Davies and Issitt (2005, p. 389) also differentiate between ‘civics: provision of information
about formal public institutions’; ‘citizenship: a broad-based promotion of socially useful
qualities’; and ‘social studies: societal understanding that emerges from the development
of critical thinking skills related to existing [school] subjects such as history and English’.
However, in practice many countries use subject labels which do not accord with
these interpretations. France, for example, uses the term education civique (civic
education) (Ministere de l'Education Nationale 2000) but, as Osler and Starkey (2005, p.
iii) observe, this does not necessarily denote a minimal-style curriculum. Elements of
citizenship education may also be covered in lessons across the globe entitled, variously,
democratic education, humanities, social studies, world studies, society studies, moral
education and life skills (Kerr 2000, p. 202). Using the term citizenship education as a
‘catch-all’, as we do in this study, is therefore appropriate and does not necessarily
characterise any sort of ideal.
Both Kerr (2000, p. 208) and Criddle, Vidovich and O'Neill (Criddle et al. 2004, p.
31) argue that the suggested differences between ‘passive and historical’ and ‘critical and
active’ citizenship education should not be a dichotomy but a ‘continuum’. Kerr (2000, p.
210) expands his model to characterise three types: ‘Education ABOUT Citizenship...
Education THROUGH Citizenship. Education FOR Citizenship’, similar to Parker’s
(1996) distinctions between ‘traditional’, ‘progressive’ and ‘advanced’ citizenship
education. ‘Education FOR Citizenship’ being the ideal, Kerr’s model suggests some
critical elements but, like Cogan and Derricott’s (1998) model, does not fully express the
aims of critical pedagogy.
Osler and Starkey’s (1996) model again distinguishes between minimal and
maximal, but argues for a ‘holistic approach’ (Starkey 2002, p. 5) in which the
‘structural/political and the cultural/personal’ are essential and intertwined elements of
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