Haste (2004) Constructing the Citizen

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Constructing the Citizen

Helen Haste

Department of Psychology, University of Bath, and Harvard Graduate School

of Education

Discussions of citizenship and citizenship education have been conducted largely within

the worldview of stable, Western societies and have been based on psychological models

that emphasize individual cognition. The concepts of citizenship that evolved in this context

have become taken for granted. But during the past decade, different concepts of citizen-

ship have arisen from emergent democracies, from societies in transition, from the disso-

lution of the left-right spectrum in Western society, and from a changing perspective in

psychological theory that attends to language and to social and cultural context. These

developments have implications for defining the goals of citizenship education and for for-

mulating educational programs, particularly in relation to identity, positioning, narratives,

and efficacy.

KEY WORDS: citizenship education, political development, culture, identity, narrative, positioning,

efficacy

At one of the first international conferences at which there was substantial

representation from the former “Eastern bloc,” more than a decade ago, a young

North American researcher compared “democratic values” among young people

in a North American sample and a sample from an Eastern bloc country. Theresearcher concluded that the North American sample had a more “sophisticated”

understanding of “democracy.” However, many Western members of the audience

found this study embarrassing, and many Eastern bloc members were angered by

it. The measure was blatantly parochial, embedded in North American practices.

There was no attempt to find parallel examples from the Eastern bloc country; no

account was taken of how its young people might be formulating their own dem-

ocratic understanding. Hopefully, such hegemonic mistakes would no longer be

made. The young researcher was in good company. Francis Fukuyama (1992)

declared the “end of history” in the wake of triumphal liberal democracy. In fact,

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in the past decade we have seen the proliferation of versions of democracy (and

Fukuyama has retracted his position).

The past decade has brought “surprises” that confront taken-for-granted

assumptions about political processes and their psychological parameters, chal-

lenge both theory and method in the field of citizenship, and challenge how we

think about democracy, its functions and antecedents. I consider three such sur-

prises below. I also consider how recent developments in psychological episte-

mology provide a different, critical understanding of the implications of these

surprises, and how this affects the agendas of citizenship “construction.” How do

we construct individuals as citizens, and how do we construct the concept of

citizenship itself?

The first surprise concerns the distinction between “stable” and “changing”

or “transitional” societies. It is hardly news that a society in flux has different

characteristics from one in a static state, but the nature of those differences has

become apparent, in particular through the observation of post–Soviet bloc coun-

tries. It has also become clear that much of the tradition of research on citizen-

ship has been implicitly located within the assumptions of stable societies.

The second surprise concerns nationalism. Much research on ideology treats

nationalism as an extreme right-wing position and in some sense pathological.

However, as recent events show, political upheaval creates the need for new nar-

ratives to appeal to different historical precedents that justify new systems; nations

recreate themselves through reconstruction of their history. Newly emergent

democracies sought to define their systems and find a new identity, not by copying

current Western systems (whether U.S. or northern European) but by seeking a

period of their own history that reflected a “golden age” of democracy and

national pride (Janowski, 1999; Valkova & Kalous, 1999; Wertsch, 1998). For

some nations, this golden period was one in which the nation fought off an oppres-

sor; for others, it was a period of enlightenment and cultural expansion. The

message is twofold: Nationalism is not necessarily pathological, and “democracy”

is not a universal or a unitary concept but is transmuted by each state through its

own cultural narratives.

A third surprise comes from the dissolution of the left-right spectrum in

Western democracies and the fragmentation of old ideological boundaries. The split

in the Right between “free market” libertarian thought and “traditional” religious,

socially conservative thought has been appraised by political philosophers for three

decades, and is reflected in both extreme and moderate right-wing parties (Eatwell,

2003; Eatwell & O’Sullivan, 1990). The emergence of “Third Way” socialism and

liberalism reflects the fragmentation of traditional socialism based on class strug-

gle and the welfare state. A key development is the emergence of “emancipatory

politics,” political movements that reflect the moralization of politics, driven by a

rhetoric based on justice or on responsibility (Giddens, 1994, 1998). These move-

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reconsider pervasive assumptions about the nature of belief systems and ideology,

and their philosophical and psychological underpinnings.

What do these surprises tell us? First, they undermine some of the frame-

works within which we have been studying citizenship. They challenge many

assumptions about the nature of beliefs and their consistency, such as the idea that

beliefs are static, enduring attributes of the individual. They show that ideologi-

cal structures in stable societies (where most of the research has been done until

recently) may be very different from those in changing societies. This leads us to

look more carefully at just how these structures function. If nationalism is a key

part of the construction of new identity for a nation in transition, we should also

look again at national identity and collective memory in stable societies.

Second, we should look more carefully at political motivation and engage-

ment. Party commitment is of low salience to most citizens, as research has con-

tinually shown. So when we see how effectively a morally engaging issue (such

as the environment) can motivate even pre-adolescent children, we should attend

to the implications of this for citizenship education.

Finally, we should ask questions about what ideology does—what is its func-

tion? How does it work? Weltman and Billig (2001) argued that “ideology is not

so much a preset pattern of thinking, but provides the elements of dilemmas for

the ideological subjects to think and argue about . . . . The psychological study of

ideology, therefore, needs to pay close attention to examining how the themes of

ideology are used and managed in ordinary talk” (p. 369). In all the surprises, we

see ideology in process, we see beliefs serving a function in context —providing

narratives to make sense of history and the future, to justify political or social

practices, to sustain shared identity.

The surprises, I argue, lead us to view the individual as an active being con-

structing—and co-constructing with others—explanations and stories that enable

him or her to make sense of experience, and to develop an identity in a particu-

lar social context. This shifts the psychological emphasis away from looking

solely at internal cognition, toward investigating how active construction and dia-

logue take place within a framework of multiple and parallel interactions situated

in a social, cultural, and historical context. This is consistent with theoretical

developments in social and developmental psychology that take on board culture

and historical context and have challenged the search for “universals.” Taking a

cultural perspective requires attention not only to what is believed and valued, but

how and why. This is reflected, for example, in Bar-On’s (2001) critique of Israeli

psychologists for implicitly accepting a U.S. worldview and ignoring not only

how the specific Israeli experience might challenge U.S.-based normative assump-

tions, but also ignoring the very rich social-psychological material that the Israeli

experience could uniquely offer.

Attending to culture and context also entails a less “top down” view of polit-

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at what kinds of experience engage them. We also need to address the diverse

definitions of “participation” and the implications of these for the construction of

the citizen. As the British political philosopher Bernard Crick, who chaired a

recent government committee on citizenship education, wrote: “Too much of

political socialisation research turns out simply to be over-structured investiga-

tion of the attitudes of schoolchildren to adult political concepts. There is too little

on the political language and lore of schoolchildren, there is no political Piaget”

(Crick, 1999, p. 342).

