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The Mindful Citizen:

Conceptualizing a Legitimate Role for

Contemplative Practices within Citizenship Education

Tomas A.R. Rocha

Thesis submitted in part-fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Philosophy of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education

Route: Politics, Development and Democratic Education

July 16, 2012

Supervisor: John Beck

Word Count: 18,797

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Abstract

This thesis builds off of the author’s two previous essays for this course. By analyzing

certain discourses and practices of citizenship and citizenship education, an attempt is made to

conceptualize a legitimate role for certain contemplative practices within citizenship education.

Different categorizations of citizenship are reviewed, which leads into an examination of

citizenship education in the UK. By drawing on the work of the English theorist Bernard Crick in

particular, an emphasis is placed on the difference between educating for substantive value and

educating for procedural value, with the latter regarded as a more legitimate way of justifying

the teaching of value in citizenship education. Procedural and democratic values are then

associated with the effects of certain contemplative practices, focusing on the practice of

mindfulness meditation. A body of empirical research documenting the effects of mindfulness

practices on brain and behavior are used in light of the analysis of citizenship education in order

to advance the concept of the ‘mindful citizen’.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks especially to John Beck for supervising my work with interest and expertise.

Thanks to family, friends, and all the lovely Cambridge libraries.

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Tables and Figures

Table 2.1 – McLaughlin’s Citizenship Framework (1992) 24

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Contents

Chapter 1) Introduction 7

Chapter 2) Citizenship – What is it? 13

Chapter 3) Citizenship and Citizenship Education in the United Kingdom 31

Chapter 4) Political Literacy and Procedural Value 40

Chapter 5) Contemplative Practices: Evidence from Empirical Studies 51

Chapter 6) Conclusion: The Mindful Citizen 63

References 72

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Chapter 1

Introduction

In his recent book review published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education, Daniel

Vokey sympathizes with many of the arguments advanced in Education, Politics and Religions:

Reconciling the Civil and the Sacred in Education, a collection of six essays by three authors

“addressed to people who are committed to democracy both as a set of formal governance

procedures and as an ethos characterized by values such as humility, responsibility, self-restraint,

and open-mindedness” (Vokey, 2012: 149). My thesis is in part inspired by this quite distinctive

interpretation of democracy as depending on two separate but complementary processes, on one

hand the so-called ‘institutional’ activities of democracy and on the other the ‘social’

dispositions or values of democracy. The authors of Education, Politics and Religions – James

Arthur, Liam Gearon and Alan Sears – devote each of their two essays towards a “broadly

republican view of citizenship”, where they argue that the flourishing (perhaps even the survival)

of a democratic state stems from the cultivation of a “healthy civil society in which people

willingly take up their civic responsibilities with a mind to the common good” (ibid). The

authors argue that the development of values such as humility, responsibility, self-restraint, and

open-mindedness, among others, in future citizens, require processes of enculturation or

modeling, so that such an ethos and its various constitutive values may manifest themselves in

citizens (Arthur, Gearon & Sears, 2010: 1-8). But how best to instill such values? Is it possible to

reach a consensus on which values to instill? And first and foremost, what are the goals of, and

justifications for, teaching this particular vision of citizenship in a pluralistic and democratic

state?

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I, like Vokey, agree in principle with many of the arguments put forward by Arthur,

Gearon, and Sears. For example, I agree that a healthy civil society is one characterized by

agents who independently and collectively act toward the common good (despite there obviously

being competing conceptions of the common good). I agree that a commitment to democracy

requires both “a set of formal governance procedures” (e.g. free elections for government

offices) and an ethos characterized by civic virtues (e.g. self-restraint in public political

deliberation). I also, and this point will be elaborated upon throughout this paper, agree with

Vokey’s assessment that “contemporary educators have much to learn about personal and social

transformation from religious and other ‘wisdom’ traditions” (Vokey, 2012: 151). It is a

controversial position that I am agreeing with here, though one that hopefully, with a bit of added

nuance and critical analysis, will come across as significantly less so. This paper goes on to

consider whether there can be a legitimate role for contemplative practices within citizenship

education. In fact, by conceptualizing ‘contemplative practice’, ‘citizenship education’, and

‘civic value’ in specific ways, I offer a defense in support of such a conception of citizenship

education, whilst recognizing fully that this is unlikely to appeal to supporters of competing

conceptions. Competitors might include people with fundamental disagreements, such as those

opposed to citizenship education in schools altogether, radical secularists who would oppose any

practice no matter how remotely associated it may be with a non-secular tradition, and those for

whom living the ‘unexamined life’ is appealing, such as in the vein of William Galston (Galston,

1989).

In particular, I make use of a body of empirical research behind ‘mindfulness meditation’

in order to advance the concept of the ‘mindful citizen’. However, in line with Vokey’s own

suggestion, I accept it might be premature (and indeed fundamentally contestable) to advocate

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for the pedagogical use of some of the contemplative practices found within religions or

‘wisdom’ traditions, given the fact that, for example, “religious doctrines and institutions can

sometimes engender violence and oppression” (ibid). I admit it is possible that a more fruitful

way of reconciling the relationship between civic education and the ‘contemplative life’ would

be to continually develop more sophisticated ways of teaching about religious, humanistic or

‘wisdom’ traditions (without ruling out that perhaps there may be sophisticated and critical ways

of teaching from within, as well). Nonetheless, I am not convinced that these two approaches to

teaching (and, indeed, the appropriateness of the category of ‘religion’ is itself contested when it

comes to applying it to certain contemplative practices) necessarily imply a mutually exclusive

dichotomy, where educators must choose one way or the other. In part, I believe that the

differences between what counts as teaching about and what counts as teaching from within are

not as clear as one might think. Assertions that these two methods exist as non-overlapping

pedagogical spheres presuppose sets of epistemological and hermeneutical assumptions that I

believe remain open to interpretation.

I have an enduring interest in this tension within the discourse and practice of citizenship

and citizenship education. I wish to be clear that I am not proposing an explicit connection

between religion (nor any specific wisdom tradition or any particular spiritual community) and

moral value or civic virtue, but simply stating the much simpler claim that certain contemplative

practices, often evolving out of religious backgrounds, may in certain contexts lend themselves

to such a connection. Furthermore, when it comes to contemplative practices, to what extent can

we say that certain practices do not necessarily resemble or recall religion at all? I understand

that many sorts of moral philosophers would want to argue that civic virtue can be cultivated,

promoted, etc. in ways where religion has no bearing; I am not attempting to provide any sort of

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counterargument to this. Again, I am focusing my attention specifically and only on certain

contemplative practices (even more specifically on empirical studies conducted on these

practices), and many of them happen to find their origins in religious contexts.

Throughout this course I have dedicated my energy towards developing the analysis of

the discourse and practice (in certain senses) of Contemplative Education. To recap, my first

essay offered a critique of the influence of neoliberal ideologies and processes on formal

education, especially at the tertiary level.1 I reviewed some sociological critiques of the

marketization and commodification of education as supporting and being supported by

unsustainable nationalistic projects of capitalist expansion. I proposed ways in which

contemplative practices could be conceptualized within a theoretical framework of global

community influenced by feminist interpretations of citizenship, which could then be positioned

against the philosophy of ‘neoliberal pedagogy’. For example, I argued for contemplative

pedagogy as a means towards realizing Kathleen Lynch’s feminist reframing of citizenship in

terms of ‘love, care, and solidarity’.2

Both of my reviewers considered my arguments for contemplative pedagogy a tad

polemical, and so my second paper problematized some of the assumptions underpinning my

original characterization of Contemplative Education and presented itself in part as a critique of

my first essay.3 I developed three arguments against the use of contemplative practices in

education:

1 Rocha, T. (2011) Rethinking Community and Citizenship: Contemplative Education in the 21st Century. 2 “An indifference to the affective domain and an allegiance to the education of the rational autonomous subject and public citizen are at the heart of formal education. The impact of Cartesian rationalism is intensifying with the glorification of performativity measured by league tables and rankings…In this article the authors argue that sociologists need to engage with the extensive feminist scholarship on care if they are to challenge the deeply care-less view of the citizen that is implicitly accepted in new and older forms of liberal thinking. The rational economic actor model of the citizen is contrasted with the care-full view of the citizen and the implications of both for education are explored” (Lynch, 2007: 1). 3 Rocha, T. (2012) A Critical Analysis of Contemplative Education in the ‘Age of Authenticity’

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1) That the use of contemplative practices in education can be found to, in some cases,

violate ‘church-state’ separations in certain pluralistic, democratic states (specifically, the United States).

2) That the use of contemplative practices in education may be ‘corrupted’ to support authoritarian or violent regimes (this position perhaps most closely corresponds to Daniel Vokey’s concern).

3) That the use of contemplative practices in education can tacitly perpetuate material inequalities, if one accepts the presuppositions of certain anti-capitalist critiques.

In an attempt to resolve these three reservations, I concluded my second essay by suggesting just

a few ways in which educators interested in contemplative pedagogy could theoretically or

practically begin to respond to these arguments.

Even though I will continue here to write about contemplative practices in education, this

thesis differs from my two previous essays in a few important ways. First, while essay one

discussed the concept of citizenship, it did only insofar as it referred to feminist critiques of the

concept. This thesis instead focuses on more institutional (perhaps traditional is a more apt word)

discourses of citizenship, civic virtue, and the practices of citizenship education – and does so

with reference specifically to the United Kingdom. Second, while essay one suggested in broad

terms the idea of associating contemplative pedagogy with the cultivation of civic virtue (as

opposed to most current associations that tie it more to mental health), this paper examines more

concretely how such an association could be made feasible within certain quite broadly

established (though not uncontested) pre-existing conceptual frameworks of ‘political literacy’

and ‘procedural value’. Third, while my first two essays mentioned in abstract and generalized

terms the effects of certain contemplative practices on human behavior, this thesis will attempt to

draw the connection between contemplative practice and civic virtue more clearly by reviewing

and drawing on empirical studies. Fourth, while essay two concluded by suggesting some

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potential ways of addressing certain critiques of Contemplative Education, this thesis makes a

more concerted effort towards resolving these tensions.

I begin by examining the idea of ‘citizenship’ – I look at the contested nature of the term

and aspects of its historical development. I then focus my discussion of citizenship education

within the United Kingdom, looking at how certain political philosophers and theorists have

sought to promote and justify citizenship education in various societies that are at once

democratic and pluralistic. I consider the writings of a number of theorists (Bernard Crick in

particular) in order to advance (tentatively) the idea that contemplative practices may be located

within the broad framework of ‘political literacy’ and especially the narrower framework of

‘procedural value’. I consider the implications of such a framing, and examine the relevance of

an empirical body of research that finds advantage in the pedagogical use of contemplative

practices. In particular, the body of research I am choosing to focus on has explored the effects

of ‘mindfulness meditation’ on brain and behavior. Lastly, I draw on these studies and

contextualize them within discourses of citizenship education in order to inform my notion of the

‘mindful citizen’ as related to but distinct from notions of the ‘good citizen’ or the ‘effective

citizen’.

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Chapter 2

‘Citizenship’– What is it?

In Essays on Citizenship, Bernard Crick poses the question: “What is Citizenship?”

(2000: 3). He notes that the term is an “essentially contested concept” (ibid). A morally charged

and in some contexts divisive concept, it will be defined and manipulated in different ways by

different people for different ends. Tristan McCowan agrees that defining citizenship is

problematic in part because it inevitably brings up the idea of the ‘good’ or ‘effective’ citizen,

and that “one person’s ‘good citizen’ may be diametrically opposed to another’s” (2009: 5).

Despite the contested nature of the term, it may be safe to say that the word ‘citizenship’

signifies the concepts of ethical or lawful behavior between individuals within a political

boundary, and of certain aspects of the relationship between the individual, the wider social

community, and politically and legally authoritative bodies. More specifically defined in the

context of a democratic state, the idea of citizenship might bring up the relationship between a

sovereign collective (e.g. in the Rousseauian sense of the ‘general will’) and itself, as opposed to

civic relations in a more authoritarian state, which may simply consist of strict adherence to pre-

existing laws. Crick describes this as the difference between a ‘citizen’ and a ‘subject’: “Put

simply, a subject obeys the laws and a citizen plays a part in making and changing them” (2000:

4). McCowan says that the most basic understanding of citizenship “refers to membership of a

state or political unit”, and that nowadays the term is “almost exclusively used for belonging to a

nation-state” (2009: 5). This most basic understanding of citizenship is closer to Crick’s notion

of the political ‘subject’, while his second usage of the term “refers not to the possession of the

official status, but the fulfilling of those expectations associated with membership” (ibid).

