Schooling for democracy

Young people today are regarded as having little knowledge of their history, their social and political traditions, their political institutions and their Constitution. Various governments and school systems have responded to this by mandating curricular inclusions relating to citizenship or civics. While there is value in this approach, Steve Wilson suggests that students could more effectively learn about democracy through holistic opportunities for participation in the school classroom. Responding to a need to develop in young Australians a greater knowledge of and interest in their political history and institutions, several school systems in Australia have in recent years introduced units in civics and citizenship. Typical responses to such mandated curricula are the production of various curriculum kits and other resources by departments of education and publishers. In schools, a likely response is the development of discrete units of work, perhaps to be included within Social Studies or (in NSW) Human Society and Its Environment, in which students learn about society, democracy, government, politics and being a good citizen. While such teaching approaches have value, there is a body of literature which indicates that the ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"unit of workââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ approach to instilling democratic values and skills in students is not ideal (for example, Knight 1994; Power 1992). Learning about democracy in this way has all the disadvantages of traditional academic learning approaches: it is theoretical rather than applied learning, it is removed from the real life experiences of students, and it results in superficial and short-term learning rather than deep and lifelong learning. This literature suggests that a far more effective way of learning about democracy, citizenship and government is for young people to experience elements of democracy and citizenship within the parameters of everyday school life. Real learning about democracy is achieved by students participating in democracy, and schools need to provide environments which allow experiential learning about democracy and citizenship through student participation in schools. There is a misconception that in order to learn about democracy in schools, students need to participate through student organisations such as student representative councils (SRCs). While SRCs are critical tools in facilitating student participation, it would be wrong to limit our notion of student participation to SRCs. Schools should provide holistic opportunities for participation. Important forms of participation do occur in school contexts, especially classrooms. It is the notion of a supportive, holistic environment for participation that underpins this paper.