Examples of Active Citizenship in Education
Due to concerns over such things as a lack of interest in elections (reflected by low voter turnout), the British Government launched a citizenship education programme several years ago. Citizenship education is now compulsory in UK schools up to 14 and is often available as an option beyond that age.
In Scotland, UK, active citizenship has been one of the three major themes of community policy since The Osler Report (section 6.6) in 1998. The most recent Scottish Executive guidelines for Community learning and development, Working and Learning Together, has active citizenship as a target within other policy aims. Britain has a points-based immigration system, and in 2009 was considering a probationary period for newly admitted immigrants which would examine, in part, how well they were being so-called active citizens.
In Denmark, "active citizenship" is part of the curriculum in Danish teacher's Education. The course is defined as 36 lessons.
In Canada, there is an Active Citizenship Course being run at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. It is a compulsory course that is delivered by the Language Studies Department to all students at the college. Organizations that cite active citizenship as part of their mission or vision statement include the following:
- Omidyar Network
- Active Citizenship Network
- Minnesota Active Citizenship Initiative (MACI)
- Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service
- Active Citizenship Office (Department of the Taoiseach, Ireland)
- Time for Citizenship, a primary school project
- Stichting Actief Burgerschap University of Amsterdam
- Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg, CEE/SOE
- Alternative Spring Break
- Junior Chamber International
In the United States, writer Catherine Crier wondered in the Huffington Post about whether Americans had lost sight of Thomas Jefferson's sense of active citizenship. Crier lamented how Americans have tended to neglect participating in voluntary associations, and tend to live as "strangers apart from the rest", quoting Tocqueville. In contrast, writer Eboo Patel in Newsweek suggested that president Obama had a somewhat different sense of active citizenship, meaning strong families, a vibrant civic center in which persons of different faiths and secular backgrounds work together, with government acting as a "catalyst."
Read more about this topic: Active Citizenship
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