In this paper I argue that focusing more on cultural, social, and linguistic

processes will enable us to make sense of the “surprises” of the last decade and

to provide a richer approach to, and agenda for, citizenship education. I draw on

recent research that offers a somewhat more optimistic, and hopefully less theo-

retically sterile, picture of political development than Crick indicates.

Stable and Changing Societies

In a stable society, the structures of governance remain largely intact even in

times of temporary change (such as economic crisis). The individual citizen may

participate through voting, campaigning, or becoming involved in a pressure

group. If he or she wishes to challenge the status quo, there are channels for

confrontation and persuasion, whether conventional or unconventional, legal or

illegal. The skills and motivation required are personal efficacy and the ability to

organize within the institutional and human resources of the political milieu.

This is different from a changing society where, although the individual

citizen does not have any more real power than in a stable state, he or she is likely

to feel more personally affected by the changes and thus potentially more engaged.

Van Hoorn, Komlosi, Suchar, and Samuelson (2000) studied young people in

Hungary and Poland during the period 1990–1995. There was an initial period of

optimism and desire to formulate new ways of thinking about—and enacting—

“democracy,” which engaged these young people to a far greater extent than

would be found in a parallel cohort in a stable society. Even the disillusionment

that followed the failure of early efforts in many cases sprang from engagement

that did not succeed, rather than merely loss of trust in government. Other studies

of former Eastern bloc countries reported similar findings (Flanagan et al., 1999).

In a study of urban black South African adolescents during the immediate post-

apartheid era, Abrahams (1995) found extraordinary optimism about both their

own new opportunities and the potential for a new society. Most of them had been

involved in protest throughout their lives; they were engaged and involved, and

were constructing their personal identities around these expectations.

National Identity and Nationalism

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race, religion, or language. Nationalism in this form is not treated in the research

literature as a morally legitimate basis for group identity—in contrast to “patri-

otism,” a desirable commitment to one’s nation and its values. It is described as

“tribalism,” “ethnocentrism,” bigotry, or racism (Hall, 1993). Psychologists have

also explained such manifestations, at least in part, through individual pathology.

In his insightful book Banal Nationalism (1995), Billig pointed out that

pathologizing nationalism ignores the universality of identity attached to nation-

hood. He analyzed how our membership of our nation is affirmed daily, through

symbols and rhetoric so routine that we do not consciously notice them. It is

because this is so taken for granted that we are “surprised” when a particular

group, perceiving itself threatened or in need of bolstering its identity, makes the

underlying nationalist criteria explicit. Nationalism, Billig argued, is all around

us all the time, in “banal” forms. The kinds of nationalism that have emerged in

the past decade cannot be explained only by pathologizing models.

As Hall and Billig reminded us, we can learn much from the great period of

“nation-building” in the 19th century. At that time there were several different

kinds of nation: those that were politically well established (like the United

Kingdom), and nations that were newly created through reorganization into

republics (such as France) or through unification (like Italy and Germany). All

were engaged in generating a “mythic” history, with hero figures who were “form-

ative” in the “nation’s” past, and symbols of nationality that would coalesce the

people into a new national identity. As Massimo d’Azeglio said after the

Risorgimento, “We have created Italy, now we must create Italians” (Billig, 1995,

p. 25).

This process frequently involves the suppression of “minority” symbols, such

as languages (as in the suppression of Welsh in British schools, or Cajun in U.S.

schools). Unsurprisingly, resistant minorities retained these very symbols—

overtly or covertly—as a mark of their own “national identity,” and in response

to such resistance “nationalism” becomes defined by the majority culture as a

pathological extremism, for it threatens the “official” national identity. Many

examples of the power of resistant identity could be found in former Soviet states.

Wertsch (1998) noted that in Estonia, throughout the Soviet era two parallel ver-

sions of history flourished: the “official” Soviet version, as taught in schools and

acknowledged in public discourse, and the “unofficial” version—which has now

become the “official” version.

We speak of the “new” post-Soviet nations, but most of them are in fact very

old. These nations are redefining their history, their culture, and their salient

symbols. They are also defining the outgroups that are perceived to threaten this

new nationhood. These developments challenge us to find explanations in terms

of a psychology of nation-building rather than mass deviance. They show how,

through collective memory, present identity is formed: Salient past events—and



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national identity and moral links to past suffering—as, for example, in projects

to ensure remembering of the Holocaust. Past “golden ages” provide guidelines

for values and practices in creating an effective nation; past tragedies confirm

shared identities.

How the nation’s history is drawn upon to formulate new versions of democ-

racy is evident in the interviews with young people in Hungary and Poland con-

ducted by van Hoorn et al. (2000). The young people’s discourse reflected the

public debates, tensions, and contradictions as different versions of what it means

to be “Hungarian” or “Polish” emerged during the period. Bar-Tal (2000) showed

how the “story” of Israeli nationhood is told within a recurrent narrative of siege

and response to siege, and how the issue of “security” plays a vital and central

role in concepts of patriotism and nationhood. Like other Israeli social psychol-

ogists, Bar-Tal is sensitive to the contradictions of applying stable, Western con-

cepts of nationalism and citizenship to the Israeli situation.

These developments direct us to take national identity seriously in the devel-

opment of citizenship. They also draw our attention to the role of narrative and

collective memory in identity. This also shifts explanations of nationalism away

from primarily individual cognitive or personality characteristics, to include the

cultural and historical context within which meaning is negotiated.

The Dissolution of the Left-Right Spectrum

My third “surprise” is a challenge not only to how we think about the polit-

ical values map, but to the psychological basis of ideology itself. In psychology

there has been a rich tradition of explaining belief systems on the basis of per-

sonality function, or cognitive style. Such explanations make certain assumptions

about the nature of belief systems—most notably, that beliefs are enduring and

are conjoined by an underlying principle (such as attitudes to authority). The argu-

ment for a functional basis for beliefs—serving cognitive or personality “needs”—

is much stronger if beliefs are seen as consistent and as bounded. These

psychological models have mapped easily onto the left-right political dimension,

which has existed in some form for more than 200 years. However, the con-

stituents of this dimension have changed substantially over that time. Within both

“left” and “right” there have always been strange bedfellows, held together by

political expediency and also by self-identification with party membership, such

as the liberal and populist-conservative wings of the U.S. Democrats and the

mixture of free-market libertarians and social traditionalists of the British

Conservative party (Eatwell & O’Sullivan, 1990).

The dissolution of the left-right spectrum as a credible and useful value

dimension has come about in part through major changes in the map of ideology.

