Active citizenship
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Active citizenship refers to a philosophy espoused by organizations and educational institutions which advocates that members of companies or nation-states have certain roles and responsibilities to society and the environment, although those members may not have specific governing roles.
Active citizenship can be seen as an articulation of the debate over rights versus responsibilities. If a body gives rights to the people under its remit, then those same people might have certain responsibilities to uphold. This would be most obvious at a country or nation-state level, but could also be of wider scope, such as the Internet (Netizen) or Earth (global citizenship). The implication is that an active citizen is one who fulfills both their rights and responsibilities in a balanced way.
A problem with this concept is that although rights are often written down as part of law, responsibilities are not as well defined, and there may be disagreements amongst the citizens as to what the responsibilities are. For example, in the United Kingdom, citizens have the right to free health care, but voting in elections is not compulsory, even though many people would define this as a responsibility.
Writing a clear definition of responsibilities for an active citizen is much more problematic than writing a list of rights. For example, although voting might be considered a basic responsibility by many people, there are some who through disability or other issues are not able to participate fully in the voting process.
An active citizen is someone who takes a role in the community; the term has been identified with volunteering by writers such as Jonathan Tisch, who wrote in the Huffington Post in 2010 advocating that busy Americans should try to help others, particularly by offering high-level professional expertise in such areas as banking, education, engineering, and technology to help the less fortunate.[1]
Active citizenship is considered a buzzword by some due to its vague definition. Examples include volunteering, donating, and recycling.
Examples of active citizenship in education
Due to concerns over such things as a lack of interest in elections (reflected by low voter turnout), the British Government launched a citizenship education programme several years ago. Citizenship education is now compulsory in UK schools up to 14 and is often available as an option beyond that age.
In Scotland, UK, active citizenship has been one of the three major themes of community policy since The Osler Report (section 6.6) in 1998. The most recent Scottish Executive guidelines for Community learning and development, Working and Learning Together, has active citizenship as a target within other policy aims. Britain has a points-based immigration system, and in 2009 was considering a probationary period for newly admitted immigrants which would examine, in part, how well they were being so-called active citizens.[2]
In Denmark, "active citizenship" is part of the curriculum in Danish teacher's Education. The course is defined as 36 lessons.[3]
In Canada, there is an Active Citizenship Course being run at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. It is a compulsory course that is delivered by the Language Studies Department to all students at the college. Organizations that cite active citizenship as part of their mission or vision statement include the following:
- Shimer College
- Omidyar Network
- Active Citizenship Network
- Minnesota Active Citizenship Initiative (MACI)
- Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service
- Active Citizenship Office (Department of the Taoiseach, Ireland)
- Time for Citizenship, a primary school project
- Stichting Actief Burgerschap University of Amsterdam
- Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg, CEE/SOE
- Alternative Spring Break
- Junior Chamber International[4]
In the United States, writer Catherine Crier wondered in the Huffington Post about whether Americans had lost sight of Thomas Jefferson's sense of active citizenship. Crier lamented how Americans have tended to neglect participating in voluntary associations, and tend to live as "strangers apart from the rest", quoting Tocqueville.[5] In contrast, writer Eboo Patel in Newsweek suggested that president Obama had a somewhat different sense of active citizenship, meaning strong families, a vibrant civic center in which persons of different faiths and secular backgrounds work together, with government acting as a "catalyst."[6]
References
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- ↑ Curriculum in Danish
- ↑ Junior Chamber International (JCI)
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