Handbook of research on catholic education

Advancing Educational Excellence. Search Search. Handbook of Research on Catholic Education. Nuzzi, September Anyone interested in private schools generally and Catholic schools particularly will want to know of this research volume, edited by Thomas C.

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Subjects Education , Handbooks, manuals , Catholic schools , Catholic Church , Catholic church, united states, education , Catholic schools, united states. Handbook of research on Catholic education , Information Age Pub. Libraries near you: WorldCat. Paperback in English - New Ed edition. Handbook of research on Catholic education First published in Subjects Education , Handbooks, manuals , Catholic schools , Catholic Church , Catholic church, united states, education , Catholic schools, united states.

Places United States. Polanski and Thomas W. Greene and Joseph M. Manno and Heather Graham. Edition Notes Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Genre Handbooks, manuals, etc. Classifications Dewey Decimal Class H34 , LC H34 External Links Table of contents. The particular focus is on the major policy and research trends of the last twenty years , particularly in relation to school and non-school based citizenship education for primary and secondary school students.

The question of citizenship —and citizenship education- in the UK has been highly convulsed during these two decades. The jurisdiction in England was kept on the hands of the UK Parliament. Arguably, the most well-known case has been Scotland where a Referendum for the Independence took place in Devolution, however, has not satisfied everyone.

Seth-Smith, English nationalism has also grown feeding parties and organizations such as UKIP, avant-gardes of Brexit. This has more recently led to the results of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum showing clear in-country differences e. UK is a highly diverse country, in both social and regional terms. Smith, Although questions of national identity are always complex, Britishness in the UK appears to be distinctively conceived by ethnic and regional groups.

That may be an exceptional case, but Scots too are less likely than immigrants to identify as British — a seemingly stable 33 per cent of Scots reject even a partial British identity Bond and Rosie, Educational policy, practice and even research are very different in each of the four nations.

Key principles such as compulsory schooling entry age, higher education fees and the primary and secondary curriculum have historically differed and still do from one nation to the other Phillips, In this context, citizenship education policy and practice are highly diverse, and this diversity also impacts upon research conducted on this area.

This chapter is structured as follows. The educational policy related to citizenship education for each of the four nations is first examined. This is followed by a consideration of the key themes emerging from citizenship education research conducted in the UK context.

Particularly, the focus is on highlighting the dimensions, approaches and spaces articulating educational research in citizenship education. We conclude by exploring some key issues for citizenship education in the UK and how these can illuminate what happens everywhere else.

Policy: the context for citizenship education in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland In this section, an overview of policies related to citizenship education from — for each of the four nations is provided. Although there are some similarities for instance between Scottish and Welsh approaches , following the previous comments on the autonomy of each educational jurisdiction, this section is divided in four parts.

After the Labour victory in the general election of , the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, established the Advisory Committee on citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools.

The recommendations were accepted by the Labour government and a citizenship education framed through these three strands became a National Curriculum subject in Davies, Citizenship was embedded within the non-statutory framework for Personal, Social and Health Education PSHE for students aged and a new curriculum subject for students was created Kerr, After some years of application, many considered that citizenship education had been a success Davies, ; Keating et al.

The new curriculum for citizenship education and the way in which was actually implemented in schools was, nevertheless, criticized from both left and right-hand perspectives. Although the curricular aims were statutory, approaches to citizenship education were extremely variable from school to school Kerr, e. More frequently, citizenship is a significant partner with PSHE or other subjects, usually being taught in distinctive modules. This core is augmented, for example, by participation and responsible action on activity days and through the work of a democratic school council.

The possibility of indoctrination of children by teachers Faulks, a and the emphasis of the family, rather than the state, to provide citizenship education McLaughlin, were the main arguments putted forward. Considering these critiques, it is not surprising that, when the UK conservative government regained power on under a Government coalition , many felt that citizenship education would be removed from the National Curriculum of England Davies, Ultimately, citizenship education remained but the policy shifted in four ways.

Third, community involvement was separated from school-based practices. Fourth, the new coalition government implicitly created a new cross-curricula approach to citizenship education through the controversial requirement that schools should promote Fundamental British Values FBV. All student teachers are therefore expected to contribute at least to the affective domain through their pedagogical practices, creating an open classroom climate and a democratic school ethos.

In addition, as we shall discuss later, a large number of scholars have also demonstrated their discontent with the national orientation of the new approach on FBV arguing against the exclusionary character of the policy and associated inspection practices e. Wales The Devolution process did not result in the introduction of a new Curriculum subject in Citizenship education in Wales.

Across all curriculum subjects, students are expected to study cultural, economic, environmental, historical and linguistic characteristics of Wales Philips, If as Davies argues, Welsh nationalism tend to be cultural rather than political, it is not surprising that of the curriculum responds to the same perspective.

