Teaching Tomorrow’s Citizens

What is the role of schools in preparing citizens of the future? What should citizenship education comprise and how should it be taught?

Citizenship education has been transformed in the last 20 years in response to the wide range of political, social, economic and ethical concerns that societies now face in a globalised world. But with the EU referendum exposing deep divisions within and between communities in the UK, it is clear that we need to revisit the question of how

best to prepare young people for lives of engaged and active citizenship.

Schools are generally recognised as playing a crucial role in developing citizens of the future, helping to equip young people with the ability to debate and deliberate, to question, critique and understand differences in their communities. But with an already crowded curriculum, do we have to accept that the responsibility for citizenship education can’t – and indeed, shouldn’t - lie solely with schools?