Critical Citizenship
Conceptions of The Ideal Citizen
We now analyse models of citizenship education that link to aspects of critical
pedagogy, to identify what critical educators might envisage as the ideal citizen: i.e. the
type of citizen they might be aiming for through their teaching projects and programmes,
or, more cynically, the type of citizen they are allowed to aim for by the official curricula.
Crick (2008, p. 126) argues that the type of citizen valued by society is defined by
the nature of their relationship with their government. Thus Galston’s (1989)
characterisations of the ‘autarchic’ and the ‘autonomous’ citizen inspired McLaughlin
(1992, p. 245) to distinguish between ‘minimal’ and ‘maximal’ citizenship. The autarchic,
or minimal, citizen is essentially obedient to government: ‘law abiding’ and ‘public
spirited’ but with limited ‘rational deliberation and self-determination’ (ibid. 1992, p. 236).
Conversely, the autonomous or maximal citizen ‘actively questions’ and has achieved a
‘distanced critical perspective on all important matters’ (ibid. , p. 242).
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) and Veugelers (2007) complicate this minimal-
maximal distinction by dividing citizens into three types. Despite the use of very different
terms, their models are similar in the characteristics they ascribe to them2 and we have
therefore amalgamated these in Figure 2 to show their commonalities. From the
perspective of critical pedagogues, the critical democratic citizen (Veugelers) and the
justice-oriented citizen (Westheimer and Kahne) are the ideal types as their defining
features include a concern for social justice and a desire to improve society.
Insert Figure 2 about here
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