Summary - Chapter 4: Learning Civics

LEARNING CIVICS

NATIONALISM: THE MODERN PAST

NEOLIBERALISM: MORE RECENT TIMES

CIVIC PLURALISM: TOWARDS NEW LEARNING

Dimension 1: State power

• Modern states command and citizens comply. Some command directly – as was
the case in the imperialism, fascism and communism of the 20th century. Others are milder, such as welfare state democracies where citizens periodically get the chance to vote for representatives in government but don’t participate much beyond the infrequent electoral process

• Smaller government, allowing the market to rule

• Based on values of competition, self-reliance, responsibility

• Globalisation reduces the power and significance of the nation-state

• Multiple layers
of self-governing community: local communities, workplaces, cultural groups

• A shift in the balance of agency that favours citizens

• Diffusion and globalisation of the structures of governance

• Many levels of civic participation and responsibility: community organisations, corporate, government agencies; local, national, regional, global levels of citizenship

Dimension 2: Public services

• Identical services, unequal outcomes

• Privatisation, deregulation, cuts in the welfare state

• Social entitlement and fairness: equivalence of services with devolution of control and diversity in provision

• An efficient and sufficient state

Dimension 3: Belonging and citizenship

• Identical, substitutable individuals

• A single national story

• Mass culture, mass society

• Exclusion or assimilation of outsiders

• Global connections and local diversity become more marked

• Attempts to homogenise communities are less effective and are considered a violation of rights

• Multiple citizenship

Dimension 4: Learning civility

• Teaching instils loyal belief in the stories of the nation-state

• Literacy taught in the standard form of the national language

• Partial retreat of
the state: self- managing schools, non-government schools, superficial multiculturalism and uncertainty about what to teach as citizenship

• Learning an active, bottom-up citizenship in which people
can take a self- governing role in many divergent communities