POLITICAL STUDIES: 2000 VOL 48, 88–103

Citizenship Education: Anti-political

Culture and Political Education
in Britain
Elizabeth Frazer1
New College, Oxford

The British Government white paper ‘Excellence in Schools’ and the subsequent report of the
Advisory Group on Citizenship Education for Citizenship recommend that schools educate pupils in
citizenship and democracy. This recommendation is considered in the context of reasons why there
has traditionally been no formal or well articulated political education in schools. Among these
reasons a pervasive antipathy to politics and to government is identified as one of the most power-
ful. This antipathy is expressed from the left and the right wings of the political spectrum, and the
‘critical’ opposition to both, as well as from interests such as those defending professional and
personal autonomy. These arguments imply that ‘politics’ is optional, not a set of practices and
institutions with which individuals must be familiar. It is argued that this proposition cannot be valid.

In recent discussions regarding ‘education for citizenship’ and ‘education for dem-
ocracy’ in the UK a number of contributors have argued, more or less explicitly, that
the important thing is ‘education in values’. For example, from markedly different
perspectives on education and teaching in general, Nick Tate (then Chief Executive
of the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, now Chief Executive of the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority which has replaced it) and Richard Pring
(Professor of Education at the University of Oxford) have taken different argu-
mentative routes to broadly similar scepticism about political education. Tate has
been personally identified with the promotion of ‘values education’ and ‘moral and
spiritual education’ in schools. In a speech on the subject of ‘education for citizen-
ship’ he links the ‘promotion of moral reasoning’ and consideration of ‘core values
and virtues’ to basic knowledge of history, geography and economy, but steadfastly
avoids mentioning either ‘politics’ or ‘citizenship’. 2 Pring argues in general against
any ‘instrumentalist’ approach to education at all: ‘education for citizenship’ like
‘education for parenthood’ or ‘for work’ or ‘against drugs’ misses the educational
point which is to foster students’ capacities for knowledge, for reason and for inde-
pendence. ‘Education for citizenship’ is particularly suspicious when it is legislated
for by a government with unprecedented levels of centralized control over cur-
riculum, teaching methods, assessment and the governance of schools. Instead, edu-
cation should itself be democratic in its structures and pedagogy; and ‘democratic
education’ in the humanities would enable people to acquire the ability to reason
about ‘issues of supreme political importance: sexual relations, social justice, the
use of violence, the respect (or disrespect) for authority, racism and so on’. …
‘There is no need for a subject set apart’.3
In recent philosophy and political theory on the subject of citizenship education or
education for democracy, ‘education in values’ is a preoccupation also. Here, though,

© Political Studies Association, 2000.

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CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION 89

the question is to what extent is it permissible to promote certain values and,

indeed, certain character traits, in education? ‘Democrats’ and ‘political liberals’
argue that such promotion is unavoidable and indeed desirable if democratic
political systems are to be safeguarded. 4 ‘Neutralists’ and ‘libertarians’ emphasize
the overwheening value of autonomy, and the need, therefore, that children’s
education should not be directed to the capacity for any particular political and
social roles, including that of citizen; rather the aim of education is to allow persons
to choose between all roles and ways of life. 5 ‘Communitarians’ wish to educate
their children into a commitment to their culture or society, and its roles and
values.6 This may involve rejection of a dominant culture, and its roles and values
– hence calls for culture and religion specific education. 7 Both ‘neutralists’ and
‘communitarians’ then are unhappy about the inculcation of particular values,
roles, character traits and ways of life in state education. But notwithstanding these
disputes about ‘values’ and ‘roles’ there is little dissent, in this literature, from the
view that young people should be educated about constitutions, political institu-
tions, laws and political history, any more than there is dissent about the import-
ance of knowledge and understanding of mathematics, language and science.
In this article I discuss reasons why there is and has been no well established
tradition of ‘education for citizenship’, ‘education for democracy’, or ‘political
education’ in UK schools’ curriculum, with the result that young people are not
systematically educated about constitutions, political institutions, laws or political
history. The most important set of reasons, I argue, lies in the lack of any wide
assent to, consensus on, or even well articulated dominant account of the nature
of politics, civic life, or the constitution. One important constituent of this dis-
sensus about ‘politics’ is the weakness of the discourse or ideal of citizenship in UK
political culture and institutions. Another is that with the discrediting of a (crudely
speaking) ‘Whig’ view of British history no very robust conception of political pro-
cesses has been substituted for it in history teaching. But equally important is that
although ‘politics’ is construed only vaguely, its negative connotations are very
powerful. It is my contention that the emphasis on ‘values’, in the UK context,
is an explicitly de-politicizing move in the debate about the future of political
education.

‘Citizenship Education’ in Recent British

Government Policy
The UK Labour Government’s white paper on education ‘Excellence in Schools’ 8
expressed a determination that schools should ‘help to ensure that young people
feel that they have a stake in our society and the community in which they live by
teaching them the nature of democracy and the duties, responsibilities and rights
of citizens’.9
In the last two decades there has been a steady stream of projects with the aim of
having education for citizenship and democracy taken seriously in schools and
other educational institutions (for instance, youth clubs). 10 Promoters of this edu-
cational effort must have been pleased when ‘citizenship’ was named as a ‘cross-
curricular theme’ in the National Curriculum and curriculum guidance was drawn
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