?Ǩ?ou?ǨѢre a grade ?ǨA?ǨѢ citizen?Ǩ Teachers?ǨѢ and students?ǨѢ perceptions of assessing citizenship.
Mary Richardson
Abstract
In recent years, citizenship education has featured prominently on both political and educational agendas. In England since 2002, citizenship has been a statutory, core subject in the National Curriculum for maintained secondary schools. The intrinsic value of educating young people about the responsibilities of citizenship is not in dispute here; but concerns related to the introduction of citizenship are emerging. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) described the new programme of study for citizenship as ?Ǩ?ight touch?Ǩ(QCA, 2001), meaning that its implementation should be necessarily flexible for teachers. But, despite the flexibility proposed in the implementation of the citizenship curriculum, there is research which suggests that some schools are experiencing difficulty with the assessment of the subject (for example, Ofsted 2005; Kerr & Cleaver, 2004). Consequently, attitudes towards students?ǨѢ achievements in citizenship education deserve some further investigation.
This paper presents a brief discussion of the literature of citizenship assessment in the context of a research study which is investigating attitudes of students and teachers towards current modes of assessment for citizenship. A summary of the results from three pilot interviews with students and teachers in secondary schools is discussed and plans for further research are presented.
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Editor-in-Chief: Prof Norbert Pachler
UCL Institute of Education, University College London
ISSN 1746-9082