This topic area deals with voter information, voter education and the related concept of civic education. In many instances, voter education forms a component of a civic education curriculum. The existence of an on-going civic education programme can certainly lay the groundwork for - and enhance the impact of - voter education initiatives.
Civic education, however, can be broadly defined in ways that clearly take it outside the realm of electoral politics and the election administrator. It is possible that a person responsible for voter education may also be involved in a broader civic education enterprise. Indeed, there is something to suggest that voter education is really an amalgam of voter information and certain aspects of a civic education programme, that is, those dealing with elections.
Civic education is largely conducted in informal adult education settings, although there are aspects of formal education in schools. This section of the topic area considers "Alternative Approaches and Terminology" and some of the "Standard Civic Education Messages" which civic educators consider important.
Continuing Uncertainty
There are two temptations in this enterprise. One is to consider everything to be civic education, and for it to be established as the integrating principle and sine qua non of all educational endeavours. The other is to restrict it to a small corner isolated from the rest of life's learning processes. Both are being tried in practice, if not considered in theory. Neither are particularly helpful. The balance that is required for citizens to both feel empowered and actually be empowered to participate in founding, building, and sustaining democracies appropriate to their own context is the next challenge for democracy activists and educators.
Terminology
Practitioners of civic education have chosen a range of different terms to describe their work. They choose names for the educational approach that they believe conveys most appropriately the aims of such education. Each of the names, or terms, selected has its own dilemmas and its own operating assumptions. But an analysis of the concept through consideration of the terms does provide some insight into the concerns of the civic educator.
Education for Democracy
Programmes defining themselves as education for democracy concern themselves with preparing people for democracy on the assumption that it must be established and then maintained. Amongst the content of such an educational programme will be the skills and understanding necessary for this establishment and maintenance.
Educators may conduct education for democracy programmes in undemocratic societies and see this as a social intervention in ensuring that they become more democratic. The definition of democracy, therefore, becomes very important both in determining what should be taught and also in the actual educational programme. Such a definition might be a classical one: but it might also be a more radical one, including aspects of industrial democracy, consumer rights, and social justice.
Citizenship Education
Once a society has established a code by which citizenship is established, educators may consider that people require education in which they become more like the ideal citizen. The rights, roles and responsibilities of citizenship will be emphasised. This educational intervention may actually be linked with the naturalisation process by which immigrants become citizens. As such, it is likely to invoke serious discussion of the legal position of citizens and the manner in which their identity and relationship to the state is defined. The general approach may well be assimilationist, but there will also be those programmes that consider matters such as those expressed in the next paragraph and maintained separately only for the purpose of this discussion.
Education for Citizenship
Citizenship can be defined not solely or narrowly in legal terms but rather in terms of the manner in which people exercise their responsibilities towards other people and the state, or where a state does not exist, to the construction of communal life. Education in support of citizenship, expressed as a set of relationships and responsibilities incumbent on each person and the responsiveness of the state towards this person and the members of his or her community, will consider the skills of active citizenship. Such skills, when expressed, make a person a citizen. Before that they are only a subject.
Such skills may include those necessary to take part in an election, or to make communal decisions, or to participate in public debate. They are likely to include those necessary for ensuring a responsive state or for participating in its construction. These skills may include advocacy, organising, and lobbying for public policy. Education programmes dealing with citizenship are based on the assumption that citizenship is possible. In other words, they are more likely to take place in societies where the concept of citizen has been established and where the practice of citizenship is possible. Such societies have, whether explicitly or implicitly, constitutional arrangements that recognise individuals and their contribution to governance and their relationship as an independent actor within the country and in relation to the state.
Political Education
Those who consider the conduct of public life in the polis or polity, however established, to be important may describe their work as political education. Where politics exists, individuals need to develop literacy (the ability to read and understand the political life around them)).They need to learn ways to participate in that political life.
Social analysis, the investigation of public discourse and communication, the understanding of the ways in which political and social systems interact and the manner in which they negotiate and divide power will all be a part of such an educational programme.
Leadership Training
A final form of civic education is best described as leadership training. Such training presupposes that leadership can and should be learned and then exercised by humans. The programme will consider a wide range of leadership skills and relationships. They are likely to consider questions of personal and political power with a strong ethical and value-driven approach to power. There are two strands of leadership education. While they have some things in common, and historically appear to have been driven by similar concerns, they manifest themselves in different societies or different strata within societies.