The split between free-market libertarian thought and “traditional” religious and

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forefronted some fundamentally different underlying assumptions. The emergence

of “Third Way” versions of socialism and liberalism, expressly proposed by the

British Labour party and inherent in the British Liberal Democrats, reflected also

a fragmentation of traditional socialism based on neo-Marxist perspectives and

class struggle (Blair, 1998; Giddens, 1994, 1998; Weltman, 2003). These devel-

opments are manifested not only in political writings but in lay thinking: Indi-

viduals may still identify themselves as “left” or “right” but the definitions have

become problematic; even the party faithful struggle to find discourses that avoid

polarization (Eatwell, 2003; Weltman, 2003; Weltman & Billig, 2001). As Eatwell

(2003) noted, one of the paradoxes of emergent extreme right-wing parties in

Europe is that they have benefited from the growing “centrism” of the mainstream,

for it provides a niche for explicit non-mainstream positions; yet at the same time,

many such parties declare that they are “neither right nor left.”

A major aspect of the fragmentation is the emergence of what are variously

termed “emancipatory” or “liberationist” politics, driven by justice for minority

groups or by moral concerns. Such movements cut across the traditional left-right

spectrum, even though they may take different forms when manifested by liber-

als and conservatives. The late 20th-century feminist movements derived initially

from the Left, but challenging gender discrimination is no longer confined to the

Left. “Right-wing” (or “liberal”) feminists, who vote for conservative political

parties, also emphasize free-market values, liberal principles of equal opportunity,

and individual achievement and progress. “Left-wing” feminists are more likely

to locate gender politics within the rhetoric and structures of class and inequality,

and to seek more social structural changes to overcome these (Bull, Diamond, &

Marsh, 2001; Haste, 1992, 1994, 2001a; Klatch, 1987). But whole areas of fem-

inism fall outside these parameters, focusing on language and culture, which may

draw from rhetorics of the Left but equally draw from psychoanalysis or literary

theory (Haste, 2001a). Even if one can trace the roots of these perspectives to left-

aligned intellectual movements, it is not useful to categorize them primarily within

this framework.

There are many parallels with environmentalist movements. Both the roots

of these movements and their current manifestations draw from diverse sources

and discourses (Harré, Brockmeier, & Mühlhausler, 1999). The “left” versions

may emphasize globalization and anti-capitalism, but there are strong environ-

mentalist elements on the extreme right who focus on “blood and soil” and their

heritage (Eatwell, 2003). More “mainstream” environmentalists eschew the polit-

ical labels but have been criticized for an inherently conservative, romantic

“wilderness” myth of a North America empty of indigenous peoples (Cronon,

1995). However, environmentalism is interesting not only for its political diver-

sity but for its moral power. It is astonishing that within little more than 20 years,

environmentalism has moved from being a radical fringe movement to being a



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There are important messages for citizenship education from these develop-

ments, particularly about what motivates engagement . Issues that have a moral

connotation engage the individual through compassion, anger, or moral outrage.

This may be associated with personal identity—either through identification with

a specific social category (such as gender or ethnicity) or through taking personal

responsibility for pursuing one’s moral insight. Ecological issues carry this moral

force. As many studies have found, the environment tops the list of young people’s

concerns, and voting comes lowest. Few young people become enthralled by the

issues that preoccupy political parties. Most strikingly, young children are moti-

vated by ecological moral concerns; a large number of 6-year-olds want to save

the rainforest (Flanagan et al., 1999; Greenall Gough, 1993; Kahn, 1999).

Critical and Cultural Psychology; Challenging Epistemology

The fragmentation of the left-right dimension undermines the assumption that

a particular belief will necessarily be associated with a particular ideology. To

deal with this, as Billig noted, explanation has to move away from models based

on consistency and enduring belief patterns, and needs to consider how particu-

lar beliefs and values function in context—in identity, in discursive and social

practices, in rhetoric, in narratives. Our “surprises” all demonstrate that people

negotiate meaning, rhetoric, narrative, and explanation in highly contextualized

ways. To understand this, we need to look at language and dialogue. We need to

look at rhetorical and discursive processes, not only at cognitive processes

(Billig, 1996; Edwards, 1997; Harré & Gillett, 1994). We need to look particu-

larly at narrative: shared narrative, competing narrative, narratives that are taken

for granted, narratives that locate, explain, and justify the citizen and the nation.

The message of the “surprises” is that a model primarily focused on individual

cognition is inadequate. Constructing the citizen does not go on just inside

individual heads.

We must pay attention to the individual actively in dialogue, rather than the

individual at the end of a conduit of “influence.” Rather than being regarded as

passively “socialized,” the individual actively constructs—and co-constructs with

others—explanations and stories that make sense of experience, to develop an

identity that locates her or him in a social, cultural, and historical context. Self

and group identity, negotiated through narrative and dialogue as well as through

trying to make sense of social structures and representations, are crucial to under-

standing the construction of the citizen. Identity comprises group membership and

self-definition in terms of social categories, including nationhood, community,

sense of place, and ethnic and religious identity, where these are salient. It defines

who shall be deemed ingroup and outgroup, and therefore, what shall be the basis

for sharing symbols and metaphors with others. It also includes self-identity, in

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point for dialogue and argumentation. The construction of the citizen is in part

the construction of an identity (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998).

This is consistent with theoretical developments in social and developmen-

tal psychology. Bruner (1990) distinguished “paradigmatic” and “narrative” forms

of knowledge. The tension between the paradigmatic and the narrative is long-

standing—contrasting a form of knowledge that is representational, and legit-

imized by factual evidence, and ways of knowing based on narrative storytelling,

drawing upon cultural allusion and shared references, with an emphasis on the

negotiation of meaning. Bruner’s work is part of the rise of discursive social psy-

chology, in which psychologists are drawing on anthropology, linguistics, and

semiotics to analyze narrative, discourse, and rhetoric, and to see how dialogue

actually works (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998; Billig, 1996; Edwards, 1997; Harré

& Gillett, 1994).

Bruner originally conceptualized the narrative approach as a rich alternative

to the narrowly paradigmatic, but he later argued that this is an incomplete picture

(Bruner, 1995). The problem with the paradigmatic model was its exclusion of

the social; the problem with the narrative model is that it focused only on the

social, leaving out the active individual agent. In The Culture of Education (1995),

Bruner integrated neo-Vygotskian psychology as a means of bringing the indi-

vidual agent into the arena, as an active participant in the process of construction

and negotiation of meaning.