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Various authors have conceptualized citizenship in so many various ways that it is easy to get

lost in the literature, but McCowan does a good job of sketching three of the most significant and

influential methods that commentators have traditionally used to categorize citizenship. These

include:

1) ‘Civic Republican’ versus ‘Liberal’ 2) ‘Minimal’ versus ‘Maximal’ 3) ‘Conventional’ versus ‘Social-Movement Related’

What follows is a more lengthy explanation of the first categorization as well as a brief look at

the other two. Further categorizations are available, but a brief review of these more prevalent

three should suffice for the purposes and scope of this paper.

‘Civic Republican’ versus ‘Liberal’

The origins of the republican view of citizenship are largely represented in pre-

Enlightenment and early-Enlightenment texts by authors such as Aristotle and Rousseau, though

the list extends far beyond these two, and commentators will often emphasize other authors

associated with ancient Athenian democracy or the Roman republic. Recorded in the work on

moral philosophy for which he is most well known – the Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle

apparently distinguishes his philosophical project from that of Plato’s. Richard Kraut says that

although both philosophers sought to study the meaning of ‘goodness’, the Platonist specifically

wants to “know what is being said about any X when it is called good, or good for someone, or a

good something or other” (Kraut, 2006: 3). Aristotle, on the other hand, proposes that what truly

matters and thus what should be focused on is the study of the human good (ibid). Books II

through VI of the Nicomachean Ethics expand upon the theme of moral goodness, and especially

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on the idea of moral virtues which, “like crafts, are acquired by practice and habituation”

(Aristotle, trans. 1953: 91/II03aI4-bI). Aristotle claims that moral virtues are acquired only by

exercising them, and so infuses the image of morality as being irreducibly active, contextualized

within the carefully calibrated practice of human relations within a specific social and political

community, not a product of mere independent ratiocination or philosophical consideration. We

become, in his words, “just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones,

brave by performing brave ones” (ibid). In Aristotle’s mind, the good citizen proceeds through

life in a state of continual performance of virtue. Which virtues? In books II-VI he seems to

focus especially on, among a few others, those of generosity, justice, temperance, patience, and

friendliness. His concept of citizenship vis-à-vis ethics is thus one that highlights the duties and

obligations humans have towards one another, and that also promotes a set of values which

function to maximize mutually beneficial and productive human relations.

Rousseau, too, wrote extensively about the key principles of republican citizenship: civic

self-rule, active political participation and deliberation, communal decision-making, and the

cultivation of political agency as a principal goal of education. Rousseau’s oft-cited treatise on

the nature of education, Émile, includes explication of the kinds of personal qualities he wished

to see developed in citizens. It might be argued that Rousseau regarded the education of human

beings into society as a necessary evil: on the one hand, he states in the opening line of Book I of

Émile that “God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil”

(Rousseau, 1792/1993: 5). On the other hand, he maintains that

“things would be worse without this education, and mankind cannot be made by halves. Under existing conditions a man left to himself from birth would be more of a monster than the rest… all that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education” (5-6).

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For Rousseau, the challenge for educators is to educate individuals into ‘corrupt’ society without

detracting too much from what he conceives to be the original, natural state of man: his potential

for autonomy and self-mastery. The suppression of natural affections and interests (especially

self-interest) is not wholly negative in Rousseau’s mind, however. He believes that civic virtues

arise out of such suppression, out of the inner struggle between personal desires and empathy or

obligation towards the needs of others (a struggle not without superficial parallels to Freud’s

conception of the development of the Ego as arbiter between Id and Super-Ego). For Rousseau,

civic virtue arises out of love of country, in turn a sublimation of the love of family, both

superior to the more childish love of one’s inherent inclinations. Because of his ultimate focus on

the country or the state, therefore, the educational philosophy presented in Émile is aligned with

his broader project of asserting that legitimate government arises out of civic self-rule and out of

the general will, a project most closely associated with his work in The Social Contract. The

young Émile, protagonist of the book by the same name, can only truly and freely join society

and co-construct government with others if at first he has, paradoxically, been allowed freedom

from the artificial social constraints of society, if he has attained a virtuous autonomy. This is

why Rousseau stages Émile’s education in the countryside, away from city life and its undue

influences. Ultimately, for Rousseau, and with the proper education, children develop authentic

civic virtues over time and through internal struggle, and come to be active in society by seeking

to incorporate their individual will into the representative general will. Looking at Rousseau

alongside Aristotle and others commonly grouped in this tradition, citizenship is understood as

fundamentally active, an activity that forms a constitutive part of one’s identity; good

governance arises out of the autonomous efforts of individuals who leave the comforts of the

private sphere and come together to address problems and execute solutions (though, certainly

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when it comes to ‘good’ governance, there are important distinctions to be made between mainly

procedural values and capacities relating to the exercise of participative citizenship, and mainly

substantive values related to social ends and conceptions of the common good). For example,

citizenship as identity was idealized during the Jacobin phase of the French Revolution. Efforts

were made to “establish citizenship as the dominant identity of every Frenchman – against the

alternative identities of religion, estate, family, and region” (Walzer, 1989: 211). Perhaps this

might be said of the difference between civic republican and liberal conceptions of citizenship:

the former maintains citizenship in a broadly communitarian sense, as the primary, foundational

identity of the individual, while the latter maintains it as a contextualized legal category, active

in – and for minimalist interpretations of liberalism, limited to – specific legal-political

situations, rights and duties.

As hinted, ‘Civic Republicanism’ is often positioned against the ‘Liberal’ tradition in

‘Western’ law and philosophy, one that has some origins in ancient Roman conceptions of

citizenship but that has been more fully developed as of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The liberal tradition understands citizenship primarily as a legal status instead of as a matrix of

psychological attributes, social relations, and ethical and political obligations – i.e. liberal

citizenship means having individual rights and freedoms, to be protected from infringement by

others (including overweening state power) through the legitimately coercive power of the state

(conceived as a limited political entity with limited rights of exercising this acceptable minimum

of coercion) – as opposed to the republican view which saw citizenship as a continuous exercise

of political agency. Indeed, certain kinds of liberalism – notably those associated with minimalist

conceptions that emphasise negative liberty – insist it remains the prerogative of the individual to

decide whether and how far they wish to become involved in political life and institutions.

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Liberal commentators might also argue that the republican conception of citizenship has fallen

out of favor (or in fact has become unrealistic) due partly, but by no means only, to the

emergence of modern state bureaucracies and the divisions of labor required to sustain capitalist

economies as well as the huge increase in the scale of modern societies, and the growing

pluralism that makes strong communitarianism increasingly difficult – some would say

impossible – to realize. Michael Walzer, for one, pursues a Marxian-influenced version of this

case when he, reflecting on the authoritarian efforts of the revolutionary Jacobins to revive civic

republicanism, says that

“there is no road that leads back to Greek or Roman citizenship except the road of coercion and terror, because modern civil society does not breed citizens but rather, in Marx’s philosophical jargon, ‘self-alienated natural and spiritual individuality’ – men and women who need occasionally to imagine themselves as citizens but whose everyday actions are governed by the imperatives of the market” (1989: 213).

In fact, Walzer goes beyond this observation of the failures of modern attempts to revive

‘neoclassical’ citizenship and asks us to subvert our idealized assumptions about citizenship in

ancient Greece and Rome:

“there too citizenship stood in some tension with family, religion, and private economic interest. There too citizens were often self-absorbed and apathetic. But the city-state was a far less complex and differentiated society than our own” (ibid).

Walzer also points out a crucial but often overlooked fact about ancient democratic citizenship: it

was certainly not a universal identity. For the Greeks and Romans, citizenship was always

positioned against those who did not have it, and the number of a city’s residents who did not

posses citizenship (e.g. women, slaves, and laborers without property) far outweighed the

number of those who did. In this way, moral unity and solidarity among the select and lucky few

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remained strong, despite gross inequalities in wealth and social status among the elite

themselves. As mentioned, the scale of ancient democracy was also of a significantly smaller

scale than what most societies must contend with today: “in the city-state, citizens were likely to

know (or at least know of) one another, and so they were ready to trust one another in office”

(214).

Instead of emphasizing collective action, at least certain versions of Liberal citizenship,

in sharp contradistinction, will emphasize the protection of ‘negative’ liberties and freedoms,

such as freedom from physical harm and freedom from arbitrary detention. Establishing and

protecting such freedoms is thought to be the obligation of the state, even if the ones doing the

establishing and protecting end up being individuals or groups of individuals. The texts of early-

Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are often used as starting points

for the emergence of early modern liberalism of this kind, and of a citizenship framework that

theorized the political community as only a “necessary framework, a set of external

arrangements, not a common life” (216).

Minimalist, negative liberty views of citizenship have often shifted towards the more

‘social democratic’ versions of liberalism that emphasize positive liberty, and are associated with

writers like John Rawls (1971; 1996), who prescribe a range of virtues as well as rights of

citizens, but stop a long way short of strongly communitarian visions. Liberal versions of

citizenship have been deeply implicated in structuring the way the Western world often

conceives of the rights and obligations of the citizen and the nation-state, and which prominently

appears to be culminating in an increasingly globalized Universal Human Rights regime.

Certainly, though, such a ‘Human Rights’ regime reflects a more social democratic conception of

liberalism, as opposed to the minimal, libertarian version of negative liberty.

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Despite the predominance and widely accepted desirability of the liberal democratic state

and its institutions of representative democracy placing limited demands on individual citizens,

the civic republican model/ideal remains for some “a benchmark that we appeal to when

assessing how well our institutions and practices are functioning” (Miller, 2000: 84). For some, it

is a hallmark of active democratic engagement. Indeed, supporters of more liberalizing

conceptions of citizenship might point to recent global political movements emphasizing

deliberative and more especially socially critical and actively participatory models of democracy

(e.g. the ‘Arab Spring’, Occupy Wall Street) as evidence of a resurgence of ‘thicker’ values like

those associated with civic republicanism. On the other hand, some might point to the very same

movements as evidence that what truly compels people to defend freedoms and liberties is not a

vague affiliation with republican notions of moral virtue and political participation, but instead a

commitment to the more social democratic, positive liberties versions of the liberal tradition

(expressed in demands for Universal Human Rights, critiques of globalizing capitalism, etc.)

Such might be the position endorsed by contemporary advocates of this type of liberal approach,

including groups such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. It might be said by

such liberal critics of republican citizenship that the civic virtues they (civic republicans) so love

to applaud arise primarily out of the recognition that humans have certain inalienable and

universal rights and freedoms which, however, are in many nations constantly infringed upon.

They arise from these ‘rights’ claims, not out of personal moral development, internal ethical

reflection, or the ‘thick’ values of certain sorts of communitarianism. Indeed, even strong

defenders of civic republicanism emphasize just how demanding it can be. David Miller, for

instance, explains its difficulty in two respects. First, citizens are often not sufficiently motivated

to carry out political and sub-political tasks due to costs on time, energy, and sometimes wealth.

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Second, citizens must not only act, but act responsibly and at times must “set aside personal

interests and personal ideals in the interests of achieving a democratic consensus” (85). Still,

though, civic republicans might respond by arguing that taking a purely instrumental view of

civic participation towards the maintenance of justice and democracy misses part of the point.

Will Kymlicka, for example, designates Aristotelian republicanism as an approach to

participation that stems from a belief in its intrinsic good, not only as an instrumental means

(2002: 294-296). As we will see in later chapters, this Aristotelian approach closely resembles

Bernard Crick’s conception of citizenship, and this approach’s devotion to the inherent goodness

of active deliberation and participation is arguably why he was so prepared to push for the

conception of political education set out in the ‘Crick Report’.4

Before turning to the ‘minimal’ vs. ‘maximal’ and the ‘conventional’ vs. ‘social-

movement related’ conceptions of citizenship, I will note here briefly the lasting influence of

T.H. Marshall. His writings on citizenship and on liberal citizenship in particular have proven to

be an inspiration for many architects of citizenship education in the U.K. In Citizenship and

Social Class and Other Essays, Marshall expands on the social democratic variant of the liberal

approach to citizenship by dividing the rights that the state guarantees for individuals into three

categories.

“I shall call these three parts, or elements, civil, political and social. The civil element is composed of the rights necessary for individual freedom – liberty of the person, freedom of speech, thought and faith…by the political I mean the right to participate in the exercise of political power, as a member of a body invested with political authority or as an elector of the members of such a body… by the social element I mean the whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the

4 Otherwise known by its official title, Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools: Final report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship (1998)

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society. The institutions most closely connected with it are the educational systems and the social services” (1950: 10-11).

