Citizenship education in the UK is not a priority and needs to be made one!
On the 8th of March, schools reopened as part of Boris Johnson’s roadmap to ease us out of lockdown and it made me think about how politics is taught in the higher education system. More specifically, the role schools play in the political participation of the masses. I don’t like the education system in this country because it’s eurocentric but most importantly for this post, it does not support working-class students and this affects how they engage in politics.
The role of the school in helping political engagement should present itself in two forms, participatory learning processes such as mock elections and knowledge acquisition through citizenship education classes where students are directly taught to engage in a democratic society and question its processes. Schools that have a higher disadvantaged intake, report participating in fewer political activities at school and have fewer experiences in an open classroom climate. This directly correlates to political participation in the form of voter turnout where those who came from a lower social group are less likely to vote.
Often people who don’t vote are shunned and I believe it’s important to find out the reasons why and factors that contribute towards this. Democratic inequality is hugely prominent within the UK and individuals from marginalised groups don’t want to participate because they feel their voice is not heard and have little faith in our political bodies. These thoughts often stem from a lack of education in the subject of politics it is imperative to understand that educational establishments play a crucial cognitive and social role in the development of political understanding (Flanagan and Levine, 2007).
The education system needs reform!
There is a lack of emphasis on citizenship education in school because it is not compulsory and this can be fixed if a greater priority is placed upon the subject, allowing disadvantaged students to gain knowledge and feel more inclined to engage in politics in the future. Furthermore, disadvantaged students should be identified and have specific activities catered to them to help their existing knowledge flourish. The teaching of the actual subject should be rectified by having staff specialised in the subject teaching it so that the content they provide actually stays with the students and allows them to formulate their own ideas confidently. These activities are even more important when you consider the ‘mitigating effect’, the notion that socioeconomic inequality in political engagement passes on from one generation to the next through the process of primary socialisation in the household (Schlozman and Brady, 2012). This means that disadvantaged pupils have more to gain from these specialised tasks in comparison to their peers who already experience this learning through cultural capital in their own homes. For example, Berstein identified that middle-class students tend to be brought up in an environment where open debate is the norm and young people’s autonomy in decision making and language skills are enhanced (2003).
This tells us that it is imperative for disadvantaged students to get efficient learning about politics in the classroom if we wish to see an increase in improvement and give a fair opportunity to all students. I believe that not giving students this opportunity is an infringement upon human rights, how can individuals exercise their right to participate in free elections if they are not properly taught about it enough to make an informed decision. I believe if we apply these changes to our current education system, we will see improvements made on the results of the 2019 general election where 18-34-year-olds who were in the lowest DE social grade had a turnout of 43% which was lower than any other group (IPOS Mori, 2019) as shown below:
Additionally, previous voter turnout for past elections and the EU referendum show this to be a recurring problem as shown below (IPOS, 2017):
Don’t blame schools, blame the lack of policy!
It is easy to blame schools for certain inadequacies but what it comes down to is the policies put in place to improve political engagement amongst the youth. Schools are simply following government guidelines and often can’t go above and beyond due to limited funds as a result of budget cuts. The current government in power does not value working-class people and the failings of the education system make that very clear. How are young people meant to challenge our democracy if they do not have the resources to cultivate their thoughts? Let alone those disadvantaged individuals who really need to be heard?? The House of Commons Library found that real-term spending on schools and colleges had slumped from £95.5bn in 2011/12 to £87.8bn last year, a total fall of £7.7bn (Independent, 2019). The Conservative government’s continued austerity measures mean that the prospect of citizenship education being taught effectively is on the back-burner but that does not mean we should not continue to hold the government accountable for its shortcomings.
If we want to see a change in socioeconomic inequality of political engagement we need to tackle the institutions which legitimise it and that starts with the government. Disparities in political engagement lead to public policy that favours the elite and enhances social exclusion (Gallego, 200) and if we are to end this, the institutions need to be dismantled and reformed.
Bibliography
Flanagan, C., and P. Levine. (2010) Civic Engagement and the Transition to Adulthood, The Future of Children, 20(1), pp. 159–179.
IPOS (2019) How Britain voted in the 2019 election. Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election (Accessed: 9 March 2021).
Great Blog! I really like how you’ve zoned in on a relevant issue like the pandemic.
I like how you’ve used your own thoughts on how schools are eurocentric. Do you think this is caused by government set standards, individual school choices, institutionalized racism, or other reasons? I ask because interestingly I have seen and experienced this eurocentrism much like every other British student, but for my GCSE history, we studied the American west and native Americans. We studied this from the point of native Americans and how brutal and unlawful white settlers were. I understand that everything we studied was whitewashed by history, but I still think it is interesting as that is the only time I have studied something in school that villainized Europeans. This made me question my schools’ choices. There may be a national curriculum but schools and teachers clearly have a choice of how they portray certain events. I don’t know what you think but I do think it makes schools and teachers take responsibility for the whitewashed curriculum.
I enjoy how you bring it back to the classroom and try to discuss a solution. Do you think that middle-class children who have experienced debates at home will dominate classroom discussions? I can think back to school and remember that the same 5 children would talk over the 30 other children. However, there is not really a simple solution for this I suppose, other than to encourage all students and to install confidence in everyone. I think in every classroom there will be a student who will be unfairly left behind.
I really like how you bring it back to the government at the end and call them out for their mismanagement.
Thanks for letting me be a part of the conversation 😊
Thank you very much, Miranda! I think the education system is inherently eurocentric because of institutional racism, this country is founded upon colonisation and so it is inevitable that these themes continue to find themselves present today. In my own time at secondary school, we only ever learned about key British historical figures as heroes such as Winston Churchill but since leaving came upon the fact that he was very much racist with numerous disparaging marks made against Indian people. Furthermore, I do respect the notion that teachers do have a choice in what they teach as I was able to do my history coursework on the long-term negative consequences of the British Empire on Fiji. However, I believe this to be insignificant as not all schools are allowed such flexibility, and something like coursework is different to the main learning objectives taught in class. To this day, I am still learning about the problematic actions of the people and events I was taught about in school and this is the direct result of being taught whitewashed content at the hands of a eurocentric curriculum.
I do believe that middle-class students have an advantage in the classroom and this can be supported by the surplus of cultural capital they are subject to at the hands of their wealthy parents. For example, in relation to having experience in debating, they are encouraged to watch the news which frequently observes PMQs and similar activities which depict members of Parliament in heated debate. These children commonly go to schools which reflect their background like private schools but the ones that don’t should attend schools that recognise this privilege as not to instigate bias within the classroom. Such fairness in the classroom will allow disadvantaged students to gain confidence and find strength in their own voice when participating in discussions.
The aforementioned reform is another example of where the education system fails to acknowledge socioeconomic inequalities amongst students and their correlation towards the political engagement amongst young people. Stilled engagement in classroom discussion prevents working-class students from efficient learning of politics and so will feel less inclined to engage in the future such as voting which symbolises the need to have their voice heard. Additionally, a eurocentric curriculum forces ethnic minority students to experience minimal representation which hinders their political engagement because they do not wish to contribute to another organisational body that fails to reflect marginalised people.
I hope that helped, thank you once again:)