Vygotsky conceptualized the human being as interdependent with others, in

scaffolding development of understanding, in active use of language and dialogue

to construct meaning—within a cultural context (Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978;

Wertsch, 1985, 1998). Incorporating culture has had a somewhat problematic

history in psychology (Shore, 1996). For example, Wundt (1921) distinguished

two psychologies: one focused on processes which might have some physiologi-

cal basis; the other on social and cultural processes, involving language and higher

mental processes. For Wundt, a full picture of the human being was impossible

without both. However, under the pressures for developing psychology as a pos-

itivistic science, only the first was historically credited as the “origin” of psy-

chology, the second being lost and indeed marginalized as “folk psychology”—a

mistranslation that damned it thoroughly for a century. It has taken a substantial

challenge to that very tradition to restore a cultural and language-based perspec-

tive to psychology. For some psychologists, personal experience provided the

impetus for taking culture seriously. Cole (1996) reported starting his research

career in West Africa administering U.S.-created tests to children, and wondering

why they did not work. His intellectual journey took him far beyond merely

finding better tests, to recognition that we cannot understand psychological

processes without an appreciation of the cultural infrastructure and how it facili-

tates development.



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1998). The tool-user idea is consistent with philosophical positions such as that

of Rorty (1979) and Bergson’s (1911/1983) argument that we are Homo faber

rather than Homo sapiens. It is through our artifacts (which include the tools of

language and linguistic devices such as metaphor) that we experience and inter-

pret our world. A striking example is Gigerenzer’s (2000) work on how early cog-

nitive scientists’ metaphors of mind derived from—and differed according

to—their own interaction with the hardware and software of computers.

Cultural Narratives and Discourses

A paradigmatic approach to values and beliefs tends to map individual cog-

nition. An approach that recognizes the narrative and cultural, by contrast, focuses

on values as processes—on how values are used, invoked, negotiated, and

managed in dialogue between persons and in the individual’s interaction with a

situation. How are the narratives and stories that underpin values used ? Is it to

provide explanation, moral justification, prediction, or expectations based on pre-

vious experience? Why is this story chosen rather than others? When is entitle-

ment, for example, based on a narrative of fair division, and when on restitution

for past inequity? How does the narrative position the speaker—as authority, as

victim, as expert? How are narratives and stories negotiated with the audience?

In what ways is common ground—shared understanding—established? What

allusions and referents are used? What rhetorical devices? What is taken for

granted, implying shared meaning, explanations, and values, and what is pre-

sented as problematic, to be justified, elaborated, explained? As Billig (1996)

argued, dialogue involves argumentation, the presentation of a point of view with

the intent to counter another point of view: We only understand what is being

intended when we understand what is being countered.

Values and beliefs held within a particular cultural context are shared, and

thus taken for granted. It is not necessary to explain or elaborate that which can

be assumed to be common ground. Consider one example: The metaphor of

“frontier” in North America evokes a threshold between “civilization” and “the

wilderness”; in Europe the frontier is an administrative boundary between two

equally “civilized” and populated states (Cronon, 1995). The frontier metaphor in

North America conjures up personal challenge, confrontation with the elements,

and a testing ground—or re-invigoration—for the spirit. This elides easily into

Star Trek , space exploration in general—and the Marlboro Man. It does not have

the same connotation in Europe.

Cultural narratives provide explanations and convey normative values. Values

and beliefs are made salient through how they are represented and argued, in-

cluding whether they are taken for granted or presented as problematic. At the

most basic level, is the material accessible? American children, for example,

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accessible material, the differently nuanced American and British versions of

1776. Formal access to cultural narratives comes through school curricula, and it

is the overt policy of all governments to ensure that children receive a version of

history that develops national identity and the desired cultural values. The mes-

sages of globally transmitted television programs and films that convey a (pri-

marily) Western worldview are informal but pervasive, as innumerable analyses

have shown.

The evidence of parallel or “alternative” historical narratives in societies

under oppressive rule indicates the importance of not only the overt narrative but

the covert, and also how the narrative is interpreted. A “knowledge” or paradig-

matic model tempts us to examine how well the historical facts conveyed by the

narrative have been internalized, but in fact, we need to understand how the nar-

rative is used —in particular, how it is managed in contradiction to, or competi-

tion with, other available narratives. An example is what is forefronted . For

instance, one Northern U.S. narrative was that the Civil War was fought against

slavery. However, the South’s narrative was not that they fought in order to

support slavery—they fought to retain the autonomy of states to make their own

laws (which happened to include legal slave ownership).

Narrative is central to collective memory; governments and cultural forces

deliberately sustain appropriate collective memory that carries ethical force and

justifies current practices in education, policy, and the treatment of outgroups. In

the Greek-speaking part of Cyprus, to take just one example, until the recent

rapprochement, schoolchildren were exposed daily to the motto “I struggle and I

do not forget” and reminded constantly of the events of 30 years ago when the

island was divided after the Turkish invasion (Christou, 2002). The use of “I” in

that context was intended to engage the personal and national identity of these

young people, even though the events in question occurred when their own parents

were children.

Positioning

A central feature of dialogue and argumentation is the process of position-

ing—of oneself and of others. In managing dialogue between two persons, we

position ourselves in relation to the other (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1991;

Hollway, 1989). This is a skilled and often subtle process; I may “position” you

as my friend by the act of self-disclosure, or, by interrupting you, as someone not

to be taken seriously (Tannen, 1994). Davies and Harré (1990) spelled out a

provocative example of disputed positioning: He, seeing himself as a caring

person, tries to look after her when she feels ill; she objects that such caretaking

is positioning her as weak, and is therefore sexist; he feels hurt that she is label-

ing him as sexist.



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symbols and referents indicative of that identity. We define as “other” those

persons whose national characteristics, by being different from ours, affirm our

own nationhood. Recent work suggests that, in contrast to earlier explanations

that treated stereotyping as meeting a need to reduce information overload (the

“cognitive miser” model), we in fact elaborate stereotypes. We generate narra-

tives that make sense of the “otherness” of the Xanodian, by choosing to define

the Xanodian negatively on those attributes that are salient to our positive defini-

tion of our own ingroup (Gibson & Gouws, 2003; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001).

One of the earliest social skills is turn-taking. From this early base the child

learns how to manage the social and linguistic cues that position him or her

vis-à-vis interlocutors, and to explicit or implicit social categories or groups. The

child learns when and how to express “we-ness” and “theyness,” and how to use

“otherness” as a way of confirming “we-ness” and selfhood (Rogoff, 1990). “We”

share; “other” (nasty) children don’t share. “We” share with certain people, those

defined as our ingroup, but not with outgroup members. The reasons for sharing,

and the boundaries within which it is required, position the child in relation to

other children and to behaviors that are, or are not, part of “our” identity. On such

early foundations are the basis of both nationality and ethics laid. It is noteworthy

that politicians invoke such childhood rhetoric, knowing its power; Bush senior

and junior both used the playground metaphor of “the bully and the hero who

stops him” with regard to Saddam Hussein (Rohrer, 1995).