Perhaps more explicitly related to citizenship education in itself, Personal and Social Education PSE is a compulsory subject for students aged 7 to All teachers, regardless of their level and subject, are expected to be involved.

The framework identified five different themes, two of which explicitly relate to citizenship education: active citizenship and Sustainable development and global citizenship. In the case of active citizenship, the emphasis is on students learning by practicing Kitchen, Activities such as participation on school councils and community actions are encouraged Welsh Assembly, a.

As in the English context, this detailed framework is not compulsory for schools to implement Davies, ESDGC is articulated around seven major themes wealth and poverty, identity and culture, choices and decisions, health, climate change, consumption and waste and natural environment that can be explored in different ways by each particular school.

However, ESDGC is expected to be integrated in the leadership, management and teaching and learning activities within all schools across Wales Welsh Assembly, b and the compliance with the policy is inspected by the education and training inspectorate for Wales ESTYN Davies, The establishment of the Education for Citizenship Review Group in represents the first impetus on citizenship education in the period here studied Davies, The group published in the Education for Citizenship in Scotland report.

Similarly to what we have discussed in the case of Wales, in Scotland, young people are understood to learn about citizenship by practicing citizenship in their communities Biesta, These two principles underlie citizenship education as framed on the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. The Curriculum for Excellence set the purposes and expected outcomes for all students aged in Scotland.

The Curriculum places particular emphasis on the education of responsible citizens. Across subjects, history, geography and more particularly modern studies, take a key relevant role. In brief, in his analysis of the Scottish policy on citizenship education, Biesta identifies four characteristics that, in his understanding, frame the contemporary Scottish approach to citizenship education. These are: 1 individualistic tendency, 2 a broad understanding political, cultural, economic and social of citizenship, 3 an emphasis on action including active citizenship and experiential learning and 4 a prioritization of the links of citizens with local and in some occasions global communities.

The new Curriculum for Northern Ireland in gathered the focus on social cohesion emerging from these previous reports. Similarly to the primary curriculum, the discussion of controversial issues and experiential learning activities are encouraged. The Northern Ireland case is, indeed, often presented as an example of citizenship education in a post-conflict society.

Controversial issues are understood as the key educational strategy to encourage conflict management and deliberation Niens et al. Research: key themes This section focuses on some key themes emerging from theory and research in citizenship education in the UK context. The section is organized in relation to the dimensions national and global , the approaches character, social justice and democratic education and the spaces the interconnection between school and community of citizenship education discussed by relevant authors on the field.

Global citizenship. Researchers have emphasized how the policies are constructed in relation to neoliberal principles. The logic here also relates to human capital principles and the role of Scotland in a globalized world. Simultaneously, the Scottish policies are also constructed in relation to liberal cosmopolitanism and its emphasis on consensus.

The global community appears to be understood as homogeneous and uncontroversial. Even so, a number of researchers have examined how global citizenship is constructed in the policy and practice documentation. Whilst in practice-orientated documentation, the focus appears to be on active citizenship; in policy documentation there is a stronger emphasis on citizenship knowledge and skills Ibrahim, On one end, a neoliberal discourse that, as in the case of Scotland, emphasises the skills and the potential economic contribution of citizens Marshall, National citizenship.

Since then, the question of national British identity has strongly emerged as one of the key topics of discussion on citizenship education research in England. In contrast, a number of scholars have emphasized that the civic construction of Britishness as encountered in British values policies generates process of ethnic exclusion particularly in relation to the Muslim community Arthur, ; Farrell, ; Smith, Four main reasons have been given.

Finally, British values is understood in relation to neoliberal principles in which the role of teachers is the education of what is perceived to be the norm and the surveillance of those who do not conform to this norm Farrell, In the other three nations, the question of national identity has taken different trajectories.

In Wales, similarly to Scotland, the emphasis has been placed on Welsh and global citizenship. In Northern Ireland, discussions on national identity are particularly challenging. In this chapter, three emerging approaches to citizenship education are considered. These are, character education, democratic education and social justice education.

In this section, the three approaches are defined and examined to illuminate current tensions, debates and challenges for citizenship education within a multi-national state such as the UK. It is worth noting that even if the three approaches differ in focus, implementation and political ideology, they all keep converging on the idea that citizenship education is about political engagement of young people, promoting an inclusive framework for civic identities and community understanding.

Character Education. In other words, more in the line of civic republicanism, character education is concerned with virtue as moral excellence and the nature of a good person as make-ups of human beings. The character education approach in the UK has been highly influenced by the North American tradition where character education is particularly prominent.

