The practice of Civics and Citizenship Education in New South Wales primary schools

Abstract

Developing ‘active and informed’ citizens is a key goal of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational for Young Australians. The area of learning targeted at developing ‘active and informed’ citizenship in the Australian Curriculum is known as Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE). To reinforce the importance of CCE, an identified status was given to CCE in the Australian Curriculum. The Australian Curriculum- Civics and Citizenship Education (ACCC) was developed to guide the teaching of CCE. Several changes were made to ACCC since it was finalised at the end of 2013, including the integration of history, geography, CCE and business into a single subject – Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) in the primary curriculum. This posed a significant challenge to the implementation of ACCC, notably the differences in the timeline and nature of implementation across jurisdictions (Print, 2017). The implementation of ACCC is particularly problematic in New South Wales (NSW), as it is the only jurisdiction that had not started or planned to commence implementation of the ACCC as at 2019. Yet CCE, as explicitly stated in the Melbourne Declaration, is a key goal of Australian education and teachers are expected to teach it. Consequently, this study aimed to examine how primary schools in NSW prepared their students (Year 5-6) for effective participation in Australia’s democratic society, focusing on the schools’ curricula. The specific aim is to provide an empirical understanding of CCE practices in NSW primary schools. Based on a qualitative research design within a constructivist framework, qualitative data were collected in four case study schools across different school sectors. Data included the analysis of curriculum documents, interviews with school staff members and classroom observations. This study found that schools conceived citizenship beyond the conceptions taken in the ACCC, viewing CCE as a means to achieve both social and personal ends. Although schools acknowledged that CCE concepts could be addressed throughout the school curriculum, there is a general view that ‘everything is relevant’ to CCE. The delivery of CCE is largely incidental, instead of intentional and the goals of ACCC is not systematically integrated into the school curricula. Finally, schools largely focused on the ‘moral’ dimension of citizenship and less on the ‘political’ dimension. With the importance placed on CCE in addressing the wellbeing of Australia’s democracy, these findings suggest significant implications for federal and state policies for CCE, curriculum design, teachers’ pedagogies and the preparation of teachers to deliver CCE.