2014 Volume 81 Issue 2 Pages 138-149
In this paper, citizenship education in contemporary global society will be considered as a form of education for membership. From this perspective, I shall emphasize that what is newly required of citizenship education is not becoming a citizen or developing citizens, as has been the aim until now, but rather forming people who can create a public sphere.
In recent years, some children have not been engaged in this common sphere. These children stay in their own sphere, and do not try to move into the common sphere. For example, they gather only within their own ethnic group or cultural group. Or perhaps they spend the whole day shut away in their own room. They make no attempt to enter into the community or society and to share the common sphere with others. They reject socialization, live in their own private sphere, and distance themselves from the community, society and nation.
On the other hand, there are other people who would like to be part of their community and society, but who cannot manage to enter society. They are excluded from community and society, and so create their own groups. In such groups, morals and ethics are intended only for the purposes of the group, not for all people. Similarly, regulations and rules are just for their own group, and not for all people. In this situation, academic knowledge, understanding and skills are used only for the benefit of specific interests, so these groups do not function effectively for the benefit of all.
In the past, inclusion in or exclusion from society was an external decision, not an internal matter for constituent members of society, especially children, who had no right to make a personal choice. Decisions about inclusion and exclusion thus took a negative form for children.
In this context, some nations and societies reconstructed the relationship of inclusion and exclusion and, like England, introduced citizenship education into school education in an effort to implement education for direct membership. The aim of this education was not to make students accept the nation state and society, but to create a public sphere in the classroom, transforming the classroom sphere into a common sphere where the principles of democratic rule could be experienced and accepted.
In the present situation, socialization is metamorphosing into private individual issue, which can be explained as the expansion of “privatization.” Consequently, it is possible to interpret the expansion of privatization in society as a movement to construct new relationships in society from the private domain. However, many views do not concur with this interpretation, seeing the increase of the private sphere as an escape to a shelter outside society. When people distance themselves from society, they threaten the existence of that society. People are required to relate to organizations that represent society and the nation. This is where education is needed to develop people as members of society, the nation and the organization. It may be citizenship education which is able to fulfil the role of this new type of education for membership. Education for membership carried out through modern public education and school education is not sufficient, and new initiatives are required. New citizenship education can be conceived as a form of education for membership that is different from traditional forms.
