Citizenship Education in England: The Making of a New Subject

Abstract

Citizenship has been included for the first time ever as an explicit part of the school curriculum in England from September 2002. This paper explores how this historic shift has come about through the work of the Advisory Group on Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (commonly known as the Crick Group). The first section sets out the background to why the Crick Group was established and shows how the main lessons from past policy approaches were absorbed by the Group. The second section explains how citizenship education is defined in the school curriculum in England. The third section details some of the current activities designed to encourage the development of effective practice in citizenship. In the final section a number of challenges facing citizenship education are identified. How these challenges are tackled will have a major impact as to the effectiveness of citizenship education practice in schools and elsewhere in England.