Character is defined in a call from the Department for Education DfE, inviting schools, colleges and organisation to bid for funding to support projects in character education as: - perseverance, resilience and grit - confidence and optimism - motivation, drive and ambition - neighbourliness and community spirit - tolerance and respect - honesty, integrity and dignity - conscientiousness, curiosity and focus These seven points could easily be aligned with the Six Pillars of character that function as the core ethical values of the USA Character Counts educational strategy Character Counts, Under the auspice of Nicky Morgan, the former Secretary of State for Education between and , the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue based at the University of Birmingham2 has been nationally and internationally recognised as the leading research institution in character education.

We aim to enable British people to explore their character and virtues and, if and where required, transform them. It is as such that our prime goal is not theoretical, but practical. We intend to undertake the work with a firm belief that our programme of inter-related initiatives will make a positive transformative difference to the moral life and learning of British people. At first glance, we can see some areas of overlap between citizenship education and character education.

Policy makers and academics discuss this relationship too loosely, generating confusion and leading to an inappropriate use of the citizenship label. Therefore, in the absence of a clear distinction and a full commitment from key actors to articulate clear boundaries, we will keep seeing how forms of character education are presented in the UK classrooms under the space and title of citizenship education.

It is not wrong to highlight morals, values and virtues. Critical voices have been raised against character education as an approach that is more concerned to conformity than social change. For this reason, it is usually associated to conservative ideologies as we can observe in the context of UK, where as previously discussed, this approach has been privileged by the Conservative government.

At the centre of the debate are practical questions on how to develop character, how to teach values or how to approach moral dilemmas to finally questioning the universality of character.

Social justice education. Social justice has been discussed for many years although it is in the past twenty years that it has re-emerged into political and educational discourses. The UK history is populated by episodes of colonialism, cultural imperialism and diverse social struggles. However, we can also find in this history some of the most remarkable events and movements in the pursuit of Social Justice.

Nonetheless, it is not clear that the promises of enlightenment had brought the possibility of justice Biesta, ; Sant et al. The inclusion and recognition of all members of society and its diversity are at the centre of this discussion. This inclusive motivation and identity-based concern are crucial features to understand the social justice approach in a multicultural and multinational society such as the UK. Social Justice has been part of the different political agendas, receiving different level of attention and been exposed to different ideological underpinnings and shifts.

Therefore, a political interest in Social Justice is evident. Firstly, it is multi-dimensional because the understanding of justice differs in relation to different traditions used to delineate its focus. The American philosopher Nancy Fraser , proposes three dimensions that are often used in the UK-based educational scholarship e. Gewirtz, ; Thomas, ; Sant et al. These are: - The distributive justice dimension is concerned with the way that resources and goods are distributed within society.

From this perspective, social justice education contributes towards a society with equal rights, liberties and an equal distribution of social and economic resources.

From this perspective, social justice education prepare students to overcome misrecognitions caused by dominant interpretations. From this perspective, education should motivate and prepare individuals to get involved, using their voice and participate in the transformation of the society.

Schools as social institutions play a very important role and must lead by example in their daily practices and organisation. The relevance of each dimension in UK-based citizenship education theory and research is up to discussion. It can be argue that three dimensions of are mutually entwined and reciprocally influenced Gewirtz, but, according to Power , in the case of England, there is still a strong presence of the first two domains. Our analysis of the period suggests the existence of some discussions on citizenship education and social class e.

But in our understanding, social justice-oriented citizenship education is particularly constructed in relation to the recognition cause.

This is, in in relation to different social proclaims. These causes are often considered on discussions on diversity and citizenship. Whilst for some, minimal common values might be necessary for the survival of any community see, e. Olssen, ; Sant et al. Elton-Chalcraft et al. In addition, we have seen more recently in the UK the exploration of new aspects of recognition- orientated social justice such as young people voices Bastleer, ; Davies et.

Democratic education. The authors explicitly identified three problems with citizenship education. First, the individualistic nature of citizenship education.

Third, the des-contextualized nature of citizenship education. In the dominant citizenship education tradition, democratic education is often related to the holistic and whole-school approach of citizenship education see, e. Kerr et al. For the author, these principles contribute to learning, engagement and citizenship outcomes. Similar results had been found by others Trafford, , issue that has fostered some to consider whether the trends towards more autonomous schools in English contexts might favour this model Hope, Education is per se conceived as political, and politics are per se conceived as educational.

For instance, McDonnell ; argues for the relevance of arts-based practices as a way to reconnect politics and education. Whilst literature, film and television might help young people to construct and perform their political subjectivity , galleries and other art spaces might allow young people to engage with more affective and corporal approaches to democratic education The spaces of citizenship.

These communities are immediate, local and particular, in contrast to more general ideas and systems, which are easily seen as remote, abstract and alien. In the literature, some authors are particularly concerned about the possibility of moving citizenship education outside schools. Others, in contrast, argue that research on citizenship education cannot be constrained to discussions concentrated on schools elements of formal education.