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy,” Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne make mention of three types of democratic citizens. Westheimer and Kahne (2004) discuss the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the justice-oriented citizen (p. 240). The personally responsible citizen is the type of person to recycle, pay taxes, give blood, donate to a food drive, etc., and from my experiences of K-12 schooling, this was the type of citizen they were trying to produce (Westheimer and Kahne, 2004, p. 240). I can remember, especially during my elementary years, being taught the importance of treating people with respect, recycling, taking care of the environment, etc., but it never really moved past that. There were some opportunities that were participatory citizen related, but I certainly was never given the tools to be a justice-oriented citizen.
The personally responsible citizen is important to society. We need people like this, but in order for positive social change to occur, we need to produce more justice-oriented citizens. Through a curriculum that emphasizes how to be a personally responsible citizen, you produce good citizens, but citizens that do no challenge the world around them. And we need people to challenge the norm, now more than ever. To me, schools promoting a personally responsible citizen is the way for the higher ups of society to continue producing cogs in the capitalistic society we are living in. John Westheimer says it well in the “What Kind of Citizen?” YouTube video we were required to watch. He says that schools today have become places for future job training instead of focusing on shaping citizens. I agree with this statement, and I think we need to move away from this.
Reference:
Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312041002237
One Comment
Angelica G
Hi, Branden!
I found the same connections with the personally responsible citizen, I found that in my schooling (and likely other individual’s as well), learning was mainly focused around being a personally responsible citizen, and didn’t necessarily include learning towards a justice oriented citizen as much. I like that you talked about why these types of citizens are important. What methods do you think could be incorporated into the curriculum to create a good learning environment for this? Your blog post really shows the need for these methods of teaching.