The responsible exercise of power:
Within their organisational framework many churches, clubs, youth clubs (the Scouting movement is one example), and philanthropic societies such as Rotary provide leadership training that focuses on skills development, ethics, social virtues, and so on..
Achieving leadership:
Organisations with less access to power in the society tend to use leadership training programmes that are highly experiential in methodology, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, conducted with those who are denied leadership in society.
At the heart of the discussion about appropriate terminology is the debate about the purpose of such education. Is it merely to inculcate behaviour and skills that fit a person for a predetermined society, or does it have a vital role to play in equipping people to act on and change their environment? The practice varies widely. Fortunately, in societies that are not wracked by war, the ready flow of information and the general international consensus in favour of democracy has meant that the majority of people have the opportunity denied many of their forebears. They can become rulers of their own destinies if only they have the will, the skills and some measure of freedom from want and fear.
Standard Civic Education Messages
Here are at least five standard messages (or themes) that should be covered in a civic education programme.
- the meaning of democracy
- the role, responsibility and rights of citizens
- good governance
- democratic principles and procedures and
- democratic institutions and laws
Background
The purpose of civic education is to encourage citizens to participate fully in the political life of a community and country committed to the fundamental values and principles of democracy. With this as a working purpose, those planning and conducting civic education programmes have developed considerable variety in their syllabi or curricula.
At school level, institutions in Australia and the United States of America have established standards or benchmarks setting out precisely what should be covered in an educational programme. Such precision does not seem to be similarly available in other countries, nor is it available for informal interventions with adults. Yet civic education, if conducted only at schools, has the potential to reduce itself to the same level as other subjects which become irrelevant either after school or even during the school period because of the limited opportunities for children to participate in political life.
There is some consensus about the types of messages that have to be developed into theoretical statements that form the backbone of a standard civic education curriculum for adults. These messages will be supplemented by additional materials that take seriously the history of each society and the way it deals with the concepts of contingent consent and bounded uncertainty, and the rules and practices of their particular democracy. These standard messages will revolve around the following topics:
The meaning of democracy - definitions, types, and challenges.
As an example of what educators might prepare to guide learners in their discussion of this subject area and to make available in educational materials, a document that deals with the definition of democracy has been prepared, see Meaning of democracy. The same document also suggests ways in which the subject matter could be used in educational events and conveyed to groups of learners.
The role, responsibilities and rights of citizens.
See Basic Voter Education for discussion of this subject and the importance of dealing with both rights and responsibilities. Individual citizens have limited power in relation to a state unless that state respects and protects the rights of that citizen. Without that protection, it is difficult to speak of responsibilities. Indeed, the responsibility of the person is likely to be to force that state to recognise human rights and democracy.
Good governance
A citizen is empowered to the extent that he or she understands how government operates and has criteria for judging its performance. As government has increasingly come to be seen as a process in which the state, elected officials and individuals acting in concert govern collaboratively, it has been called governance. Good governance not only requires citizen participation, it educates those citizens about democracy and participation.
But good governance must fulfill certain criteria, such as transparency, legitimacy, accountability, responsiveness, and effectiveness. It must do this under conditions where participation may force trade-offs between efficiency and democracy. These are amongst the most important and most difficult concepts to consider in a civic education programme.
Democratic principles and procedures
Democracy has values. More importantly, democracy relates to practices, rituals, and procedures that allow citizens to make choices, to ensure the presence of a representative government, and periodically to provide an opportunity to judge the effectiveness of that government.
These values or principles are expressed in action. As such, citizens must understand these principles, which may be universal, and how different societies have been built to ensure that these principles are expressed. Citizens will also want to explore the manner in which their own country's practices enhance or inhibit democratic principles.
It is useful to make a distinction between democratic principles and practices, as doing so can prevent a country from importing practices that may be taken for granted as being essential to democracy. Instead, countries can examine the suitability of such practices and whether the same principles can be expressed in more culturally appropriate forms.
Democratic institutions and laws
Each country is likely to have its own set, however new, of democratic institutions and laws. These have to be acknowledged and understood if people are going to be able to make use of them, assist in refining or altering them, and change or disestablish them.
Educators have to work out ways to ensure that materials appropriate to their own country are prepared to cover these topics. It is possible to obtain general and comparative information. While this is important in and of itself, it is only as this general and comparative information speaks directly to the needs of the learner group that it really comes to life. Indeed, educators have to constantly make themselves open to finding new examples from different places and different times to relate to their own circumstances.
