10A_02.17 - 10A_02.17 | Текст песни

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• 10A_02.17
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Citizenship education is a hot topic at the moment and we’re seeing more countries introduce it into the curriculum in schools. But many people wonder if the approach of teaching children about the country’s laws and political institutions and so on actually helps them to be better citizens. Here to discuss this is sociologist Louis James. Louis, surely any training is better than none, isn’t it?
Well, I’d like to say yes and I know the intentions are good, but I’m afraid this kind of citizenship education is missing the point.
And what is the point?
Of course, teaching people about the way institutions function is important, but what’s far more important is to get people to think about what their duties and responsibilities to society are.
And in your view, young people don’t know what those are.
Well, I don’t think there are any clear-cut answers. That’s why I said ‘get them to think about’ these things. It’s a question of taking notice of others in your community. There was an interesting survey done, some years ago now, by the ISSP – that’s the International Social Survey Programme – which asked people from all around the world what they thought the duties of a good citizen were. People were asked to rate the importance of various duties, for example: ‘to be active in social organisations’; or ‘always to obey laws and regulations’. But there were some duties on a more human level, like ‘to try to help people who are worse off than you’; and ‘to try to understand the reasoning of people with other opinions’.
And you think that sort of duty is closer to the spirit of good citizenship, do you?
Yes, I don’t think the starting point should be how we relate to state institutions, but how we relate to each other, at a more basic level.
And how did people rate these duties? I imagine there wasn’t that much difference in the way different nationalities responded, was there?
Actually, there was – huge variation. For example, 60 per cent of Filipinos thought it was very important to be involved in social organisations, whereas only 15 per cent of Japanese did. There were also some unexpected findings. In Switzerland, only half the people surveyed thought always obeying laws and regulations was very important.
That is surprising, isn’t it?
It is. And there were great differences too when it came to feelings of duty to one another. 80 per cent of Mexicans thought it was very important to help people worse off than you. In some other countries, it was as low as 30 per cent.
So you’d like to see more discussion in schools about our duties to each other then?
Yes, I think we need to get children thinking about the basic things they can do to help a community function better: taking care of their environment, helping poorer people in the community, being open-minded and tolerant of differences. If you get those things right, the other elements will naturally follow.

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