It is the third element of citizenship proposed by Marshall, that of the social, that has attracted a

considerable amount of debate amongst his commentators. What counts as a modicum of

economic welfare? What does it mean to share to the full in the social heritage? Or to live the

life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society? Such, as some see

them, highly egalitarian notions of social and economic fairness suggest a commitment to

considerably ‘thick’ civic virtues. In other words, a commitment to a Marshallian style social

citizenship vis-à-vis state-sponsored citizenship education might imply the active promotion by

teachers of something approaching certain elements of civic republican values, as well as left-

leaning social democratic civic virtues. These implied commitments were arguably precisely the

reasons why neo-conservative and neoliberal critics of citizenship education proposals in the late

1990s so vigorously opposed its introduction (Beck, 2008; 2011).

Importantly, as McGowan writes, there is no simple political distinction between the

liberal and civic republican positions, despite what might be distinguished above. Indeed, he

maintains that there are ‘left’ and ‘right’ versions of both:

“While the difference between ‘right’ and ‘left’ relates predominantly to the importance given to equality, the difference between liberal and civic republican approaches to citizenship concerns the importance given to political participation” (2009: 6-7).

Libertarianism, for example, can be understood as a rightist version of liberal citizenship, in the

sense that a minimum amount of rights are upheld, while democratic socialism, which defends a

substantial array of rights, especially social entitlements of citizenship, might be seen as a very

leftist version of the same tradition. The Marshallian conception of (social) citizenship outlined

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above might be viewed, especially by many in the United States, as a very left version of a liberal

approach, a strong position of social democracy, at least, if not democratic socialism. This has

the merit that it can be coherently tied to strong conceptions of ‘public good’ and ‘thick’

conceptions of civic virtue – but such conceptions are, of course, vehemently contested by the

right (and right-leaning liberals!).

‘Minimal’ vs. Maximal’

T.H. McLaughlin offers a way of thinking about citizenship and citizenship education

that distinguishes between maximal and minimal conceptions. In his view, four features of

citizenship can be used to illustrate one’s underlying political beliefs and interpretation of the

nature of democracy itself. The four features of citizenship are: identity, the extent to which the

concept confers onto the individual an identity as a citizen; virtues, the extent to which the

concept requires the individual to bear certain virtues; political involvement, the extent to which

virtues are thought to result in or imply political involvement; and social prerequisites, the extent

to which the concept accepts certain social preconditions as necessary for effective citizenship

and political participation (1992: 236). When it comes to the feature of identity, in McLaughlin’s

words,

“On ‘minimal’ views, the identity conferred on an individual by citizenship is seen merely in formal, legal, juridical terms. A citizen is one who has a certain civil status, with its associated rights, within a community of a certain sort based on the rule of law. On maximal views, however, this identity is seen as a richer thing than (say) the possession by a person of a passport, the right to vote and an unreflective ‘nationality’. Identity on these fuller views is conceived in social, cultural and psychological terms. Thus, the citizen must have a consciousness of him or her self as a member of a living community with a shared democratic culture involving obligations and responsibilities as well as rights, a sense of the common good, fraternity and so on” (ibid).

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Virtues, political involvement, and social prerequisites can also be conceived in terms of

minimal and maximal views. The table below might be useful as a visual aid to how McLaughlin

envisions his continuum of citizenship (save the two beside Identity, the examples are my own).

Table 2.1 - McLaughlin's Citizenship Framework (1992)

‘Minimal’ citizenship ‘Maximal’ citizenship

Identity Citizen identity framed in formal, legal, juridical terms; civil status with associated rights (e.g. right to own a passport, right to vote)

Citizen identity framed also in informal, cultural, psychological terms; social status with associated obligations and responsibilities (e.g. community culture, sense of common good and fraternity)

Virtues Civic virtue means loyalties and responsibilities are local and immediate; duty to help neighbors through voluntary action (e.g. concern for local crime, neighborhood crime watch)

Civic virtue means loyalties and responsibilities are extensive; duty to question immediate concerns in light of more general, universal considerations (e.g. concern for global warming, ‘going green’ to reduce energy consumption)

Political Involvement

Suspicion of widespread involvement, citizens should delegate political responsibility to trusted representatives with proven political expertise (e.g. voting only in local, provincial or country elections)

Suspicion of limited involvement, citizens should become as politically literate as possible and participate whenever possible (e.g. marching and protesting unjust laws and corporate practices)

Social Prerequisites

The formal, legal status of citizenship is a sufficient prerequisite for effective citizenship (e.g. all citizens enjoy the same protections and political opportunities provided by the state regardless of social status)

Though shared citizenship status is theoretically egalitarian, social inequalities and disadvantages can hinder the development of maximal identity, virtue, political involvement, or all three (e.g. in practice, the severely poor are often unable to attain political leverage and advocate for themselves)

At first glance, it might seem that McLaughlin’s ‘minimal’ and ‘maximal’ conceptions reflect

and map neatly onto ‘liberal’ and ‘civic republican’ notions of citizenship, but this is not always

25

the case. Looking carefully, one sees for example that while minimal and maximal citizen

identities correspond fairly accurately their liberal and civic republican counterparts, the

correspondence between the two categorizations is less consistent when it comes to the social

prerequisites of effective citizenship. For example, the maximal conception maintains that social

inequalities hinder political involvement, yet it is the left-leaning liberal tradition that might

arguably be most willing to use the state’s power to redistribute economic and political

resources. And though the maximal versions might indeed evoke leftist egalitarianism,

McLaughlin himself insists, “it should not be assumed that ‘maximalist’ interpretations are

necessarily hostile to conservative political thought and policy” (237). On a final note for this

categorization, one might keep in mind that maximal conceptions of citizenship demand the

highest levels of what Bernard Crick would call ‘political literacy’, in that such conceptions call

for a “considerable degree of explicit understanding of democratic principles, values and

procedures on the part of the citizen, together with the dispositions and capacities required for

participation in democratic citizenship” (ibid). Here Crick is advocating for a high degree of both

a cognitive dimension of political literacy (e.g. explicit understanding of democratic principles)

but also of something of a more emotional or at least pre-cognitive dimension of political literacy

(e.g. values, dispositions, and capacities required for participation). Crick’s concept of ‘political

literacy’ will be studied with more depth in chapter 4.

‘Conventional’ vs. ‘Social-Movement Related’

Finally, McGowan introduces this third categorization of citizenship by pointing to a

cross-national study on citizenship and education conducted by Judith Torney-Purta and her

colleagues. Conventional citizenship indicates “participation through the formal procedures of

liberal democracy” while social-movement related citizenship operates “through direct

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mobilization, particularly on single issues” (McGowan, 2009: 7). While such categorizations

might be seen as restrictive in their focus, they might also be useful for analyzing particular

contexts, such as some of the recent mass global protest movements mentioned above. The

authors conducted a massive study involving “nearly 90,000 14-year-olds in 28 countries [who

were] surveyed during 1999 on topics ranging from their knowledge of democratic principles to

their trust in government” (Torney-Purta et al., 2001: 177).

Across all countries, students in the study were more likely to emphasize the importance

of social movement groups than to place emphasis on conventional participatory activities (apart

from voting). Though the authors maintain that “no single measure of citizenship can adequately

represent the complexity of the performance and behavior of students in these 28 countries,” the

data nonetheless suggests that young people across the globe “want particularistic face-to-face

engagement and not universalistic and more distant relations, in this case to government or

political parties” (185). The authors suggest that young people may feel frustrated by certain

types of conventional political organizations that do not give them a “relatively immediate sense

of feedback” (ibid). Whether or not such views will lead to a problematic decline in conventional

participation in the long run is difficult to determine.

Having established three common categorizations of citizenship (civic republican vs.

liberal; minimal vs. maximal; conventional vs. social movement related), what can be said about

the connection between citizenship education, civic virtue, and civic participation? How to assess

such a diversity of important things? For starters, Bernard Crick says that in liberal democracies,

effective citizenship education progresses a student from “being nearly wholly subject to

becoming nearly full citizen,” which is part of one particular view of citizenship education

evoking civic republican sentiments, as well as McLaughlin’s maximalist, highly participatory

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conception of citizenship (Crick, 2000: 6). The idea here is that the ‘right’ kind of citizenship

education should cultivate, in addition to a baseline explicit political knowledge of one’s society,

a set of civic virtues, dispositions and also skills that predispose one to and equip one for active

civic participation. Or at least, if virtues cannot be taught directly, then they arise to some degree

as a result of the gaining of political knowledge and understanding. Though this is one relatively

specific and contestable conception of citizenship, it is potentially highly relevant to the UK

context, given Crick’s influential role in constructing English citizenship education guidelines.

However, the limited available evidence to date about citizenship education in the current

National Curriculum suggests that actual practices in most cases fall well short of this ideal

(Beck, 2011).

Even if we eschew for a moment this rather ambitious notion of citizenship education and

agree on a more basic level that, recalling the original characterization of democracy supported

by Daniel Vokey, a commitment to democratic participation requires in part a set of civic virtues

constituting a civic ethos and in part a commitment to formal governance procedures, then it

might be argued that democracy is in some dire straits. Consider first one example from the

United States, and then one from the United Kingdom. A recent national poll of 1,015 American

adults was conducted on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University

School of Law (Brennan Center, 2012). 26% of the poll’s respondents indicated they were less

likely to vote in the 2012 election cycle (which includes the Presidential election) over fears that

government candidates cater to the interests of Super-PAC5 donors over those of the public

5 ‘Super-PAC’ is a colloquial term used in discussions of American campaign finance to refer to a specific type of exceptionally well-funded political action committee. Unlike regular political action committees (PACs) that associate directly with candidates, there are no legal limits to how much money Super-PACs can raise from corporations, unions, other groups, and individuals, and there is no limit to Super-PAC spending, as long as the funds are not contributed directly to candidate campaigns or parties and are spent independently of the campaigns. Effectively, however, candidates and campaign directors find creative ways to coordinate with Super-PACs in order to avoid legal scrutiny. In American politics, a typical liberal critique of Super-PACs is that they erode democracy

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interest. Out of those respondents who were less educated (no higher than a high school

education) or those with less wealth (household incomes under $35,000), about 48% said that

their votes do not matter because wealthy donors to Super-PACs have so much more influence.

Further, 70% of respondents believe that Super-PAC spending will lead to corruption leading up

to, throughout, and following the upcoming election cycle, and 65% of respondents indicated

that they trust their government less as a result of big donors to Super-PACs wielding more

influence over candidates than do regular voters. These are troubling public sentiments,

especially the suggestion by one-fourth of the polled Americans that their commitment to this

form of formal governance procedure is eroding as a result of perceived corruption.

Alternatively, however, it is possible to give a significantly more positive interpretation of such

polls’ results, in the sense that disadvantaged citizens may arguably be waking up to the reality

of the character of political power and influence in the US, in which case what such polls might

indicate may be less apathy than something closer to principled abstention. Nonetheless, whether

this awakening can be given any direction or organization is another matter altogether.

In the case of the UK, a recent article in The Guardian reports on the results of a study

into the state of democracy in Britain over the past ten years. In its evaluation of the study, the

article suggests that British democracy is in long-term terminal decline as “the power of

corporations keeps growing, politicians become less representative of their constituencies and

disillusioned citizens stop voting or even discussing current affairs” (Jowit, 2012). The study

itself, titled How Democratic is the UK: The 2012 Audit, published by the independent research

organization Democratic Audit, divides its analysis into four blocks, investigations into: 1)

citizenship, law and rights; 2) representative and accountable government; 3) civil society and

by tacitly allowing candidates to be bought and sold. A typical conservative response is that money should count as another form of free speech, and thus that any effort to limit campaign contributions equates to a restriction on liberty.

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popular participation; and 4) democracy beyond the state (Wilks-Heeg, Blick & Crone, 2012: 5).

From their findings, the authors highlight five “overarching sets of concerns” which appear to be

emerging and are especially pronounced in the UK relative to other established democracies

(13). The five sets of concerns include unstable constitutional arrangements with regards to

Scotland and Wales (as well as an undermining of the principle of single-party majority

government), a decaying public faith in democratic institutions along with ineffectual and even

counter-productive attempts at reforming and restoring such confidence, political inequalities as

a result of widening economic and social divisions (including widening contrasts between

members of different social classes even when it comes to a discussion of politics), a rise of

corporate power which threatens to undermine basic democratic decision-making principles, and

a decline in conventional (see: ‘conventional’ vs. ‘social-movement related’ citizenship above)

representative democracy since 1970 (13-17). The notion of political inequalities stemming from

widening economic inequalities coupled with the rising powers of transnational corporations is

one that McCowan also takes up in his assessment of most of the world’s democracies:

“Only a handful of states…do not declare themselves to be democracies. And yet, our world is far from being democratic. Citizens of most countries have little political participation aside from periodic choices between a limited number of established parties. The financial demands of running for public office put it beyond the reach of most citizens” (2009: 3).

