Citizenship Teaching and Learning

This paper charts the ways in which schools in Australia have traditionally served the needs of the nation state in terms of civics and citizenship education. A brief historical overview provides a platform for developing a tripartite model of this process which sees civics and citizenship education being developed through (i) the structures of schooling (ii) the cultures and processes of schools and (iii) the formal representations of civics and citizenship in the curriculum. The period around 1970 is identified as a time of fracturing of these traditional modalities, a transformation brought about by population change, technological developments and the increasingly felt pressures of a globalising economy. Hence in 1990 the federal government began a process of reclamation of civics education in schooling. Our analysis of this process and its outcomes demonstrates that there has been a subsequent re-invocation of the traditional model and points to a lack of fit between this model and current concerns to equip young Australians to take their place in an increasingly globalised world.