Citizenship, education and democratisation in South Africa

Continued conflicts within democratic states emphasise the need to develop citizens who uphold the ideals of democracy and nationhood. Education provides one avenue through which government can directly affect citizenship formation although these interventions are contested by local and global influences. This research focuses on such contestations in a newly democratic state, South Africa.

South African education policy seeks to reconcile historical differences whilst building an equitable multicultural society. These interventions, aimed at creating an ideal democratic citizen, are experienced in local contexts that challenge official conceptions of citizenship. These tensions, and those within education policy between different citizenship qualities, are the focus to this research and address questions of how is the ‘ideal’ citizen conceptualised? What are the educational strategies and practice for constructing the citizen? What tensions emerge between different elements of citizenship education? What kind of democratic citizenry is produced?

Through these questions this research seeks to understand the range of ideas about citizenship operating within South Africa and their relevance to the project of democratisation. The appropriate methodology to provide this understanding includes policy analysis, content analysis of curriculum materials, and discourse and narrative analysis of interview data from informants across the policy-making and –implementation spectrum.

This page provides an entry point to academics, teachers, and others interested in citizenship and education in South Africa. Over time this page will be populated with links to materials arising from this project: academic papers, working papers, teaching resources, and other outputs.

Project outputs:

Hammett, D and Staeheli, S 2009 Citizenship Education in South Africa: A Report to Schools

Staeheli, S and Hammett, D Forthcoming Educating the New National Citizen: Education, Political Subjectivity, and Divided Societies. Citizenship Studies