Citizenship, Political Liberalism and the National Curriculum

Civics and citizenship education is a vital part of the Australian curriculum, as it prepares students to become active and informed citizens in the community (ACARA, 2012). The term “civics and citizenship” covers a range of topics that relate to both the geography and history syllabuses. This includes government and democracy, citizenship, diversity and identity and laws and citizens. For students to be able to develop the necessary skills, attitudes and values to become active and informed citizens, civics and citizenship must be incorporated throughout the curriculum (ACARA, 2012). To understand the importance of civics and citizenship in primary education, both terms need to be understood and comprehended

In the article named “Civic Education and Political Participation”. At beginning the author said that he found the people who engagement civic significantly decline especially young people , and today’s young people believed in America’s principle and in America dream. They are patriotic, tolerant and compassionate. And they said they want to volunteer during college. But they always characterize their volunteering as an alternative to official political. They have limit knowledge of government’s impact, either on themselves or on those they seek to assist. Then he found that the solidarity organizations that dominated the U.S. landscape have weakened and the principle of individual choice has emerged as our central value. So he came to focus about the civic education. The most failure of civic education is that we have made a major

In the second part of the work, Rawls considers the implications of his view of justice for social institutions. He discusses in detail equal liberty, economic distribution, and duties and obligations as well as the main characteristics of each that would make up a just society. He does not, however, identify any particular type of social or political system that would be consistent with his theory. He deals only with the demands that his version of justice places on institutions. In the third and final section, Rawls deals with ends or ultimate goals of thinking about social justice. (JF, 274-278) He argues for the need to have a theory of goodness, and he makes a case for seeing goodness as rationality. Then, he turns to moral psychology and considers how people acquire a sentiment of justice. Finally, he examines the good of justice, or how justice is connected to goodness. Rawls argues that in a well-ordered society, ideas of goodness and justice must be consistent with each

A democratic citizen is an individual that is part of a democratic political system and society which involves having responsibilities and rights like voting, freedom of speech, and to choose the type of government citizens want. In the book “Citizenship”, Bellamy discusses how past definitions of citizenship have molded today’s definition by elaborating on “who is a citizen, the kind of contribution the state and other citizens can expect of him or her”. For example, anticipated qualities in a citizen, in the past, were nationalism and identification with the rest of the community in regards to having the same morals, and principles. In a democracy, citizenship is truly valued when the democratic government fights for total equality and an

Liberalism is a philosophy that reacts all types of of moral absolutes and authority that is religious.

Bruno Bauer is wrong in writing about the lack of importance of religion in a secular state. He believes secular state is not against religion, and then shifts back to the question of political emancipation and says that even if people will become “politically” free in such state, they are still bound by the economic inequality. This idea resembles one of Mill about the equality of individuals and we see how they agree on a point that everyone should be equal, regardless any private

In this paper, it will be submitted that some forms of establishment such as that in England and Scotland is consistent with religious freedom. While other forms of establishment such as that in Iran, which is noted as being an Islamic theocracy with the adoption of Sharia law is not consistent with religious freedom.

This status quo turned into made legal guidelines and their meanings that help construct Orthodox Judaism a place in Israel (Goldberg, 2003). Israel is not a theocracy, which refers to political regimes that are solely based on religious principles and ruled by religious leaders (McCoy, Religion, and politics). However, religion plays an important role in the state relations (Goldburg, 2003). The argument of secularization has two bases, one empirical and the other normative. The empirical component notes that as Western societies modernized, their political systems invariably become more secular (Handelman, Chapter 3). While normative argument holds that secularization is not only a common trend, but it is also desirable because it increases religious freedom, reduces the likelihood of state persecution of religious minorities, and permits the state to make more rational decisions free of religious bias. (Handelman, Chapter

Because the state is the enactor of policies and proposals that affect its constituents’ lives, it also must define the secular and the religious, which ultimately leads to a privileging of some forms of religiosity over others. For instance, in reference to the Turkish government’s policy proposals elevating the Alevi minority’s status, Hurd concludes that “these [legal] designations marginalize multiform and dissenting forms of religiosity, occluding a broader field of human activity, investments, and practices that may or may not be captured in the set of human goings-on identified as religion” (107). Here the state attempts to craft particular religious groups in order to gain some sort of special legitimacy within the public sphere; however, by doing this, the state not only molds a particular religious subjectivity but also rejects the one’s which cannot be framed within the model of the public sphere. Unlike Charles Taylor’s emphasis that the public sphere is “a locus in which rational views [that the governed consent] are elaborated which guide the government,” it is the modern state government that ultimately creates the governed, who will participate within the public sphere