While citizenship education does not have the power to ‘fix’, in any strong or direct sense of the

word, the negative influence that money has on politics, it can at least attempt to address such

social ills indirectly. In bringing such issues to light and equipping, as described in Chapter 3,

citizens with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that help them to become informed and

active citizens, it can play a role in defending the democratic process. Indeed, in their critique of

the effects of neo-liberal ideology on global educational practices, the editors of Education,

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Globalization & Social Change question “whether formal education has a role to play in helping

to address the major problems that now confront us,” and argue that to the extent that it still does,

a “focus on the prospects for an education for citizenship is so important” (Lauder, Brown,

Dillabough & Halsey, 2006: 56-58).

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Chapter 3

Citizenship and Citizenship Education in the United Kingdom

A brief history of citizenship and citizenship education in the United Kingdom provides a

helpful context for further discussion of the issues at hand. It is also an apt introduction to the

concept of ‘Political Literacy’ discussed later on. We have examined so far some conceptions of

civic virtue and citizenship and I have hinted at how difficult, perhaps impossible it can be to

achieve a consensual definition of citizenship as well as a consensual approach to citizenship

education. How are such conceptions revealed in practice, in at least the case of the UK?

John Beck begins a brief history of the topic in England and Wales by identifying a major

difference between citizenship education in the UK and in most other modern Western

democracies: one reason Britain is exceptional in having had, until recently, “very little direct

provision of citizenship education in state schools” is that between 1925 and 1988 there was

“almost no direct central government control of curriculum content” (2011: 3). Another reason

for the lack of citizenship education, he claims, is “the character of citizenship itself in Britain”

(ibid). This is characterized by Britain not having developed a generally available ‘language of

citizenship’, or in other words not having developed discourses or public rituals with specific

emphases on (or performances of) citizenship. Despite maintaining a lack of a collective

consciousness of citizenship or a well-developed ‘language of citizenship’, Beck argues that,

paradoxically, UK citizenship has been substantively strong, especially since the Second World

War, and in certain respects stronger that what is shown in the USA, despite the American

emphasis on inhabitants-as-citizens (ibid). This strength is regarded in part as a result of the post-

war establishment of comprehensive social entitlements such as education and healthcare, which

under a Marshallian conception of the social element of citizenship was a necessary prerequisite

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for the “realization of full citizenship in a modern democracy” (ibid). Another important source

of the strength of Britain’s substantive national identification, Beck argues, is its history of a

strong, shared and uniquely British identity cultivated partly through British education systems

and based especially on “identifications with the monarchy, the Empire, ‘glorious’ military and

naval victories and the like”, influential identifications that extend back “well before the

introduction of compulsory elementary schooling in 1870” (4). Arguably, though, this is

something that has probably become significantly weaker in recent decades, as the UK has

become a more pluralistic and ethnically diverse country.

Published prior to the 1998 ‘Crick Report’ but after the 1988 establishment of the National

Curriculum, Derek Heater’s examination proposes four distinctive elements of this unique

British identity and tradition of citizenship. First, as recalled in Beck’s analysis, is the “weakness

of the state-citizen nexus” (Heater, 1990: 293). Heater explains this weakness in part as the result

of

“the retention of the monarchy as head of both state and a hierarchically-structured society; the principle that sovereignty resides in parliament and not the people; and the lack of a written, defining constitution and bill of rights…as reasons for the frailty of both state and citizen concepts in Britain” (Heater, 1990: 293).

Second, and perhaps paradoxically related to the first, is the notion that England “has been the

proud and envied initiator of so many civic freedoms and rights” (ibid). Though he agrees with

the fact that such freedoms and rights have developed, Heater questions T.H. Marshall’s

“interpretation of the sequential achievement of civil, then political, then social citizenship,” at

least as a universal model of the evolution of what Heater characterizes as ‘the citizenship ideal’,

and in which he largely follows Marshall (ibid). As mentioned above in Chapter 2, Marshall’s

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third element of citizenship, social citizenship, parallels (or at least is consistent with)

McLaughlin’s maximalist interpretation of the social prerequisites of citizenship. In other words,

both Marshall and McLaughlin propose that certain social preconditions such as free healthcare

and education of a sufficient quality must be available before full citizenship can be expressed.

What Heater also particularly questions, in light of what he and other leftist critics interpret as

Thatcherite-style attacks on social welfare during the 1970s and 1980s, is “Marshall’s optimism

concerning its continued progress” (294). However, as Anthony Giddens and others have pointed

out, Marshall did not claim that such an ‘evolution’ of the citizenship ideal was inevitable or

universal, and in fact acknowledged that it might be eroded or even reversed (Giddens, 1985).

The third distinctive element of British citizenship as it developed historically according

to Heater is “the discharge of citizenly functions by amateur administrators, and voluntary

helpers in a local context” (Heater, 1990: 294). Though arguably no longer the case as a result of

Thatcherite social policies, the British have been regarded by other Europeans as possessing a

superior sense of ‘civisme’, to repeat Heater’s quoting of Denis Brogan in Citizenship Today

(1960: 29-30). Arguably this civisme took the form of a more strongly localized and more

strongly participatory ‘citizenship’ (which was real, but not necessarily characterized by that

term) that co-existed with a more passive ‘subject-citizen’ identity at the national level. Very

important to the development of this local, participatory civisme was the role of diverse Christian

denominations as well as growing support for political parties and the wider ‘labour movement’

beginning from the later part of the 19th century. While at one point it may have been true that

the privileged classes, concerned individuals, and the religiously faithful took the time to serve

autonomously as local councilors, form civic societies, and undertake voluntary charitable work,

some contend that “the centralization of communications, health and welfare provision over the

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past half-century has done much to weaken local autonomy” (Heater, 1990: 294). Writing in

1990, Heater regards the “Thatcherite appeal for more effective citizenship [as] an appeal for the

reinvigoration of these traditional styles”, while simultaneously arguing that the Thatcherite

government “has further and very substantially undermined the authority of local government,”

which it did in part both by removing key powers to the centre (e.g. in education) and radically

restricting the independent fund-raising powers of local governments (ibid). The demand for a

reinvigoration of traditional moralities and ‘time-tested’ ideals of civic virtue (especially by the

conservative right) continues today, but is characterized by Beck as in part the phenomenon of a

resurgence of ‘Declinism’, an influential doctrine in the rhetoric of contemporary British

citizenship:

“Nowhere, of course, has the chorus of lament been louder or more sustained than in relation to our supposed moral and spiritual decline: we are not the people we once were; traditional values have been eroded to a dangerous degree – undermining social cohesion and weakening our sense of national identity… the list of alleged causes is a long one, including: the moral permissiveness ushered in by that deplorable decade ‘the sixties’, influence of cultural diversity and multiculturalism, relativistic currents in intellectual life… Nevertheless, the role of schools and educators has been seen as pivotal – both in terms of the responsibility for the descent into moral crisis and also as a potential means of reversing the trend” (2008: 2).

Further, Beck argues that such declinist diagnoses have been articulated by political projects of

allegedly restoring participation by encouraging volunteering and other civic activities under

both New Labour’s ‘third way’ citizenship projects as well as David Cameron’s ‘big society’

initiatives. He also contends, however, that such restoration campaigns have been significantly

stronger on rhetoric than on substance, seeing them as a cover for the steady erosion of

Marshallian social citizenship as part of the entitlements of citizens.

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Finally, Heater’s fourth and final British tradition of citizenship is the identity with

Empire. The mentality that persists “in its less attractive form” as a “nostalgia for ‘greatness’ and

[in] offensive xenophobia” nonetheless heavily influenced the shaping of British identity

(Heater, 1990: 294). Outdated institutions and an unaffordable welfare state founded on colonial

wealth are believed to have left the British citizen without an Empire and without a new identity

to compensate for the loss. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the development of

these four distinctive elements of British citizenship/identity (the lack of state-citizen nexus, the

initiation of civic freedoms and rights, the voluntary execution of citizenly functions, and the

identification with Empire), this “‘forming’ of Britons happened very largely in the absence of a

language of citizenship or of direct provision for citizenship education” (Beck, 2011: 5). The

argument is essentially that these elements gave strength to what he and others have called the

‘citizen-subject’, which meant that substantive national identifications with Britishness was

strong and cohesive, in terms of the nation, particularly with the kind of military citizenship in

the first and second world wars. The identity was not about empowering citizens in the sense of

establishing an active democratic citizenry, but about the creation of subject-citizens seeing

themselves primarily as loyal subjects of the crown.

In 1970, for the first time and under the joint chairmanship of Bernard Crick and Derek

Heater, concerted efforts were made to address directly the issue of political education and the

cultivation of an active citizenry in schools in England and Wales. The Politics Association was

formed in 1970, the journal Teaching Politics was founded in 1971, and a series of influential

books and articles on political education and political literacy were published during the late

1960s through to the early 1980s (ibid). Political developments during the 1970s are thought to

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have contributed in part to the newfound emphasis on political education. To name a few:

dissatisfaction with colorless contemporary civics courses, the lowering of the voting age from

21 to 18, the raising of the school leaving age to 16, concerns about political apathy among

young people as well as concerns over ‘inappropriate’ kinds of political activism, and growing

political radicalism among teachers influenced by Marxist and feminist ideas (ibid). The idea of

‘citizenship’ itself, however, did not play a particularly prominent role in these developments

during the 70s and early 80s. The rise of formal citizenship education in England and Wales

depended first upon the 1988 Education Reform Act, which established a more or less

standardized National Curriculum for the first time in British history. Further, though

citizenship-identity in the UK may have been (and perhaps may still be) relatively strong in a

substantive sense, despite not having been formally codified throughout most of its history, it

was not until the publication in 1998 of Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy

in schools that the notion of citizenship itself really attained a place of prominent concern among

those now responsible for the National Curriculum and its successive revisions. In 2002,

following an implementation led by then Secretary of State for Education David Blunkett,

‘Citizenship’ was introduced as a ‘statutory subject’ in the National Curriculum. It was required

to be taught to all 11 to 16 year old students in state schools as part of the English curriculum.

Currently, however, the UK coalition government is in the process of again reviewing the

National Curriculum, with clear indications that it plans to contract its statutorily required

content down to what it deems only as ‘essential knowledge’, including a weakening of the

requirements for citizenship education. A timetable for the review has scheduled Spring, 2013, as

the period during which Department for Education ministers will announce whether or not

certain Programmes of Study for all other subjects (excluding English, mathematics, science and

37

physical education) are to be included in the National Curriculum (Democratic Life, 2012). This

includes Citizenship Education. ‘Democratic Life’, a “coalition of organisations and individuals

in the UK seeking to strengthen and extend young people’s entitlement to high-quality

citizenship education in England”, believes that citizenship education faces four possible fates at

the conclusion of the review: 1) it could remain a statutory subject in the National Curriculum; 2)

it could become compulsory, or certain aspects of it could become compulsory, but overall not

be included as part of the National Curriculum; 3) it could become a non-statutory programme of

study from the Department of Education, in which case it would not be compulsory in any way

but would incorporate guidance for schools choosing to teach it; or 4) it could have no statutory

or compulsory status and not even become a non-statutory programme of study, “leaving the

teaching and content of the subject entirely up to schools” (Democratic Life, 2012). Despite the

uncertainty surrounding the concrete future of teaching citizenship in UK schools, I should be

clear that this thesis is drawing mostly from UK-based theories of citizenship education, as

opposed to a reliance on its current practices. Whether or not citizenship education survives the

Department for Education review, I hope the theoretical conceptualization presented here retains

a degree of validity.

Returning to the earlier days of UK citizenship education, it was Bernard Crick’s

personal relationship with his former university student, David Blunkett, which is thought to

have led to Crick’s appointment as chair of the new Advisory Group on Citizenship (Beck, 2011:

7). The Crick report, published by the advisory group, advised Blunkett and other officials at the

Department for Education

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“that citizenship and the teaching of democracy, construed in a broad sense that we will define, is so important both for schools and the life of the nation that there must be a statutory requirement on schools to ensure that it is part of the entitlement of all pupils. It can no longer sensibly be left as uncoordinated local initiatives which vary greatly in number, content and method. This is an inadequate basis for animating the idea of a common citizenship with democratic values [bold added]” (QCA, 1998: 7).

