Citizenship education and the promise of democracy: A study of UNESCO Associated Schools in Brazil and Canada

Abstract

With current manifestations of globalization creating local problems, including widening equity gaps, increased environmental destruction and burgeoning poverty, many policymakers, civil society, organizations and educators are seeking models of education that promise social justice and a democratic public sphere that reflects more than democracy of and for elites. This study of UNESCO Associated Schools, located in Brazil and Canada, identified how educators negotiate contradictory global agendas and employ UNESCO ideals of a peaceful world, human rights and democracy, and a healthy environment to create a platform for citizenship education. While there is no package of liberation and transformational education that comes with being a UNESCO Associated School, there is encouraging evidence that educators are working in creative and critical ways to educate toward more engaged citizens who are capable of contributing to a strengthened public sphere. This article compares the Brazilian and Canadian experiences with the UNESCO Associated Schools project, and examines both commonalities and differences. While global neoliberalized governance structures define much of what happens even in local contexts, the schools in this study demonstrated innovative ways in which citizenship education can be a pathway to understanding and resisting destructive global agendas while, simultaneously, maintaining a critical global awareness and citizenship engagement. Recommendations are made for citizenship education that prepares activist citizens to participate in a pubic sphere that challenges normative elitism and opens possibilities for a justice to be the common foundation of public engagement.

Promoting Human Rights through Philosophy with Children

“…We must, asserts Gregg (2016), move away from 'the centralized-state legacy of uniformity in curricula, textbooks, and teaching methods' (p.112) if we are to promote what he calls 'human rights consciousness'. This articulates well with Shultz and Guimaraes-Iosif's (2012) distinction between the active and the activist citizen. While activist citizens 'engage in writing scripts, creating the scene, active citizens follow scripts and participate in scenes that are already created.…”

“…Under such circumstances, care needs to be taken that participation is not simply tokenistic and restrictive. Shultz and Guimaraes-Iosif (2012) would describe such approaches as 'thin democracy' (p.244). It is not that children are not interested in issues affecting their lives (Head et al, 2015) or that they won't engage with political processes, as evidenced by, for example, by the 2014 Scottish independence referendum when 75% of sixteen and seventeen year-olds who were eligible to vote did so, with 97% of those voters saying they intend to vote in the future (The Electoral Commission, 2014).…”

Philosophy with Children: A Rights-based Approach to Deliberative Participation

“…The dialogue touches on several topics that could be further developed in the classroom context to enhance learning about rights while also learning for rights. The deliberation afforded by the CoPI session allows the participants to raise specific rights or issues related to rights within the dialogue, and that will hopefully influence further thinking, and potentially also positive action (Schertz 2007;Lunenberg & Korthagen, 2009;Shultz & Guimaraes-Iosif's, 2012;Cassidy, 2016). Aside from issues of fair pay, democracy and the merits -or not -of capitalism, the children, through the dialogue, explore ideas around: power; wealth and poverty; ethics and ethical behaviour; cooperation and collectivism; corporations and business; exploitation; charity; personal and social responsibility; and how we ought to live together.…”

Occupy: A case illustration of social movements in global citizenship education

“…1 Those elements of responsible global citizenship are mentioned in Table 1. Now that we have an idea of a common framework for what constitutes global citizenship edu cation, "there is a need to explore how we can educate for a more vibrant public sphere with citi zens who participate as activists and emancipated citizens" (Shultz and Guimaraes-Iosif, 2012). The work of Henry Giroux is particularly relevant in calling to attention the capability of the larger culture (meaning the public sphere) to out-do institutionalized education as the most important educational force in developed societies.…”