Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools

sexual morality and behaviour, and parenting. Each of these presumably begins
with classroom discussions centred on personal responsibility – clearly PSE
territory in every sense; but in secondary school these issues will be also
discussed as issues of public policy identified with parties and pressure groups,
justice and law enforcement – more plainly Citizenship.
8. We are both aware how ambivalent is public opinion (certainly the press):
demands that something must be done in schools in both fields, but fears that
the wrong things are being done; sometimes a naive belief that values can be
directly taught, coupled with a somewhat contradictory fear of indoctrination.
The view is even expressed that schools should keep out of both areas because
of fears of bias, so ‘leave it to the parents’. Because of this my group has just set
up a sub-committee on ‘The Teaching of Controversial Issues’ with the aim of
providing an advisory paper aimed both to assuage public worries and to give
teachers some practical guidance. (David Kerr will see that an early draft
reaches you with the possibility in mind of a broadly common approach, at least
non-contradictory statements – possibly even a joint statement).
9. To put it briefly. I myself would be quite happy, despite the remit of my Group
to cover all the time in school, simply to set out what citizenship learning
objectives should be met in Key Stages 1 and 2, presumably to be taught in PSE.
‘What’s in a name’ (I have recently visited a primary school in a problem area
that teaches all I want to mean by Citizenship under the rubric PSE; and visited
another that under the flag of ‘Citizenship’ tackles many of the objectives you
set out, with a particular emphasis on ‘parenting’). But for Stages 3 and 4
I would see a Citizenship programme as having substantially different goals
from PSE; so that both areas need a definite and different curriculum even if
(which is important) there are fruitful areas of overlap – the approach, for
example, to crime and drug abuse as personal responsibility, but also to be
examined and discussed as social and political problems. ‘Overlap’ is not an
invitation to time-table a consolidation of teaching at that level, rather should
be seen as a fruitful reinforcement. To put it logically: PSE is a necessary but not
a sufficient condition for good citizenship.
10. I hope this genuine attempt to clarify is welcome, not itself confusing.
Yours sincerely,
Bernard Crick
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