I have bolded three clips in this excerpt from the report in order to bring attention to an important

and perhaps contradictory feature of the proposals. There is a sense in which the advisory group

attempts to advocate for a politically neutral and yet simultaneously maximal notion of

citizenship. They claim to define citizenship in a broad sense, and yet paradoxically argue that

its teaching be regarded as an entitlement for all pupils. Though ideologically I have nothing

against a maximal conception of citizenship education, I present the excerpt as evidence that

maximal-leaning ideas and ‘thick’ conceptions of civic virtue are inherent in the Crick Report. I

simply wish to establish clearly that Bernard Crick and other prominent architects of citizenship

education in the National Curriculum have in the past staked the claim that citizenship education

be an entitlement for all students and that a certain inculcation of values (as well as knowledge

and understanding) be part of this education. To be more specific:

“So what do we mean by ‘effective education for citizenship?’ We mean three things, related to each other, mutually dependent on each other, but each needing a somewhat different place and treatment in the curriculum: social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy…guidance on moral values and personal development are essential preconditions of citizenship… we stress…that citizenship education is education for citizenship, behaving and acting as a citizen, therefore it is not just knowledge of citizenship and civic society; it also implies developing values, skills and understanding… We also recognise that such an education is linked to two other developments in schools and depends on their effectiveness…Firstly, the promotion of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)…secondly…the promotion of pupils’ Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development (SMSC) [bold added]” (ibid: 11).

39

The controversial notion of educating for civic values is the topic of the following

chapter. But given Crick’s influential role in developing British citizenship education, I think it

pertinent to first examine how exactly he argues for the legitimacy of teaching for value in a

pluralistic democracy. In what sense can particular kinds of values, or a certain conception of

morality, be legitimately taught without such teaching devolving into mere political

indoctrination?

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Chapter 4

‘Political Literacy’ and ‘Procedural Values’

One of Bernard Crick’s theoretical hallmarks (in collaboration with Ian Lister) is the

highly developed notion of ‘political literacy’ they elaborated in essays in the 1960s and 1970s.

Developing the idea of political literacy as the heart of political (and later, citizenship) education

is how Crick and Lister attempt to avoid the accusation of political bias while simultaneously

advocating for the importance of active political consciousness. They accomplish this by

carefully partitioning the separate but related concepts of political ‘knowledge’, political

‘attitudes and values’, and political ‘skills’, all three of which constitute political literacy, and

which is altogether framed within their theory of politics and political education.

In brief, their “broad” theory of democratic politics is described in two ways. First, it

stresses the nature of such politics primarily as conflict, though also as the key means of

achieving non-violent conflict resolution. In other words, the theory prefers specific

understanding of conflicts of interests and of ideals instead of merely more abstract

understanding of, for example, constitutional order and parliamentary proceedings. Voters and

future voters should aim to understand the reasons and conflicting interests of political

contestants, and though “a politically literate person will not hope to resolve all such differences,

or difficulties at once… he perceives their very existence as politics” (Crick, 1978/2000: 64).

Second, it stresses the political dimension of any human experience and situation, not just of

formal political institutions. The idea being that politics is found everywhere and in everything:

“Where do we find examples of the political? We find them (i) in the speeches and behaviour of professional politicians and political activists; (ii) in the writings and teaching of political scientists; and (iii) in observing and experiencing what we may call the politics of everyday life – in the family, the locality, educational

41

institutions, clubs and societies and in informal groups of all kinds [italics added]” (65).

Under this relatively all-inclusive framework, political literacy for them means “a compound of

knowledge, skills, and attitudes, to be developed together, each one conditioning the other two”

(61); this compound is then used to gather, dissect, reflect on, analyze, and act upon both formal

political issues as well as the politics of everyday life. Achieving political literacy involves in

part understanding the different sides of important political disputes, the beliefs held by

advocates of the conflicting parties, and how these disputes and beliefs are likely to affect other

people, including oneself (ibid). It is essential to highlight that a centrally important and

distinctive element of Crick and Lister’s conception of an adequate form of political literacy is

that it culminates in, or at least includes a disposition towards active political participation in a

spirit of tolerance and mutual respect:

“It also means that we are likely to be predisposed to try to do something about the issue in question in a manner which is at once effective and respectful of the sincerity of other people and what they believe” (ibid).

Additionally, they emphasize that they are not postulating any one universal model of education

for achieving political literacy, but they do claim there are common elements that “exemplify and

typify politically literate persons, what they know, their attitude to what they known, and their

skill in using what they known” (ibid) – and therefore then a justifiable form of political

education will include these elements. The three common elements that exemplify and typify

politically literate persons include the three aforementioned concepts of 1) political knowledge,

2) political attitudes and values, 3) political skills. It is the second component that interests me

the most for the purposes of this thesis, but the other two are certainly not irrelevant.

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The kinds of knowledge possessed by a politically literate person under the first

component include (but by no means are limited to) understanding what individuals and groups

hold power, where money comes from, how political institutions work, how to evaluate public

policies, and how to estimate effective ways of resolving political disputes; the politically literate

person also knows how to obtain these kinds of knowledge if he or she does not have them (61-

62).

The kinds of skills possessed by a politically literate person under the third component

include, for example, the capacity for active participation and communication. It includes the

capacity for “thinking in terms of change and of methods of achieving change” (62). One

particular skill highlighted by the authors is empathy: “Empathy with different viewpoints is

greatly to be encouraged” (ibid).

It is the second component of political literacy, attitudes and values, which is the most

relevant to the project of this paper. It is of course, as Crick and Lister themselves argue,

implausible to propose that the values of Western European liberalism be applicable to

citizenship education or ‘political literacy’ in all societies. They do propose, however, the notion

of ‘procedural values’ as fundamental for the education of citizens in pluralistic democracies, at

least. In one particular essay, Political Literacy, they identify

“‘freedom’, ‘toleration’, ‘fairness’, ‘respect for truth’ and ‘respect for reasoning’ as… ‘procedural values’: values which are presupposed in political literacy [bold added]” (62).

Importantly, Crick and Lister point out that if one were to take an extreme position towards the

prevention of political indoctrination, one would make it quite impossible for teachers to teach

anything at all. “Certainly all values should be interepreted in different social contexts, but some

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are more conditioned than others,” they claim, and in Western democracies it is impossible to

conduct a value-free citizenship education because Western democracies place value at the very

least on truth and freedom (68). Very crucial for the purposes of this thesis is their argument that

“the teacher should not seek to influence basic substantive values and that frontal assaults are, in any case, not likely to be successful; but that it is both proper and possible to try to nurture and strengthen certain procedural values…part of political education is to examine…conflicts…but this does not affect the primacy of these procedural values within a genuine political education [bold added]” (ibid).

Here, I believe, exists the potential for a fruitful working relationship between proponents of

Contemplative Education and proponents of certain approaches to Citizenship Education: the

cultivation of procedural values and of the prerequisite attitudes that encourage democratic

participation. Additionally, though I make no claim that engaging in contemplative practices can

directly support the development of political knowledge (though it may do so indirectly, by

improving the prerequisite conditions for good learning) there may be room for an argument that

engaging in contemplative practices could encourage political action, which in the framework of

political literacy would fall under the domain of political skill.

Before moving on to a discussion of contemplative practices, however, I wish to expand

upon the concept of procedural values as described by Crick, and then relate it partially to

corresponding ideas from Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action. In a later essay

published in 1999, Crick returns to the idea of procedural value:

“one idea I want to keep alive or revive: that the very project of a free citizenship education, as distinct from an indoctrinary one, whether ideological or simply patriotic, must be based on a limited number of presuppositions that we called in the old Hansard report, procedural values: Freedom, Toleration, Fairness, Respect for Truth, Respect for Reasoning. Different substantive values are to be discussed, rarely resolved; but such discussions must be based on presupposed ways of proceeding” (Crick, 1999/2000: 156).

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Of the five procedural values consistently mentioned by Crick throughout his essays and which

are included in the excerpt above, I wish to expand only upon the first two, as these are where I

believe the greatest potential resides for a connection to contemplative practice.

First, freedom as a procedural value. By this the authors mean the ability to make

choices, and especially choices of public significance, in ways that are self-willed and uncoerced.

This kind of freedom extends beyond substantive value and becomes procedural value, at least

when education for democracy is concerned, because without such freedom of choice there can

be neither genuinely autonomous political knowledge and understanding, nor political skills and

dispositions (in the sense of voluntary participation) (ibid). Part of the freedom to choose

between alternatives is the ability to feel free whilst one is doing so. Part of this kind of felt

freedom is the experience of making a choice without the overpowering feeling that one should

be making another (and that one might be reprimanded or socially ostracized if one does not

choose otherwise), and this in part requires the capacity to withstand judgment and even

rejection in the eyes of one’s parents, teachers, and peers. Crick makes the point that “pupils as

well as teachers must have some freedom to choose what issues to explore and discuss,” and

partly from this I extrapolate the idea that social pressures, especially at younger ages when they

are apt to be internalized, have the potential to result in negative self-judgments to the extent that

the student’s ability to make choices is effectively impeded and in extreme cases arrested, no

matter how political (or not) such choices may be in nature (157). From the concept of freedom

as procedural value I thus take the idea that the development of political literacy is governed at

least in part by the student’s ability to nurture, cultivate, or otherwise develop the capacity to

endure, deal with, and confront negative judgments from peers and teachers for the sake of

making autonomous choices, especially those of a political nature.

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Second, toleration as a procedural value. Toleration, for Crick, is closely tied to the idea

of emotional self-regulation and empathy when faced with things of which we disapprove. Not to

be confused with permissiveness or total or unconditional respect, toleration in some sense

signifies a disapproval of something in the face of which we demonstrate restraint, forbearance,

and hopefully a degree of mutual respect (157). Such a conception and manifestation of tolerance

is crucial to political literacy, especially in pluralistic democracies, because at the very least it is

needed for “living together amid conflicts of [substantive] values” (158). Crick makes two

inferences from the concept of toleration as a procedural value: the first is that “someone who is

politically literate will hold views of their own, but will hold them in such a way as to be tolerant

of the views of others”, and the second is that because tolerance depends on having knowledge

of the behaviors and beliefs of those with contrasting viewpoints, then not only must these

contrasting forms of knowledge be taught, but “pupils should be tested in their powers of

empathy” (158-159). The first inference is relatively straightforward, but the second is

complicated by the suggestion that empathy be somehow assessed. How to assess such a thing?

Despite this inherent challenge, Crick insists on the importance of empathy’s role in political

literacy vis-à-vis procedural value:

“Empathy is a skill to be developed quite as much as self-expression and the propensity to participate, indeed it strengthens both. Toleration is neither simply a disposition towards nor knowledge of others, but is both together. Even in political life, empathy has great tactical value” (159).

It might be important to mention that the Crick Report itself does not mention the concept of

procedural value, though it does directly promote, without labeling them specifically as such, an

interesting mix of more procedural-leaning values (e.g. practice of tolerance; a disposition to

work with and for others with sympathetic understanding) alongside more strongly substantive-

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leaning values (e.g. concern for the common good; commitment to equal opportunities and

gender equality) (QCA, 1998: 44). This in some measure inevitably reflects the way in which the

report was commissioned by the New Labour government of the time, and in the way citizenship

was envisioned and implemented by New Labour; there were simply some things that the

government probably felt they needed to accomplish politically (e.g. gender equality,

multiculturalism, and so on) and the members of the advisory group on citizenship could not be

unaware of this wider context. Emphasis should be given, therefore, to the contrast between what

exists in the report and on Crick’s later return to emphasizing the significance of procedural

values. There is little doubt that at least some of the values listed in the report do tend to align

themselves with a ‘modernized’ social democratic New Labour agenda. For this reason, even

leftist critics such as Gamarnikow & Green (1999) have accused the report of both

disingenuousness and propaganda by arguing that the reality of New Labour’s policies was in

fact eroding social entitlements, and developing a form of citizenship education that substituted

volunteering for entitlements. The Crick Report, in its role as a government policy framework, is

more open to this kind of accusation than perhaps Crick’s own political writings might be.

The thing about conceptions of procedural value of the kind Crick supports is that they

are arguably much more educationally defensible as they do not involve the inculcation of

‘thicker’, substantive values. One could theoretically apply such procedural values to many sorts

of political argument and come out with substantially differing conclusions depending on the

initial starting points, political values and preferences, and the analytic skills of those engaged in

discussion. It is thus far easier to justify the cultivation of procedural values as part of a

citizenship education. If one is in part committed to an impartial, undistorted communication

then there must be a) legal freedom to develop arguments and the corresponding psychological

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strength and freedom to defend one’s autonomy in the face of social repudiation, and b) a

significant degree (at least in terms of acceptance of the rules governing discussion) of toleration

for the beliefs and behaviors of others, which according to Crick should also imply the rather

more stringent requirement, if the toleration is to be genuine, of a degree of empathy towards

others which should be developed as a disposition and skill.