The Process of Construction and the Agenda for Citizenship Education

What does this theoretical framework tell us about how we “construct the

citizen”? At the very least, the implications of this approach must take us beyond

citizenship education purely as the pursuit of paradigmatic knowledge. How do

the three issues—identity, positioning, and narrative—translate into educational

practice? How can curricula and school experience work with the processes of

identity formation? How can an understanding of positioning enable us to

strengthen community commitment while providing defenses against outgroup

discrimination? How can we use narratives to transmit political knowledge as well

as motivate nationhood?

There is a fourth element also, which is central to effective citizenship: effi-

cacy and agency, in particular the capacity to take responsibility and to par-

ticipate in the community. The foregoing “active” model of the individual

presupposes agency, purposive seeking of knowledge, narrative, and interpreta-

tion, and proactive engagement in argumentation. The individual does this through

and with others, drawing upon cultural resources. How does actively making sense

of experience translate into educational practice, to foster active and efficacious

citizens?

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of citizenship inform discussions about citizenship education? What are the

implicit and explicit models of human development, and what are the implica-

tions of both for what is assumed to be effective in education for citizenship?

Where does the construction process take place? Such models and assumptions—

both what is agreed, and what is contested and problematic—can be elicited from

writings explicitly on citizenship education, as well as from research agendas.

First, there is a longstanding tension in education theory between “knowl-

edge” and “praxis” as the route to understanding. This has resonance with the dis-

tinction between paradigmatic and narrative ways of knowing, and with the

tool-user model of engagement with our world through artifacts, practices, and

language. The “knowledge” model presumes that information of itself will lead

to understanding and to appropriate motivation. By providing children with infor-

mation (including the skills to treat that information critically), both enlighten-

ment and involvement will follow; “appropriate” civic knowledge will motivate

civic participation. In contrast, the “praxis” model assumes that practical and the-

oretical knowledge, and particularly the motivation to use them, are acquired

through actively engaging with relevant tasks. The assumption is that knowledge

comes from making sense of experience rather than vice versa, and that knowl-

edge has limited usefulness unless it translates into the individual’s own encoun-

ters with salient materials. Praxis-based programs of citizenship education provide

opportunities for community engagement and active participation in the political

process appropriate to the child’s age and interests. This is in the direct tradition

of John Dewey as well as Vygotsky, and informs the tool-user model.

Underlying this distinction is another question: Should the goal be an

informed citizenry or an efficacious citizenry? Is the aim to produce knowledge-

able people (with the assumption that they will then be efficacious), or is it to

ensure that people are efficacious (which might require practical experience in

addition to knowledge)?

Second, discussions of what constitutes the “good citizen” also draw on the

rhetoric of the “responsible” citizen. This term has at least three contested mean-

ings (Haste, 1993, 2001, in press). Responsibility may mean duty and obliga-

tion—conformity to social expectations and rules. A second meaning of

responsibility concerns connection—ties of affect and interdependence, relation-

ship in the family or the wider community. Responsibility here derives from

mutual care and support, based on affective ties. A third form of responsibility

lies in the imperative deriving from a judgment of principle: If I perceive an injus-

tice or a harm, I must act upon my moral judgment. These three forms of “respon-

sibility” are implicitly in conflict. The responsibility to act in the pursuit of

principle may—and often does—lead the individual to confront the status quo and

act unconventionally, possibly illegally. The responsibility to personal ties may

conflict with demands of the wider community (including legal demands) or with



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Third, over the past 40 years there have been significant changes in how “par-

ticipation” has been researched. Early work looked at “conventional” participa-

tion “inside” the system—voting, canvassing, fund-raising, by implication the

primary attributes of a “good citizen.” With the social and political upheavals of

the 1960s and 1970s, especially peace movements and the emergence of minor-

ity politics, research attention came to include such activities—which were now

also seen as a manifestation of “good citizenship.” From asking “What is strange

about these people?”, research shifted to asking what facilitated such high-risk

behavior. Some research contrasted the moral health of protesters with “apathetic”

non-protesters (Haan, Smith, & Block, 1968). “Unconventional” political activ-

ity, efficacy, and social responsibility, and the willingness to challenge unjust laws,

became valued (Jennings & Van Deth, 1990; Sigel & Hoskins, 1981).

As activist movements in “stable” Western societies have waned, “compe-

tence,” broadly defined, has become an emergent research field. Competence is

contrasted, optimistically, with the apparent rise in political apathy among young

people reflected in low turnout at elections. For “stable” societies, the definition

of democracy is entwined with the notion of participation. A healthy democracy

depends on an active citizenry; apathy is cause for concern (Ichilov, 1998). The

research suggests that the “competent individual” is self-sufficient, able to focus

attention and plan, has a future orientation, is adaptable to change, and has a sense

of responsibility and commitment, including believing that one can oneself have

an effect. Agency and efficacy are therefore core elements of competence. These

attributes seem to be fostered by families and communities that provide compe-

tent role models, set goals and assign responsibilities, and actually create practi-

cal opportunities for involvement (Hamilton & Fenzel, 1988; Hart & Fegley,

1995; Lenhart & Rabiner, 1995). A recent project by OECD has begun to explore

the concept of competence extensively (Rychen & Salganik, 2001).

Defining the attributes of the “competent citizen” more broadly has also

unpacked the concept of “participation.” There is first a distinction between “polit-

ical” and “civic” participation. Then, it is useful to differentiate forms of partici-

pation that involve service to the community from those that are an extension of

private transactions, and those that involve more effort or cost in terms of com-

mitment. So, giving (in the form of charity, tithing, or alms) is low-cost in terms

of time, can be anonymous, and can be construed as a private act rather than public

service. Helping is also a “private,” interpersonal transaction, a response to per-

ceived need. Campaigning, whether in the form of canvassing, petition-signing,

or organizing support, is a “public” activity, an overt statement of commitment.

More “public” still, protesting and other forms of unconventional participation

can have high costs.

To explore assumptions and goals behind potential agendas of citizenship

education, I draw on two examples. The purpose is not to present a comprehen-

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British initiative to develop citizenship education, under the direction of Bernard

Crick. Britain is the only “advanced” country that has not had (until recently) a

school citizenship curriculum. The program has needed to make explicit and

justify its assumptions. The second resource is the material from the IEA (Inter-

national Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) study of 28

nations, which gathered data from 90,000 14- and 16-year-old students and from

teachers on a range of citizenship issues. This explored values, expectations, and

practice. The data therefore elucidate the context of citizenship education, and

also point up striking cultural differences that by no means map onto any simple

East versus West, or First versus Third World, boundary (Torney-Purta, Lehmann,

Oswald, & Schulz, 2001; Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2003; Torney-Purta &

Richardson, in press).

