Citizenship, democracy, education and the demands of the twenty-first century

Abstract

This thesis deals with citizenship education in democratic societies. Many of the issues democratic societies have to deal with have made clear that the health and the stability of a modern democracy depend not only on the justness of its ‘basic structure’, but also on the qualities and attitudes of its citizens. This explains why discussions on citizenship education have recently become so relevant. This thesis explores how citizenship has been conceptualized in the education policies of the Council of Europe, analysing how these have evolved from the 1950s and focusing in particular on the features of the model of Education for Democratic Citizenship that the Council is striving to implement from the 1990s. These concern the knowledge, skills and attitudes with which citizens should be equipped in order to participate in democratic life. This model is then critically assessed against standards established by political and educational theory in the field of citizenship education, in order to propose elaborations and to deepen the model