This notion of procedural value and undistorted communication has some affinities with

Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the ideal speech situation, which is also procedural in a certain

sense of the word. The ideal speech situation is located within his more general ideas about

undistorted communication and communicative rationality. Habermas’s project, like that of

much of the early Frankfurt School of critical theory from which he was heavily influenced, is in

part to advance a critical social science that

“makes people conscious of the mechanisms that have hitherto affected their lives. Making people conscious of the ‘hypostatized powers’ contributes to making these inoperative. Critical social science combines empirical-analytical and hermeneutic knowledge, with the aim of self-emancipation. Psychoanalysis is an example of critical social science…Habermas argued that we should extend the psychoanalytic model to the societal level and ascertain how power and ideology make for distorted communication” (Baert, 2005: 119).

Habermas took a much more favorable stance towards the Enlightenment project than did many

of his other contemporaries associated with the Frankfurt School. While many of his colleagues

decried the negative effects of the transition to modernity catalyzed in part by the widespread

diffusion of instrumental rationality into academic discourse and public institutions, Habermas

defended what he saw as one positive effect of the Enlightenment: the rise of communicative

rationality.

“Communicative rationality refers to procedures of unconstrained debate and criticism between equals, and is gradually spreading in various spheres. This is

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not to say that our current society has embraced communicative rationality entirely, but it has moved more in that direction than, say, pre-modern Europe” (121).

Patrick Baert points out that in the 1970s Habermas took a ‘linguistic turn’ in his theorizing

about communicative rationality and focused on the relationship between communication and

language. He drew heavily on Chomskian theories of generative grammar, Lawrence Kohlberg’s

theory of moral development, and Piagetian theories of cognitive development in order to further

develop the theory of communicative action (120). Communicative action for Habermas is the

idea of action directed towards people for the purposes of understanding and agreement, as

opposed to the more instrumental or strategic version of action that is aimed towards material

gain or political success. Fully effective communicative action depends upon the creation of

what he calls an ‘ideal speech situation’, which exists when participants in acts of

communication are free to criticize the presupposed ‘validity claims’ of communication. These

presupposed claims are ‘intelligibility’, ‘propositional truth’, ‘moral rightness’, and ‘sincerity’;

Baert offers a good example of how all these presuppositions should operate in an ideal speech

situation:

“If I attend an academic seminar, for instance, I constantly make validity claims. Implicit in my speaking is the assumption that what I say is not gibberish and that I am speaking the truth. Also implicit is that I am morally justified in saying what I am saying, and that I am not saying it in order to deceive” (122).

Critical to the creation of an ideal speech situation is the removal of ‘irrelevant’ but often

socially powerful obstacles. The essential idea is to strip away all ‘irrelevant’ considerations of

status of the participants involved in an act of communication, something perhaps more akin to a

procedural device than a procedural value, strictly speaking, though some of the values implicit

in the concept may be of some use here. What this means is that negative sanctions such as

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differences between participants in things such as power, academic status, socioeconomic status,

or communicative ability should not be allowed to interfere with the force of their arguments.

Also, and especially relevant to the proposal contained in this thesis, is the idea that “internal,

psychological obstacles need to be lifted. We do not have an ideal speech situation, for instance,

if some of us are too shy to speak out in public or are easily impressed by others” (123). Nor do

we have an ideal speech situation, I would argue, if some of us do not have the psychological

freedom to make choices or if some of us exhibit no toleration or empathy whatsoever with the

thoughts and feelings of others (to recall two of Crick’s procedural values). I would also add to

this framework the idea that we do not have an ideal speech situation if participants are too

distracted, stressed, depressed, or otherwise psychologically incapacitated or unable to advance

their arguments and worldviews. What we want is to be left with a situation where all

participants can participate or speak and advance their arguments equally.

It should be mentioned that this conception has been commonly criticized as highly

utopian, seen perhaps as a quixotic attempt to adopt procedural means to reach Immanuel Kant’s

‘kingdom of ends’: his vision of a society where rationally autonomous and ethically committed

individuals concur about moral ends. Baert acknowledges that for Habermas himself, “the ideal

speech situation never exists in reality”, though it remains nonetheless an ideal to be worked

towards (123). For Kant, such a society was to be arrived at by the exercise of impartial reason.

Habermas, however, doesn’t talk about ‘the moral law’ in the way that a traditional Kantian

would; what Kant and Habermas do share is a very strong respect for reasoning – extending to

both moral and political discussions. Habermas emphasizes the procedures of reasoning in

dialogue with others, which is much closer to Crick and to the idea that certain values would

have to govern the procedure of a political education, a political literacy, or a citizenship

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education. An example of a shared idea in both cases is that one must, or at least should, listen

respectfully to the views of others, because not to do so is to make it impossible for the rational

argument to prevail. One must be in a position to listen in an open-minded (and perhaps mindful)

way to views that one may have an initial inclination to dislike. One can’t pretend to entertain

valid democratic debate that seeks to respect reason and evidence without presupposed ground

rules of communication that rest upon a set of values. At a more general level, a pluralistic

democracy can’t force agreement on substantive values, but it can at least ideally expect citizens

to adhere to certain procedural values of the types discussed here, and its education system can

be expected to attempt to cultivate them as such.

It seems to me that it also follows that the task for Contemplative Education, if it aims to

seek a role in the conception of citizenship education discussed above, is to propose a convincing

case that the use of contemplative practices in schools may support the development of the sorts

of values and dispositions discussed above, whether they be Crick’s procedural values,

Habermas’s values of undistorted communication, or some other similar conception of moral

value that leans towards democratic procedure and away from more strictly substantive values or

conceptions of the common good.

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Chapter 5

Contemplative Practices: Evidence from Empirical Studies

I dedicate Chapter 6 to consolidating notions of contemplative practice, especially

mindfulness meditation, with that of civic virtue, especially procedural value. Before this can be

accomplished, however, Chapter 5 develops more fully the concepts of ‘contemplative practice’

and ‘mindfulness’, and presents some evidence from empirical studies relating to their effects on

individuals, especially on students in educational contexts. To begin, contemplative practices are,

in one relatively broad definition,

“metacognitive exercises in which attention is focused on any element of conscious experience…they are used for stress reduction, self-examination, self-development, creativity, and other similar purposes” (Repetti, 2010: 7).

Certain contemplative practices such as meditation and centering prayer have “roots in spiritual

traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and indigenous spirituality” (Duerr,

2004: 8). Though the practices have historically been the domain of monastics or those with

considerable time to devote to them, at least in North America, something of a “renaissance” is

underway to apply the disciplines to the more secular rhythm of 21st century lifestyles (12).

Contemplative practices can, the evidence suggests, be practical and transformative. They are

practical because they have an immediate effect of reducing psychological stress and because

they have a positive effect on the prerequisite factors of good learning. They are at least

potentially transformative because they propose to enact real change on the subject’s brain and

behavior, promote ‘pro-social’ behavior, and develop the subject’s ethical/existential worldview.

Though there may be dozens of different contemplative practices, only a few have been

researched extensively under the umbrella terms of Contemplative Science or Contemplative

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Education. The most common methodological feature of all contemplative practices being

widely researched and implemented – especially relevant to types of sitting meditations and yoga

– is an emphasis on the individual practitioner gaining an awareness, appreciation, and command

over the breathing process. Many such practices attempt to cultivate a skill known as one-pointed

attention – the ability to focus one’s attention on a single point of awareness; the breath is a

commonly used target. Others emphasize the ability to reflect on the disparate components of

conscious experience for extended periods of time, with specific cognitive operations that are

subsequently used to manipulate such components. Proponents of contemplative practices in

education often quote the psychologist and philosopher William James describing his ideal

pedagogy:

“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will… An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence” (1890/1981: 401).

Like other proponents of what were regarded as alternative pedagogies during their time (Maria

Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, John Dewey, and William James come to mind), contemplative

educators often privilege process over content in education, championing a “slower, deeper, and

more reflective and transparent learning” which aims to nurture interest and attention, intrinsic

motivation, and self-regulative skills (Repetti, 2010: 7).

Empirical research in Contemplative Education has, appropriately enough, been

expanding quietly over the past 20 odd years. Research is most commonly conducted on

programs teaching mindfulness exercises, though the field is admittedly a work in progress.

Much research of considerable breadth and depth exists on the use of mindfulness meditation in

medicine and psychotherapy (to name a few prominent studies, among countless others: Kabat-

Zinn, 1992; Hayes & Feldman, 2004; Teasdale et al., 2000; Carson et al., 2004; Vieten & Astin,

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2008), but only a handful of serious studies have documented the effects of contemplative

practices (and mindfulness specifically, for the purpose of this thesis) on students in schools.

There may be dozens, if not hundreds, of contemplative practice modalities practiced around the

world. Mindfulness meditation, by virtue of its popularity and easy integration into mainstream,

secular Western institutions, has arguably been the most empirically studied and validated form

of contemplative practice, at least in the United States, where much of this type of research takes

place (though UK-based interest is increasing as well). Some widely noted effects of mindfulness

meditation on students include decreases in symptoms of depression, anxiety, attention deficit

disorders, and sleep problems, as well as increases in attention, positive affect, and academic

success (Burke, 2009; Davidson et al., 2012). Also of interest to proponents of Contemplative

Education is the commitment to nurturing ‘pro-social’ tendencies in children and adolescents,

which is deemed desirable in and of itself but has also been linked to positive intellectual

outcomes (Pasi, 2001; Haynes, Ben-Avie & Ensign, 2003) and positive results on standardized

measures of academic achievement (Malecki & Elliot, 2002; Welsh, Park, Widaman & O’Neil,

2001). Programs that appear to enhance academic, social, and emotional learning (such as

mindfulness meditation programs) are thus seen as worthwhile for fulfilling certain public policy

needs as well as the developmental outcomes deemed desirable by psychologists and educators

sympathetic to such approaches.

Mindfulness researchers often pay intellectual tribute to Jon Kabat-Zinn, regarded as the

father of the mindfulness meditation movement in the United States, who wrote that

“Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience” (2003: 145).

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In one of his most influential books, Full Catastrophe Living, he describes the “seven attitudinal

foundations” of mindfulness practice. To paraphrase, these include:

1. Non-judging – assuming a stance of impartiality to subjective experience; 2. Patience – patience and openness towards present, subjective experience; 3. “Beginner’s Mind” – inhibition of the tendency to categorize experiences; developing a

receptivity to new experiences; 4. Trust – trust in one’s own intuition and authority; inhibition of the tendency to defer

automatically to one’s teacher without question; 5. Non-striving – inhibition of the desire for achievements as a result of mindfulness

practice; 6. Acceptance – acceptance of experiences encountered during present-moment awareness;

awareness of the tendency to deny and resist ‘self-knowledge’; 7. “Letting Go” – the attitude and practice of non-attachment to specific thoughts and

feelings; inhibition of the tendency to over-emphasize or value the meaning of certain experiences over others (1990).

Mindfulness-based meditation gained an upsurge in popularity during the 1970s as a result of the

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses led by Dr. Kabat-Zinn at the Stress

Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Since then, various

researchers and theorists have attempted to refine the concept, conducting experiments and

debating over the operational definitions and processes of mindfulness. Shapiro et al., for

example, propose three primary components which together result in the phenomenological

experience and behavior of mindfulness:

1. Attitude – as described above, these include non-judgment, patience, trust, non-striving, and acceptance;

2. Attention – made up of a) focused, broad, and sustained attention, and b) skills in switching attention from one stimulus to another (e.g. task switching);

3. Intention – the self-regulated motivation that directs the sustaining and switching of attention (2006, 373-4).

Meiklejohn et al. propose that “mindful awareness emerges when [students and adults]

intentionally focus attention on their present moment experience while maintaining receptive

attitudes of acceptance, kindly curiosity, and non-judgment” (2012: 6). Recent attempts to create

psychological instruments with the capacity to objectively measure different aspects of

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mindfulness, however, have resulted in the development of over eight such instruments. In light

of such disparate attempts, it should be understood that mindfulness as an object both of

empirical study and of theoretical analysis is still part of an underdeveloped terrain; there is no

one consensual working definition of mindfulness, nor does any singular mindfulness assessment

dominate the research literature. Despite these setbacks, researchers remain attracted to the

mindfulness paradigm in part because it is perceived as more distanced from certain religious

contexts than other candidates found within Contemplative Education. Psychologist David

Black, for one, is of the opinion that

“as the concept of mindfulness was gradually introduced into the realm of Western science, many thought mindfulness and its associated meditation practices… were esoteric, bound to religious beliefs, and a capacity attainable only by certain people. However, several decades of research methodology and scientific discovery have defrayed these myths; mindfulness is now considered to be an inherent quality of human consciousness” (2011: 1).

