Political education in schools

Abstract

Political education is now backon the agendain Britain following the election of the Labour government and the report of the working party, under the chairmanship of Bernard Crick, set up to investigate ways as to how citizenship issues for all pupils can be better, or at least formally, introduced intoschools. In Central and Eastern Europe the ending of Communist one-party rule has put the issue of education for democracy to the fore. Also, it is to be positively noted that the European Ministers of Education, meeting in Madrid in Summer 1997 at the 18th session of their standing conference, concluded that there was a need for a coherent and sustained approach by schools to education for democratic citizenship. This paper hopes tobe part of this process by explaining the experiences of 30 years of the formal teaching of political literacy (albeit nottoevery pupil) in Scottish secondary schools through the unique Modern Studies, while touching on recent experiences in Central and Eastern Europe, evidence as to the effectiveness of political education and its role in a democracy.