Crossed Perspective about Citizenship Education in Brazil and Canada: Social Inequity and Participation in Public Debate

Abstract

The article aims to identify principles that underlie democracy and citizenship in Quebec, English Canada and Brazil. For this, it uses a comparative perspective to present and analyses the origins, foundations and evolution of citizenship education in the school curriculum in these realities. By putting forward the similarities and differences between these three societies, it emerges that the more difficult experience of Brazil with regard to democracy and social equity, in part because of its colonialist history, induces concerns about citizenship education that are very different from those observed in Quebec and English Canada. While in Canada citizenship education is for the most part centred on active and informed participation in democratic conversation, in Brazil citizenship education is largely articulated around issues of social inequity and social justice.