Several studies have convincingly demonstrated the possibility of long-term neural changes in

key parts of the brain responsible for executive functioning and emotional regulation as a result

of mindfulness meditation (Lutz et al., 2004; Davidson et al., 2003; Lazar et al., 2005). One

review of neurological studies on mindfulness meditation suggests that mindfulness training

offers “a meta-method… a meta-mental training – mental training that is conducted outside of a

specific domain but which is applicable across domains,” thereby providing one argument for its

implementation into secular social institutions (Cahn & Polich, 2006: 200).

A prominent researcher working in the field, Dr. Amishi Jha, has been one leader in the

study of how mental training affects attention and cognition, focusing on how mindfulness-based

meditation training affects working memory, affective experience, subsystems of attention, and

other prefrontal cortex functions. For example, one study conducted by her team finds that

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mindfulness training bolsters working memory capacity for a high-practice-time group, while

also leading to lower levels of negative affect and higher levels of positive affect (Jha et al.,

2010). Another study finds that mindfulness training may improve attention-related behavioral

responses by enhancing the functioning of specific subcomponents of attention; the study

examines how mindfulness training affects “three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct

but overlapping attentional systems: alerting, orienting, and conflict monitoring,” finding that all

three are enhanced after mindfulness-based mental training (Jha, Krompinger & Baime, 2007:

109). A recent book chapter also discusses the close relationship between mindfulness and

working memory capacity, positing that mindfulness-based attention training may directly

improve working memory capacity, which has in turn been significantly and positively

correlated with improvements in ‘cold cognitive’ tasks, general fluid intelligence scores, and

academic achievement (Jha, Stanley & Baime, 2010; Kane & Engle, 2002). Other studies have

similarly demonstrated evidence that mindfulness meditation training can improve certain

aspects of attention and cognitive task performance and working memory (Lutz et al., 2008),

both of which have been linked to improvements in nonverbal, fluid intelligence (Jaeggi et al.,

2008; Olesen et al., 2004). Additionally, improvements in visual discrimination due to

contemplative practices are thought to reduce the demand on cognitive resources: a different

study reported that mindfulness-based training “improved performance on visual discrimination

tasks that were linked to increases in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance during

sustained visual attention,” reducing the demand on cognitive resources imposed by target

discrimination, making it easier to sustain voluntary attention for longer periods of time

(Maclean et al., 2010: 1).

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As mentioned, several studies have shown that mindfulness-based training has the

potential to lower levels of negative affect and raise levels of positive affect (Evans et al., 2008;

Segal et al., 2002; Williams et al., 2008). Interestingly, multiple weeks of mindfulness training

may result in meditators remaining undistracted after viewing disturbing images relative to

controls (Ortner et al., 2007). Other studies have similarly demonstrated that certain desirable

effects of mindfulness meditation can be produced after just a few weeks or even days of training

(Chambers et al., 2008; Broderick, 2005; Davidson et al., 2003; Anderson et al., 2007). Findings

suggesting that desirable effects can be produced after relatively short periods of time are

promising for educational contexts, given the already severe limitations on teachers and students’

time imposed by increasingly standardized curriculums.

Moving on to studies looking at empathy and ‘pro-social’ behavior, there certainly

appears to be evidence for contemplative practices directly enhancing an individual’s capacity

for empathic responses and other-regarding behaviors. The general hypothesis is that in directly

targeting the mind’s capacity to pre-conceptually reflect on and regulate thought and emotion,

contemplative practices may have direct positive effects on the subject’s capacity for instinctual

or automatic empathic responses and pro-social behavior. For example, Boorstein argues that the

mindfulness trait enables individuals to ‘receive’ others’ thoughts and emotions without reacting

to them in impulsive or destructive ways (1996). Others have similarly argued that mindfulness

meditation promotes “attunement, connection, and closeness in relationships” (Brown, Ryan &

Creswell, 2007: 225; Kabat-Zinn, 1994). It is theorized by some that such increases in

compassion and empathic response may be mediated by enhanced activation in empathy-related

cortical areas as a result of undergoing practices specifically targeted towards compassion

(Lamm, Batson & Decety, 2007; Lutz et al., 2008).

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Because mindfulness, arguably, promotes an ‘easing’ of ego-based concerns, such as the

desire to protect one’s own prestige or the impulse to adhere to overly rigid self-concepts of

social worth, those with more mindful dispositions may be less susceptible to feelings of threat

or fear in the face of social exclusion or rejection from a peer group. Those with more mindful

dispositions may in fact be less susceptible to such rejections in the first place, given the

increased levels of compassion manifested towards others as a result of such mental training

(Brown, Ryan & Cresswell, 2008; Leary, 2004; Davidson & Harrington, 2002). In support of the

hypothesis that mindfulness-based training may increase compassion among those undergoing

such types of mental training, Shapiro and her colleagues found that, relative to a wait list control

group, medical students receiving an MBSR program demonstrated improvements in empathy

over the course of the program, despite the fact that assessments taken after the course were

collected during a high stress exam period (Shapiro et al., 1998). A later study by the same

research team corroborated the previous results, reporting that counseling students participating

in a 10-week MBSR-based course demonstrated

“significant pre-post increases in empathic concern for others relative to a matched cohort control group. The study also showed that increases in MAAS-assessed mindfulness were related to these increases in empathy” (Shapiro, Brown & Astin, 2008: 22).

Additionally, a 2012 review of 14 mindfulness programs with students in K-12 American

schools concludes that

“school-based mindfulness training appears to offer a means for students to cultivate attentional skills as well as an array of other aptitudes that may enhance their capacity to cope with their psychosocial as well as academic challenges. Potential benefits include: fostering pro-social behavior via strengthening self-regulation and impulse control; alleviating the effects of stress that obstruct learning; and providing a skill set that promotes brain hygiene, and physical and emotional well-being across the life span [bold added]” (Meiklejohn et al., 2012: 14).

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The link between self-regulation, impulse control, and pro-social behavior is critical. One

experiment showed that children who exhibited relatively higher degrees of effortful control of

their negative emotions were less likely to experience high levels of negative emotional reactions

in response to their interactions with peers. The ability to control one’s emotional reactions in

interpersonal situations (a common trait measured by various mindfulness assessments) is of

critical importance to the establishment of stable peer bonds. The capacity to be aware of and

effectively regulate negative emotion is especially important in social environments such as

schools where children and adolescents are likely to be consistently engaging with each other

and developing relationships. In fact, the elementary and early middle-school years may offer the

best opportunities to implement such mindfulness-based empathy-enhancing interventions, as

some studies suggest that children are less tolerant than adults in their responses to negative

emotions, and may even altogether refuse to play or interact with children who display a lack of

self-control (Kopp, 1989). Even adults brains, however, are plastic enough to undergo changes as

a result of empathy-enhancing interventions. Adult participants of a study who underwent an 8-

week randomized controlled meditation intervention focusing on ‘the four immeasurables’ (i.e.

Buddhist-derived meditations of loving-kindness, compassion, empathic joy, and equanimity)

displayed “increased levels of dispositional PT (perspective taking), self-compassion, and

mindfulness” which seemed to

“facilitate the tendency for adopting the perspective of others, promote greater non-judgmental kindness towards oneself, viewing suffering as a common shared experience, and foster the relation to emotions with mindful attention rather than over-identifying” (Wallmark et al., 2012: 9).

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Mindfulness meditation programs have not only been shown, as demonstrated above, to increase

levels of desirable traits such as ‘perspective taking’ and empathy, but also seem to reduce levels

of self-reported aggression and hostile attribution bias.

One study examined the role of a mindfulness-training intervention in “attenuating anger

and aggression in prospective criminal justice professionals” (Kelley & Lambert, 2012: 1). The

motivation for the study was the authors’ reflection that criminal justice professionals are

“frequently called upon to intervene in situations involving conflict, hostility, and aggression”

(ibid). Police officers, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys (and I would add in certain cases:

politicians, teachers of politics and citizenship, and students and adult citizens disagreeing on

substantive values and political matters) can become targets of “personal attacks, threats, and

insults” and must struggle with “anger, hostility, and aggression”, but must nonetheless

“maintain their composure during emotionally charged situations” (ibid). If such students and

professionals “lose control and allow anger and hostility to cloud their judgment” (certainly a

step away from the creation of an ideal speech situation), then the result may be overwhelming

stress that can amplify “prejudice, stereotyping, heightened conflict, brutality, and the use of

excessive force” (2). Fortunately, the authors cite some research suggesting that those exhibiting

higher degrees of mindfulness may be less likely to react with aggression to such anger, hostility,

or insults from others (Heppner et al., 2008; Wright et al., 2009), and argue that

“thoughts of rejection, insult, threat, etc. appear to pass through the minds of mindful people without initiating self-esteem threats, triggering angry outbursts, or defensive reactions (Hodgins & Knee, 2002)… the prevailing view is that mindful people are less bothered, defensive and reactive to the negative and aggressive behavior of others, and more likely to respond to conflict, insults, and threats in more civil, sensible ways” (Kelley & Lambert, 2012: 3).

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Their particular study involved the filling out of self-reported questionnaires by two hundred and

seventy-two undergraduate majors in criminal justice; the questionnaires measured dispositional

mindfulness using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), propensity for aggression

using the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ), and interpretation of ambiguous social information as

benign or hostile using the Hostile Attribution Bias Scale (HABS). Unfortunately, the study was

limited in that it was not randomized or controlled with a waitlist group, nor were the

questionnaires completed before and after a mindfulness meditation intervention (to analyze

effects of the meditation itself). Nonetheless, correlation analysis between scores on the various

measures suggests, “higher dispositional mindfulness is associated with lower levels of anger,

aggression, and hostile attribution bias” (7).

In sum, various studies of contemplative practices provide “a reasonable base of support

for the feasibility and acceptability of mindfulness-based approaches, that include core

mindfulness meditation practices, with children and adolescents” (Burke, 2009: 10). Though

many studies in the loosely classified area of Contemplative Education “are limited somewhat by

their status as innovative ventures in a novel field” (ibid), they nonetheless consistently support

the contention, as I have attempted to review, that mindfulness training can: improve sustained

attention, increase positive affect and enhance emotional regulation, especially when confronted

with the threat of peer rejection. In clinical settings they have been shown to lower levels of

physical pain, and in non-clinical settings training in mindfulness can lower general levels of

stress and decrease the propensity towards aggressive reactions and the attribution of hostility in

others. Various studies have reported increased pro-social and empathic responses to others, even

in high stress situations, as a result of such training, and as reviewers of mindfulness meditation

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interventions have argued, such interventions have been found feasible and acceptable for use

with children and adolescents. Keeping in mind the positive potential for the effects that such

practices can have on students, and the continually increasing quantity and quality of studies

being conducted in this field, I move on now to my final chapter and conclusion.

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Chapter 6

Conclusion: The Mindful Citizen

Where do we stand now? Most empirical studies of contemplative practices such as

mindfulness meditation have focused on their salutary effects on things like physical pain,

attention regulation, and affect. This has been overwhelmingly contextualized within a mental

health framework, and naturally so, given the clinical origins of Westernized mindfulness

meditation. Stress reduction via mindfulness is increasingly prescribed by physicians, covered by

medical insurers, and endorsed by professional medical organizations. Even Britain’s NHS is

experimenting with this mode of treatment. Educators have jumped on board the bandwagon, so

to speak, by piloting their own studies in classroom settings and developing a practice and theory

of pedagogy now commonly called Contemplative Education, or Contemplative Pedagogy. They

extol the positive effects of such practices on their students: enhanced attention, decreased stress,

better moods, and fewer behavioral conflicts. Teachers themselves are also finding it easier, less

stressful, and more meaningful to teach after they have undertaken some form of contemplative

mental training (Anderson et al., 1999; Bertoch et al., 1989; Napoli, 2004; Winzelberg & Luskin,

1999). Advocates of Contemplative Education envision a world where contemplative practices

are regularly taught to children, adolescents and teachers, tailored to their developmental needs,

and where such training comes to be considered conventional, orthodox. Their vision is for the

most part secularized, purportedly backed by empirical research, but does not necessarily hide

the fact that many such practices have been influenced by their origins in religious or otherwise

‘spiritual’ contexts. Here, already, proponents encounter a major point of contention both with

radically atheistic and also with fundamentally religious groups who both may oppose such

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practices on principle, no matter how many degrees of separation may exist between the current

practices and their origins.