Crick chaired a government committee to explore the criteria and goals for

citizenship education (Crick, 1998). The report uncompromisingly states its aims

and assumptions:

We aim at no less than a change in the political culture of this country

both nationally and locally; for people to think of themselves as active

citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life

and with the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and

acting, to build on and to extend radically to young people the best in

existing traditions of community involvement and public service, and tomake them individually confident in finding new forms of involvement

and action among themselves. (Crick, 1998, p. 10; emphasis added)

The report favorably cites another British educationalist, David Hargreaves:

Active citizens are as political as they are moral; moral sensibility derives

in part from political understanding: political apathy spawns moral

apathy. (Crick, 1998, p. 10)

This explicitly defines participation as proactive and critical, not just reactively

supportive of the status quo. Crick identified three distinct goals: social and moral

responsibility, community involvement , and political literacy. These goals are

desired outcomes—the product of education—but they are also practices in

the classroom that will develop the relevant skills. The goals incorporate both

knowledge and action.

For social and moral responsibility, Crick identified “children learning from

the very beginning, self-confidence and socially and morally responsible behav-

ior both in and beyond the classroom.” For community involvement, he identi-

fied “learning about and becoming helpfully involved in the life and concerns of

their communities, including community involvement and service to the commu-

nity.” For political literacy, he identified “realistic knowledge of and preparation



16/29

These goals are notable for their breadth and for incorporating practical as

well as conceptual knowledge. The implicit definition of a “citizen” is not con-

fined to participating in narrowly “political” activity such as voting, or party

support. The “citizen” here configured will take an active role in the community

and will engage in informed judgment about social and political issues. He or she

will also have conflict resolution skills, which apply in many areas of life. The

moral dimension—particularly moral responsibility—is a salient feature. The

“Crick Report” was a quite radical document. However, its translation into policy

has been less assertive; the actual new school curriculum for England and Wales

(instituted in 2002) emphasizes qualities of “helpfulness” and “consideration for

others” rather more than the kind of critical agency that might lead to proactive

whistle-blowing (Quality and Curriculum Authority, 1999). How the new

curriculum will work in practice is still under review.

The major IEA international study directed by Torney-Purta and her col-

leagues provides rich and current data on what is happening in schools, and what

explicit and implicit expectations teachers and students have of “civic education.”

Although there are interesting national differences on some issues, an overview

of the general findings provides a useful picture of what might be termed a “global

agenda” of citizenship education: what teachers believe students should be learn-

ing, and what students perceive that they have learned (Torney-Purta et al., 2001).

The study addressed a range of political activity and goals of citizenship, not

confined to “conventional” participation, and so it is possible to compare how stu-

dents and teachers value different forms of engagement. Teachers’ perspectives

reflected a general tendency toward liberal values and support for broad-based

activism. In all the nations surveyed except Cyprus and Romania, fewer than 20%

of teachers thought that students should be taught that joining a political party

was important. More than half of the teachers thought that pupils should be aware

of the importance of ignoring a law that violates human rights; this rose to more

than 85% in eight countries. Nearly two-thirds thought that pupils should feel con-

fident to participate in peaceful protest; in 11 countries, this rose to more than

80%. Apart from the importance of knowing national history and obeying the law,

most support came for protecting the environment and promoting human rights,

endorsed in 25 of the countries by more than 90% of teachers.

The messages that the students absorbed also reflect this pattern. More than

72% of students believed that they had learned to cooperate with others and to

understand people with different ideas, to care what happens in other countries,

and to protect the environment. Fewer than 60% claimed they had learned the

importance of voting.

It is useful to compare what students perceive that they have learned with

their expectations of future civic and political action. In 17 countries, more than

80% of students expected to vote (Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2003). Collecting

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for a petition and taking part in a demonstration, varied considerably by country,

and there are clearly cultural differences in norms for grassroots activism. In 14

countries, more than 45% would collect signatures, and in nine countries, more

than 45% would take part in a demonstration, but the figures were much lower in

other nations. Certain nations stood out as having a culture of active participa-

tion, including protest, and a high level of engagement in general. These included

Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Chile, and Colombia. Other nations—including some

highly industrialized Western nations where students had a high level of political

knowledge—were notable for the low level of engagement and participation; these

included the Czech Republic, Finland, and Sweden.

A recent British study is instructive. This research was conducted by MORI

Polls for the Nestlé Family Monitor (Nestlé UK, 2003), with a sample of 914

students aged 11 to 18. The results make an interesting comparison with the

IEA data. The majority were “uncertain” about intentions to vote; only 12% were

“absolutely certain” to vote. But when asked about the importance of voting, 44%

agreed that voting is important and 63% agreed that voting had an effect on how

the country was run. These figures do not suggest that voting is highly significant

for these young people, but the data about other forms of participation are more

encouraging: More than 40% had participated in fundraising or a sponsored activ-

ity in the past year, 25% had signed a petition, and about 12% had taken part in

a protest demonstration or collected petition signatures. Only 2% had helped with

a political party. More expected to take part in protest in the future (23%) and to

help with a political party (10%).

As the authors noted, the relatively high participation by these young people

might be due in part to the data being collected during the Iraq war. However, the

figures overall compare somewhat unfavorably with the IEA data for England,

where 14-year-olds’ future expectations were that 80% would vote, 57% would

collect money for a social cause, 45% would collect petition signatures, and 28%

would take part in a protest. England’s figures for expected “conventional” polit-

ical activity were similar to the international IEA average, but for “unconven-

tional” activity, including both legal and illegal protest, they were well below; for

example, the international average for expected participation in non-violent

protest was 44%, compared with England’s 28%. (The U.S. data are close to the

international average on all measures of conventional and unconventional—

including illegal—political activity.)

The study by Flanagan et al. (1999) adds further information about national

variations and alerts us to the cultural meaning of certain forms of action. This

study involved 5,000 young people aged 12 to 19 in seven countries. The range

of “volunteering in the community” was from 19.9% in Sweden to 60.4% in

Hungary. In the United States the figure was 51.5%. The authors argued that vol-

unteering plays a very different role in Western nations with and without welfare



18/29

bloc countries, volunteering was a significant aspect of youth organizations (as it

is in the United States) and remains a normative activity.

These figures of political intent, and awareness of modes of political and

social activism, would seem to undermine the rather widespread anxiety that “the

young are apathetic.” If voting intention is taken as the criterion, then there are

grounds for such concern, but as noted earlier, voting behavior is a relatively infre-

quent activity, with low cost (in most nations) and, from the point of view of the

voter, fairly low effectiveness. The voter is less likely to feel the power of his or

her individual vote; much more subjective efficacy comes from campaigning and

persuading other people to vote (or demonstrate, or sign petitions). Macro analy-

sis of political change must pay attention to the pattern of voting behavior, but

this is not necessarily a good measure of individual motivation, engagement, or

efficacy (Eatwell, 2003). To comprehend participation, we must look at the sub-

jective perceptions and motivations of the citizen.