To Taylor to dismiss these groups has parallels with colonialisms dismissal of the cultures of indigenous peoples. In this respects Liberalism just as prior western ideas is viewed as thinking itself universal and that which falls outside of its parameters as archaic, wrong at its worst and only tolerated at best in effect reverse discrimination. Here Taylor views the ideas of such as Rawls to be overly individualistic and liberalism as a culturally bound idea itself with secularism as doctrine of difference blindness (Sward) .The relevance of religion with the liberal world can be demonstrated by views on abortion, with liberalism having promoted women's rights and pro-choice often in opposition to the catholic position of pro-life. Religion in this respect does impact upon political life and in the USA pro-life have at times gone to extreme measures in opposition such as killing doctors that have performed abortions. Rawls in his later writings qualifies his position that while democracy needs to factor in reasonable plurality, contracts could be made within each plurality so long as they are reasonable and fit within a democratic framework. It suggests that this shall be fulfilled by rational people, it would argued that aspects of religion are not reasonable rather dogmatic and extreme as is the case of violence towards pro-choice advocates would be unjust in a democratic society, but when abiding by law religious groups can add valuable contribution to the debate and should be free to express opinion.

This essay summarises the chapter "The development of social citizenship in Britain". The chapter begins by exploring Aflred Marshall 's idea that a right to a state funded education was essential to developing citizenship in the late 19th to mid 20th century. The chapter then takes an in depth look at how the changes to the welfare provided in the first two decades of the twentieth century paying close attention to Fiona Williams argument that social divisions such as class, race and gender shaped the way policies were made. Finally, the chapter discusses T.H. Marshall 's account of citizenship.

In this paper we will look at the original position as a constructive procedure for recognizing the principles of justice, and I will defend such a procedure from the arguments made by G.A. Cohen in Rescuing Justice and Equality. Rawls’s constructivism is characterized by the use of the concept of the original position. Rawls is a constructivist in the sense that the principles of justice are products of a choice made in the original position. The procedure for making the decision of which principles are to obtain is central in Rawls’s account – the substance of these procedures are therefore, according to Rawls, determined neither by human psychology nor a system of conceiving-independent values. The basis for such principles are constructed by equal and free persons under fair conditions, and so is referred to as “justice as fairness” (Theory of Justice 11).

Teachers are required to educate students about values, civics and citizenship, however, many teachers do not have a concrete understanding of what these topics are or how to teach them. This essay will discuss the definition of these topics and how they relate to students’ lives, it will also look at The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians and the ways in which the recommendations from this report have been woven into the Australian Curriculum via the humanities and social sciences subject strand and finally discuss a content descriptor relating to civics and citizenship and how it can be applied to a classroom learning outcome.

This academic exercise serves to provide an institutional critique on the Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) from its conception in 2011. My hypothesis suggests that CCE is a continuity of the historical economic-efficiency paradigm centering on the symbiotic discourses of survival, global competitiveness & “communitarian” (Chua, 1995) vision and model of citizens’ character, values and functions. Through a structural analysis or ahistorical-comparative method” (Neuman, 2006) on the history of values education within the contexts of the corresponding economic imperatives - economic pragmatism and social cohesion appears to be at the centre of these discourses. These ideological structures seem to have continued in the current CCE

This contextual secularism recognizes that the conflict between duties and rights and group rights or between claim of equality and liberty of beliefs claims liberty and satisfaction of basic need as adjudicated by recourse to some general is require a fine balancing of competing claims. As a character of secularism Multi value doctrines, not the giving up of values. It can be say that contextual secularism ideals and allows them in public arena. Religion or religious ideology from politics whenever threaten and it is not committed merely to the presentation of life any substantive value consistent with life of dignity for all. As Geremy Bentham recommended ‘greatest good for the greatest number of the people.’