I believe the mental health model of Contemplative Education has a limited lifespan.

Research in Contemplative Education is currently dominated by a philosophical positivism,

which, as the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School pointed out in their own critiques of

positivism in social science, is “unable to stand back and properly question itself,” it is

“incapable of grasping its own limitations and of conceiving of other forms of knowledge

acquisition” (Baert, 2005: 109). Theorists of Contemplative Education should therefore address

more closely the sociological and philosophical critiques being leveled against it and its

cooperation with mass education systems in general. In a world of globalizing capital,

unprecedented corporate power, and diminishing democratic participation, such a narrow and

myopic preoccupation with improving the mental health and academic performance of students,

comes off as being radically out of touch with key realities of contemporary civic life (e.g. mass

voter disenfranchisement, diminishing social entitlements as part of social citizenship, increasing

control by transnational corporations of national political power and their manipulation of

campaign finance), at least in Western democracies such as the United States and the United

Kingdom.

To proponents of Contemplative Education I therefore ask this: Where is the response to

charges that contemplative practices may tacitly or even explicitly support authoritarian regimes

(Victoria, 2007)? Where is the response to charges that Westernized forms of “meditation [are]

the ideological form that best fits today’s global capitalism” (Zizek, 2009: 28)?6 Contemplative

Education, at least as an academic discourse, appears problematically oblivious to such

6 Both these charges are explored more fully in my second essay for this course.

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sociological critiques, which problematize its limited vision of education. There appears to be no

strong evidence that theorists of Contemplative Education have attempted to contextualize its

preferred form of pedagogy even within broader discourses of educational theory, least of all

within discourses of citizenship and citizenship education. It largely seems to operate in a

theoretical vacuum, or perhaps an echo chamber. Contemplative Education thus, I believe,

contains a critical or liberatory potential only insofar as its proponents wish to see reduced a

significant degree of human suffering in the world. An analysis of how such suffering comes

about in the first place, however, and how it may at times be perpetuated in part by unequal

distributions of educational opportunities seems to be absent from the literature I have

encountered. As long as the research produced relies on validity claims that remain

predominantly empirical and positivist, Contemplative Education will continue to promote

contemplative practices as tools for “technical mastery of the social, for restoring social order

and avoiding malfunctions in the system” (Baert, 2005: 110). It will continue, to quote Auguste

Comte’s dictum, “to know in order to predict and to predict in order to control” (ibid). Ironically,

I have obviously reviewed many empirical studies for the purposes of proposing the concept of

the ‘mindful citizen’, though my ultimate hope is that through this concept the field of

Contemplative Education may in time broaden its theoretical base, dive into other discourses

within educational theory and philosophy, and begin collaborating with proponents of citizenship

education.7

7 I should note: there are no existing empirical studies demonstrating correlations between contemplative practice programs in schools, and subsequent democratic political participation on the parts of students. Such an experimental design might be impossible to implement, in part given the wide span of a lifetime and the difficulty of dissecting underlying motivations for active citizenship. I believe the absence of such a set of studies does not, however, significantly diminish the validity of the theoretical concept of the ‘mindful citizen’. It cannot necessarily be demonstrated that any particular form of citizenship education directly results in active political participation, so it does not necessarily follow that my proposal be discredited for this lack of established connection. I would be impressed, however, if someone were to undertake such an experiment.

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This thesis presented examples of increasing concerns over the health of democracy in

Western pluralistic democracies, especially in the United States and United Kingdom. Theorists

of citizenship education and other educational theorists have in recent years intensified their calls

for modes of citizenship education that equip students with not only the forms of factual

knowledge that prepare them for effective political deliberation and participation, but also with

the attitudes, values, and skills that form the preconditions (and perhaps also the motivations) for

effective participation. Indeed, the editors of a recent anthology on education and globalization

conclude their introduction on a rather somber note, skeptical about the capacity for global

systems of education shaped by neoliberalism to develop students who may adequately address

global problems, but nonetheless adamant that citizenship education be strengthened in order to

address such problems (Lauder, Brown, Dillabough & Halsey, 2006: 56-58). Such adamancy

notwithstanding, one major obstacle for any citizenship education in a pluralistic democracy will

be to justify itself in the face of what are likely to be recurrent accusations that it supports a

particular set of substantive values associated with a particular moral conception of the common

good, against which there will probably be a variety of well-formulated and passionately

defended oppositional set of values and conceptions. The challenge is to first defend a

conception of justifiable (or at least relatively justifiable) citizenship education, and then to

locate, tentatively, where contemplative practices may play a role in supporting such a

conception.

I chose to focus much of my treatment of citizenship education on the writings of the

English theorist Bernard Crick, in particular because he has helped develop what I consider a

rather ingenious but also educationally justifiable way of advancing his conception of citizenship

education, and also because he was conveniently located in time and place to serve as the

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principal architect of a document which would later serve as the basis for the first relatively

standardized and nationally mandated citizenship education curriculum in England. In separating

substantive value from procedural value (the latter which forms part of political literacy) he and

others are able to advocate for a basic form of citizenship education that promotes a minimal set

of values, on which are predicated the very institutional and social operations of pluralistic

democracy. They are procedural values, democratic values, which do not theoretically push the

holders of such values significantly towards either leftist or rightist conceptions of the common

good. An example is the value of freedom, defined here as the freedom to make choices; and

especially ones of a political nature and which for the purposes of this thesis necessarily implies

the psychological capacity to withstand criticism and social rejection from those who may

disagree with one’s choices. If the cultivation of such a value is deemed worthy and justifiable

within citizenship education, it must thus be the school’s responsibility to not only teach the fact

of such a conception of freedom, but also to develop somehow the ‘inner’, emotional, or

precognitive disposition to feel free in making such choices. Toleration is also a procedural

value, and according to Crick genuine toleration implies a degree of empathy with opposing

viewpoints and beliefs we find distasteful, because without such a degree, toleration becomes

mere permissiveness, and is devoid of mutual respect. These things are especially critical to

living in pluralistic societies with their verifiable carnival of values. Other theorists such as

Habermas have also developed ideas that are relevant to serious thinking about the place of

values in education, vis-à-vis the procedures of achieving undistorted communication. Such

conceptions unavoidably endorse, at a psychological level, elevated degrees of attention

regulation, toleration, empathy, psychological health, emotion regulation, and attentiveness to

the thoughts and feelings of others. One might say that even if political literacy and effective

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citizenship depends first and foremost on factual knowledge about how politics ‘works’ (and

even Crick would not necessarily say this), the importance of appropriate attitudes, values, and

skills to the proper functioning of democracy must not be underappreciated or underestimated.

Citizenship education should therefore, in my view, nurture mindfulness and promote the

use of practices that generate the effects of mindfulness, and it may theoretically do so without

advocating for any particular conception of the common good. The ‘good citizen’ or the

‘effective citizen’ may vote (or on principle abstain from voting) in local and national elections,

send politically insightful and analytically sophisticated letters to newspapers, and even

participate in political demonstrations and protests, all of which are actions demonstrating

relatively high degrees of political literacy (and, admittedly, a more maximal-leaning conception

of citizenship). The ‘mindful citizen’ may do all of the above, but is in addition committed to (or

has been introduced to some degree) a contemplative practice under the auspices of developing

the attitudes, values, and skills presupposed in, for example, Crick’s conception of political

literacy and which go a long way towards the realization of Habermas’s conception of

undistorted communication. Though it is true that contemplative practices often derive from

religious communities, and religious communities certainly attempt to promote (at times

violently) their conceptions of morality and the common good, the use of contemplative practices

in citizenship education (in my proposal) would be strictly tied to the cultivation of democratic,

procedural-leaning values and attitudes.

Considering the above discussion of mindfulness and procedural values, my position is

that it is not unreasonable to tentatively propose an introduction of contemplative practices to

courses in citizenship or politics. Such an introduction does not necessarily need to be employed

strictly within citizenship courses or explicitly linked to the idea of citizenship, but certainly such

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practices, as I have shown, are not irrelevant to discourses and practices of citizenship education.

To the extent that they are introduced to children and adolescents in schools and can be shown to

produce some of the positive effects discussed above, I believe it may be said of them that they

are supporting the cause of political literacy, and thus of good or effective citizenship.

I am not suggesting that those who do not undergo such practices are not capable of

demonstrating high degrees of mindfulness on any of the various available mindfulness measures

(to the extent that they retain a degree of validity). Nor am I saying that without the

implementation of such practices that political literacy and democratic participation are

somehow doomed to failure. However, if Crick suggests that toleration and empathy with the

thoughts and beliefs of others are worthwhile and democratically valid values, attitudes, and

skills, why not employ practices which have been shown to develop empathic concern or

enhance receptiveness to the inner lives of others? If Baert, commenting on Habermas, argues

that psychological handicaps inhibit attempts to arrive at an ideal speech situation (no matter

how utopian), then why not employ practices that have been shown to improve affect and self-

esteem despite the threat of social rejection? If anger and hostility diminish the ability for

lawyers, activists, students, teachers, judges, and other citizens to communicate calmly and

rationally, why not employ under the framework of citizenship education practices that have

been shown to help alleviate aggression?

The mindful citizen might have a degree of training in contemplative practices, an

understanding of how the practices affect his brain and behavior, and definitely an education in

the more cognitive or factual dimensions of political literacy and democratic procedure. The

mindful citizen might reflect on her ability to pay attention to political discussions, as well as

understand and regulate her emotions when confronted with distasteful and competing

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conceptions of morality and the common good, and perhaps even be committed to training in

mindfulness meditation if she feels that her powers of attention or emotion regulation are not up

to the standards that she desires. If a teacher of citizenship perceives that a particular student is

severely distorting classroom communication by exhibiting a dangerous or even violent level of,

say, hostility or aggression towards the moral beliefs of another student (and is not

demonstrating an attempt to develop rational argumentation), then that teacher might be justified

in recommending some training in mindfulness or another contemplative practice, as well as

insisting more directly upon the procedural values of toleration and freedom.

The authors of Contemplative Practices and Mental Training: Prospects for American

Education are representative of the academic elite in Contemplative Education and in the

scientific study of contemplative practices. This very recent and high profile contribution by such

well-respected figures associated with the aforementioned fields is worth quoting at some length.

However, as my previous arguments have suggested, despite the established legitimacy of its

authors, it cannot be endorsed without qualifications of the kind explored in the previous

chapters. The authors say that

“current global conditions, including increasing economic interdependence, widespread intercultural contact, and the emergence of knowledge-based societies, require new forms of education…as central cultural contexts of human development, schools play a major role in cultivating the kinds of mental skills and socioemotional dispositions that young people will need to realize productive, satisfying, and meaningful lives in the 21st century… Drawing on research in neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental science, and education, as well as on insights from contemplative traditions concerning the cultivation of virtuous qualities, we highlight a set of mental skills and socioemotional dispositions that we believe are central to the aims of education in the 21st century. These include self-regulatory skills associated with emotion and attention, self-representations, and prosocial dispositions such as empathy and compassion” (Davidson et al., 2012: 146).

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It is certainly true that the world is experiencing increasing economic interdependence,

widespread intercultural contact, and the emergence of knowledge-based societies, and it seems

to me equally true that schools play a major role in cultivating skills and dispositions that young

people draw upon in creating productive and meaningful lives. I would also agree with the nod

towards contemplative practices as cultivators of self-regulatory skills and prosocial dispositions.

What I believe this account of the future of Contemplative Education lacks is a critical analysis

of context. It adheres too closely and narrowly to the mental health model of Contemplative

Education without acknowledging the urgent call for more discourse and practice of citizenship

education, a need which has been reiterated many times over by various sociologists,

philosophers, and theorists of education. The authors want to prepare young people for

productive, satisfying, and meaningful lives, but do not critically reflect on how modern society,

often operating through systems of education, constructs and promotes particular and self-

serving conceptions of production, satisfaction, and meaning. Nor do the authors seem to

acknowledge the notion that the arguably eroding health of certain Western democracies has the

potential to undermine the conditions for the creation of their conception of a productive,

satisfying, and meaningful life. It is much more worthwhile, in my view, to attempt to

conceptualize a legitimate role for contemplative practices within discourses and practices of

citizenship education. Insofar as citizenship education attempts to address and alleviate some of

the broader social ills faced in contemporary pluralistic democracies, then it might be wise for

proponents of Contemplative Education to develop links to citizenship and citizenship education.

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