The Antecedents of Participation

To understand efficacy and agency, and how they relate to identity, we need

to know about the preconditions for engagement and the antecedents of partici-

pation. What happens to make someone get involved? What kind of experiences

facilitate commitment? Effective participation requires identification with the

project; it must be an element of selfhood. It requires a sense of one’s agency and

efficacy—that action is possible and potentially effective and that the individual

can personally take such action, alone or with others.

The evidence suggests that level of civic knowledge is only a partial predic-

tor of participation, and that cultural factors are significant. For example, the IEA

data show an overall relationship between political knowledge and conventional

political activity. Nonetheless there are large variations between nations, with

some having a low level of civic knowledge but a high level of participation—

Chile, Colombia, Portugal, and Romania. Other countries had a high level of civic

knowledge and low level of participation, such as Australia, the Czech Republic,

and Finland. High levels of both participation and knowledge were found in

Cyprus and Greece; low levels of both, in Belgium and Estonia.

In a more detailed analysis of four nations (Australia, England, Norway, and

the United States), Torney-Purta and Richardson (in press) found that different

types of predicted participation had different correlates. Voting was associated

with school factors, such as civic knowledge, curricular emphasis on the impor-

tance of elections, students’ confidence in their ability to participate, and an open

classroom climate. Additionally, family discussion and trust in government insti-

tutions predicted voting intent. Future party membership was predicted only by

current political interest (and in any case only 20% of students expected to join

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tions and sense of efficacy. Political interest had no relationship to volunteering.

The likelihood of taking part in a non-violent protest was associated only with

discussion with parents, not with school factors. These data underline the impor-

tance of distinguishing different kinds of participation, and also of recognizing

that the “effective” citizen is not necessarily only the “voting” citizen.

Culture also influences the meaning of an activity. I noted earlier that a low

level of volunteering, or organizing for charity, in some nations may reflect not

apathy but an effective welfare state (Flanagan et al., 1999). There are also very

different cultural traditions regarding protest demonstrations and how different

forms of participation are perceived. Do the cultural narratives of protest, for

example, cast the protesters as heroes, subversives, or nuisances? How is current

protest located in the historical story? A culture of protest is reflected in frequent

marches and demonstrations (as perhaps in Greece, Cyprus, and Italy); without

such a culture, these will be resorted to only in extremis. In the United Kingdom,

marches have been associated primarily with the Left, or with a few very small

extreme right-wing groups. Yet one of the largest street demonstrations ever in

the United Kingdom was the Countryside March in September 2002, an event

organized and supported by primarily “conservative” opponents of legislation to

ban fox-hunting and other traditional country pursuits. Such people would never,

in the past, have taken to marching. This may suggest a cultural shift; recent anti-

war demonstrations in Britain, drawing from a wide political spectrum, have also

been exceptionally large.

There are two main strands of work on the antecedents and processes of

engagement. The first comes from studies of the peace movement in the period

1964–1988, the second from more recent work on volunteering and community

activity. The first was more overtly “political.” The second area of research has

surfaced particularly in reaction to the pessimistic picture of young people’s

apathy; these researchers find extensive community activity among young people.

Both the peace movement and the community action research demonstrate that

the experience of being an effective agent both influences the individual’s per-

spective on an issue and fosters personal engagement and a sense of efficacy.

Active participation in youth groups—such as membership in 4H and, to a lesser

extent, youth activities such as Scouts—also predicts participation and civic lead-

ership in later life. Many studies on former peace and campus activists from the

1960s and 1970s show that although their political values may moderate, they

retain a lifelong propensity toward engagement, activism, volunteering, and

choosing careers in education or service (McAdam, 1988; Stewart, Settles, &

Winter, 1998; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995; Youniss, Mclellan, & Yates,

1997).

The peace movement research showed that those who became actively

engaged had a high level of personal efficacy, combined with low trust in gov-



20/29

suggested that frequently, activist individuals had been sensitized by events that

led to focused attention to salient information. This work was particularly instruc-

tive about management of affective responses to perceived threat, and about the

roles of trust and personal efficacy in mediating such affect. It also underlined the

importance of experience. Although preexisting beliefs were important, particu-

larly in relation to level of trust, it was clear that attitudes alone did not account

for commitment; previous personal experience of agency was a vital element in

generating motivation, efficacy, and action (Andrews, 1991; Colby & Damon,

1992; Fiske, 1987; Fogelman, 1994; Hamilton, Chavez, & Keilin, 1986; Haste,

1989, 1990; Locatelli & Holt, 1986).

In several studies, we found that anger about the nuclear threat, anger in

response to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and anger in response to witnessing

cruelty or injustice were associated with a sense of efficacy, and tended to pre-

cipitate engagement and action, including heightened sensitization to relevant

information (Haste, 1989, 1990; Haste, Sharpley, & Wallace, 1987; Thearle &

Haste, 1986). We referred to this pattern as “Affective Actor.” Fear, in contrast,

when associated with low trust and low sense of personal efficacy, produced what

we termed the “Powerless Pessimist.” Fear combined with high trust and low per-

sonal efficacy was associated with faith that the government would keep the

nuclear threat under control, or deal effectively with the fallout from Chernobyl.

We termed this the “Deferring Defender.” We also identified a fourth group, which

other researchers had noted—people with high trust in government who expressed

little affective response; they believed that the nuclear weapons policy of power

balance was successful. We termed them “Resistant Rationalizers.”

The work on voluntary activity clearly shows that young people’s hands-on

experience of sociopolitical issues, and the processes by which they become

engaged, are central to political development and considerably more relevant to

it than party affiliation. This work meets Crick’s argument that research should

address young people’s own worlds and lore. Yates and Youniss (1999) brought

together an international group of researchers who were exploring young people’s

involvement in community work and informal political activities. This research

identifies three different kinds of community work, which should be looked at

somewhat differently: helping, fund-raising, and campaigning. It is important to

note the subjective meaning of such participation. For example, helping a dis-

advantaged person, as well as involving personal connection, both requires and

fosters sensitivity to others’ needs. In contrast, protecting an environmental

resource can be seen as saving “our” world (Flanagan et al., 1999). As Flanagan

et al. noted, environmental concerns had a particular political dimension in former

Eastern bloc countries; because pollution could be seen as the responsibility of

the old regime, campaigning against it was a way of indirectly pushing for polit-

ical change within a fairly safe discourse.

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and black—and therefore made them aware that they had been stereotyping.

