Citizenship and Communication
Assessment 2: Essay
Topic: What are the opportunities and challenges for active citizenship in the current political
environment?
Definition and Argument
Active citizenship refers to legal members of a nation being involved in activities that affect the nation directly at the local community level, exercising democracy at all ranks, in towns as well as cities and in states as well as nationwide. It’s implicated that an active citizen should fulfil both the rights and responsibilities in a manner that is balanced. Active citizenship involves ‘small and large’ activities. They might be as small as cleaning up the streets or campaigning for the small or as big as educating the society on democratic skills, values as well as participation. Health societies are defined by active citizenship. Activities of Active citizenship are instilled through various programs in one’s lifetime (SZÉGER, 2013).
Active citizenship is faced with both challenges and opportunities but at the end of it all, opportunities carry the day. I will discuss the two broadly in this paper.
Introduction
Active citizenship advocates for democratic cooperation whose aim is to promote universal human rights as well as rule of law, support diversity and inclusivity of the entire community. Acquiring knowledge that leads to active citizenship, to develop and practice the skills happens at all levels of social life, although schools contribute the largest part of this knowledge.
Active citizenship plays an important role by allowing citizens to brainstorm real solutions to challenges instead of participating in discrimination, scapegoating as well as other tactics practices by extremists. In most places of the world, campaigns on human rights have been steered by the elite. Racial discrimination, sexual orientation campaigns, religious freedom as well as political campaigns have been led by the learned. Voter education as well as educating the society on their rights has been done by the learned. Active citizenship is mainly among the elite but they distribute it easily through community education (SZÉGER, 2013).
Opportunities for active citizenship
Teaching in schools.
Research shows that the best way to achieve active citizenship is through education. In democracies or nations which have developed active citizenship begun teaching them in learning institutions. Active citizenship entails knowledge, skills, attitude as well as actions aimed at contributing to building as well as maintaining a society that is democratic. Learners grow from their childhood to adulthood knowing their rights and being active citizens. Most governments have ensured that education that leads to active citizenship has been introduced in learning institutions. Countries like England, Ireland, France Poland, Spain, Norway, United States as well as China are known in advocating for citizenship education in all levels of education.
For learners, most schools use the following methods to teach citizenship education in schools. They include;
Assemblies where lectures of active citizenship are delivered
Modules in Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE)
Integrated into all subjects
Tutorials
Extra-curricular activities
Special events with resource persons
Teachers recommended these approaches in schools and termed them as the most effective. They have confidence in teaching these topics and they have indicated that students understand topics on environment, punishment crime, resolving conflict and the media as compared to other topics. Teachers have testified that after teaching students on citizenship they know their rights as well as responsibilities to an extent of advocating for their rights on their respective learning institutions. This is evidenced by peaceful demonstrations conducted by students especially whenever they feel that their rights are violated.
Opportunities for staff training
To ensure that citizenship is effectively taught in educational institutions, teachers always get trained on the same. There has been an increased intake of teachers who get trained on how to teach learners on citizenship across the world especially in Austria. The main trainers for teachers include local authorities, commercial organizations as well as citizenship organizations. (Eleanor Ireland, 2006)
Temporal education.
Apart from schools, there are other platforms that offer citizenship education on a temporal basis when need be. For instance, prior to an election, most countries do voter education to ensure that voters know the importance of voting as well as voting correctly. Such education is done at the local level by both volunteers and government-contracted educators. Media also plays a key role in voter education during such times. It’s another key opportunity that promotes citizen education leading to active citizenship.
Special organizations.
There several organizations that conduct citizen education among the citizens. Such organizations include human rights organizations, environmental organizations, health organizations and social movements among others. Apart from teaching, these organizations also advocate for what they teach. In case what they believe in is violated they proceed to courts as well as holding peaceful demonstrations mainly addressing the government and other relevant bodies. These organizations have been instrumental in teaching citizens their responsibilities as well. For instance, environmental organizations teach citizens that it’s their responsibility to protect the environment by keeping it clean and planting trees. The same organization has been at the forefront in educating the public on global warming and how to curb it. Such organizations enhance civic participation among citizens.
Challenges for active citizenship
Challenges related to teachers.
Teachers widely lack an understanding of democratic and active citizenship. Again, teachers who have conservative views politically do not support education on active citizenship. There is a challenge where teachers did not acquire active citizenship education while undergoing studies in their education life.
Challenges related to students
Not all students understand citizenship education, especially the younger ones have problems in understanding its concept. Female students portray passive behavior regarding active citizenship as compared to their male counterparts. Consequently, families with a low social environment, socioeconomic status as well as government policies are failing to support active citizenship.
Challenges related to schools and educational systems.
The Social Studies Curriculum (SSC) has always been practiced with an approach that is teacher-centred. SSC fails to apply active citizenship. Instead of teaching learners and allowing them to practice what they have learnt, they are only taught theoretically. Test-based instead of practice-based education and exams make active citizenship to be ineffective. The culture as well as the structure of schools do not nurture students’ skills and abilities towards active citizenship. There are some countries that have laws and regulations that hinder teachers to engage in active citizenship education. Teachers also have different perspectives concerning active citizenship. Only a few teachers who perceive active citizenship as a personal issue. Some perceive active education as a communitarian issue, meaning, when people live together they come up with their responsibilities depending on their environment and that people should learn about active citizenship and they live in the community. When they teach active citizenship they refer to it as ‘learning civic duties’. Others relate citizenship education with maintaining social responsibilities and being a good citizen by taking part in non-governmental organizations.
Social challenges to active citizenship – Social institutions (schools)
There has been racial discrimination all over the united states of America over the blacks up to date. This suppresses their active citizenship in the country. Some feel threatened and fail to speak out to act even when discriminated against. Some educational institutions in the US have hit headlines for discriminating blacks. These discriminations happen among students where white students discriminate against blacks and create stigma in such institutions. It has also been reported that teachers fail to recognize black students when they become the best in class and instead give recognition to the whites. Some of these cases go unnoticed, especially where students are intimidated in case they report. Several individuals as well as organizations have come up to condemn such acts and sort protection by the law for such students and other citizens (Klein, 2018).
Theories of citizenship.
There are two theories of citizenship. They include; republican and liberal theories.
Republican Theory. This model believes in civic self-rule, personified in classical practices and institutions such as the rotation of offices, reinforcing the way Aristotle characterized a citizen as one who is able to rule and be ruled in turn. According to Aristotle, citizens entirely refers to “those who share in the holding of office.”
The liberal theory. It states that citizenship means being guarded by the law instead of participating in its formation or execution. This theory explains citizenship as a community of common or shared law, which may or may not be similar to a territorial community.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have described both the opportunities as well as the challenges for active citizenship. I have demonstrated various opportunities to active citizenship such as citizen education in schools as well as other organizations that take part in educating citizens on active citizenship. There are several challenges as well to active citizenship as I have indicated such as different perspectives among teachers on active citizenship and ineffective curriculum that does not encourage the practice of active citizenship because such education is only offered theoretically.
I have used the two theories in my explanations. For instance, I have used republican theory in active citizenship in explaining that citizens should be responsible and take national development as their initiative, participate in voting and obeying the law. This demonstrates the ability to rule yourself and being ruled in turn. Individuals and organizations advocating for rule of law in defending the blacks against discrimination show that one should be protected by the law which is in accordance with the liberal theory.