Citizenship education and the curriculum ideologies of Natural Sciences and Life Sciences curricula in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa has had several curriculum reforms since the commencement of a democratic dispensation, which were aimed at redressing the inequalities and injustices of the apartheid regime by introducing citizenship education. In the present research, the researcher investigated the curriculum ideology of two science subjects, Natural Sciences and Life Sciences. Natural Sciences is taught in Grades 7–9 and Life Sciences is taught in Grades 10–12. Document analysis using a previously validated standardised document analysis instrument was used to analyse the curriculum documents of these subjects to determine their curriculum ideology. Results suggest that four ideologies, namely, discipline-centred ideology, service-centred ideology, student-centred ideology and citizenship-centred ideology, are reflected in these subjects, albeit in varying extents. The citizenship-centred ideology, which supports citizenship education, was the least supported. Citizenship education may also not be achieved through these two subjects given the apparent lack of focus on the citizenship-centred ideology.