Second, the ethnic mix of the homeless confronted their own black identity and

its assumptions about white social power. Third, they began to think about per-

sonal and institutional moral responsibility and where the problems of homeless-

ness lay. Finally, their activity gave them access to the experience of civic agency.

A similar pattern of themes emerged in a study of British volunteers (Roker, Player,

& Coleman, 1999). So participation leads to an awareness of social problems, the

opportunity to try to alleviate them, and the growth, through experience, of a real-

istic assessment of what an individual can do. Also, through participation, actors

form a connection to community organizations and to committed individuals.

Conclusion

My intent here has not been to propose specific curriculum developments,

but rather to take a critical theoretical overview and to reflect on the principles

behind citizenship education. I have selected from existing research to elaborate

concepts and arguments; a more comprehensive literature review, not within the

scope of this paper, might begin to tell us about the effectiveness of educational

practices and of individual experience. I have explored four concepts that emerge

from the critical psychology approach that I have adopted, in relation to citizen-

ship: identity, positioning, narrative, and efficacy. Let us look at these again in

the light of the data to which I have referred, and consider some educational

implications.

Identity emerges as central to engagement. To become involved requires that

one have a sense of ownership of the issue, that one define oneself as a member

of a group or as a holder of particular beliefs. The data show that civic knowl-

edge is not enough; such knowledge has to become salient to the individual

through the experience of participation in relevant action, through the negotiation

of identity with others, and through incorporating narratives about values, self-

hood, and national identity into one’s self-definition.

There is a large literature on social identity in relation to social categoriza-

tion and social groups (such as ethnic groups) that demonstrates how ingroups are

defined by the “other” who characterizes the outgroup, and how people become

members of ingroups. Although this paper has focused on the more desirable and

community-oriented aspects of youth movements, there is a body of data on youth

resistance, ritual, and involvement with football support, squatting, counterculture

leisure, etc. (Feixa & Costa, 2003; Hall & Jefferson, 1983; Skelton & Valentine,

1998; Stott, 2001; Widdicombe & Wooffitt, 1995) that illuminates identity for-

mation. This work is outside the scope of this paper, but may provide insights into

the active construction of identity.

A particularly useful feature of the concept of positioning is the slant it



22/29

psychologists note. This counters the more simplistic view that those who are

othered—by stereotyping or by language style—are passive victims. The insights

of positioning, while not denying the oppressive effects of powerful and consis-

tent othering, nonetheless lead us to look at how this is a continual iterative

process within which there are many forms of resistance.

The processes of engagement can usefully be interpreted as positioning and

repositioning. Consider Yates’ (1999) study of young black students working in

a soup kitchen for the homeless. Taking the liberty of reflecting on these data

within the theoretical framework I am discussing, one can suggest that, before

their experience, they had positioned themselves (and had been positioned) as part

of a black community within the framework of white power. They themselves

were relatively well off, and “the poor”—whom they assumed to be universally

black—were seen as (positioned as) feckless, drug-ridden, or otherwise morally

suspect. First, their involvement in the soup kitchen required that they position

themselves—collaboratively and with teachers’ assistance—as able to be helpful,

as wishing to identify with helpfulness, and also, perhaps, as being a little brave

in so doing. Yates noted that once they were involved in the activity, there was a

large shift in “positioning” (although she did not use this language to describe it).

Students discovered that the homeless included white as well as black people,

which disrupted their monolithic view of white power. They discovered that the

homeless were unfortunate, or in other ways did not merit positioning as morally

deficient—and that they also had self-respect, and resisted being positioned as to

be pitied. Finally, their experience made them aware of other “positionings” in

the situation: the role of local agencies and local government in providing, or not,

facilities for the homeless, and in exacerbating their plight in various ways, and

the possible mechanisms by which citizens like themselves could become agents

of social and political pressure.

I have discussed narrative in two ways: in Bruner’s sense as a form of

knowing that counters the paradigmatic, linear, and factual, and takes account of

the central role of stories that include cause and consequence, and which allude

to shared cultural resources, in the acquisition of knowledge, and in the applica-

tion of this to how narratives are pivotal to personal, social, and national identity.

As I noted, education programs explicitly provide narratives of national history

and identity, as well as the moral and other stories that underpin social values and

expectations. New narratives emerge as needed—in changing societies, as we

have seen, reconstructed versions of history and of relations with other states

provide an identity that forges new independence and unity. We also see new

transnational narratives: Globalization, in both its negative and positive connota-

tions, requires us to find the stories that will enable our young people to frame

their identity beyond the local boundaries—and will also provide the story that

motivates them to question multinational capitalism (Winter, 2003). And it is

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The importance of narrative has been explicit in debates about history cur-

ricula for some time. Ethnic identity in particular has been fostered in schools by

forefronting minority groups’ history within a multicultural curriculum approach.

In some countries, this has come into conflict with pressure to tell a “national”

story of the heritage of current identity and institutions. What is interesting is that

all parties concerned recognize the power of narrative—not only the power of

factual information. This is a major insight of the theoretical approach I am dis-

cussing—that values and factual data are not, of themselves, enough to engage

and motivate, to become part of the young person’s identity. It is through the nar-

ratives that underpin and justify values that “ownership” of those values appears

to happen.

Finally, how do we foster efficacy and agency through education? Torney-

Purta and Richardson (in press) reported that pupils’ expected future voting cor-

related with an open classroom climate and students having a role in school

decision-making. One interpretation of this is that the values of democratic dis-

cussion and involvement are presented through institutional practice; we might

add that, through active practical involvement, children learn both the values and

the sense of agency. We might also add that by according children the right, and

the expectation, to make their voice heard, we are positioning them as efficacious

and enabling them to position themselves as such. We have seen that voluntary

community activities, and campaigning and protest activities, are highly effective

means of equipping young people with the identity, values, skills, and efficacy

that make them effective participants. These examples are mainly educational

interventions, working within a stable school and societal environment. The data

from “real-life” situations—societies in transition—also show the power of active

engagement in social change, as we saw in the studies by van Hoorn et al. (2000)

in Hungary and Poland and by Abrahams (1995) in South Africa.

The brief overall conclusion must be that a “knowledge” model of citizen-

ship education is not enough. It is through praxis, whether in the school or in the

community, that the young person gains an identity as an active citizen, and the

skills and efficacy to become one. A paradigmatic knowledge model, focusing on

factual material about institutions, is also unlikely to fire the growing person. We

may be suspicious that narratives can justify the “wrong” kinds of positioning,

but understanding discursive processes requires us to recognize the inevitability

of narrative, as well as its appeal—and to make use of it effectively in education.

Much research on discursive processes needs to be done; knowing that certain

experiences and practices facilitate different kinds of participation is the first step.

Now we need to find out how.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



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spondence concerning this article should be sent to Helen Haste, Department of

Psychology, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

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