The Maturing Citizen? Sixty Years of Citizenship Education in Scotland

Abstract

I first started teaching politics, as a Modern Studies teacher, in 1975, and the thirty-five years since have seen many subtle changes and developments. Some of these have been 'natural' changes; if a course covers current affairs and contemporary events, then the course content the backdrop against which the course plays out has to change with changing times. In the 1970s, trade unionism, the Soviet Union and apartheid in South Africa were key components of the higher course; in the twenty-first century, students are likelier to examine different approaches to poverty and to health inequalities in UK society, or the politics of developing Africa. Remarkably, Russia has entirely disappeared from the syllabus at all levels altogether for the moment. (The 1990 exams in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall made nonsensical reading.) China, on the other hand, has grown to join the eternal USA as a popular topic of study. Arguably the biggest changes, of course, have been the growth of an identifiable and often compulsory Scottish dimension to match Scotland's growing assertiveness politically. We even have new voting systems to teach: each of the four elections in Scotland, for Westminster, Holyrood, local councils, and the European Parliament, uses a different method.