Connell, Raewyn

Sikes, Pat

Starkey, Hugh

English

Institute of Education EPrints

Hugh Starkey
SIKES, P., STARKEY, H. & CONNELL, R. (2009) Citizens for our times? The 
role of sociology. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30, 233-243.
Contribution to review symposium of Educating the 
Gendered Citizen: sociological engagements with 
national and global agendas
Madeleine Arnot 2009
A meeting in November 2008 at the House of Commons in London, convened by the 
Association of Citizenship Teachers and the Citizenship Foundation to celebrate the 10th 
anniversary of the Crick Report Education for Citizenship and the teaching of democracy  
in schools (QCA, 1998) gave visual expression to a rather obvious fact. The institutions 
of citizenship education, in the UK at least, are dominated by men. Eight panellists at the 
front of the room included just one woman, the only university professor present, and she 
was seated at the extreme end of the line. Characteristically, the physically marginalised 
female citizen reacted not by drawing attention to the irony of the situation but rather by 
simply being more sharply articulate than the ponderous males.
This  framing  of  citizenship  education  may  mirror  understandings  of  citizenship  as  a 
largely  male  preserve,  given  that  men  gave  themselves  a  head  start  in  accessing 
democratically  attributed  political  power.  Women  have  always  had  to  struggle  for 
recognition as political and social equals. Achievements such as rights to vote, to stand 
for  election,  to  own property,  to  access  education,  to  contraception  and abortion  are 
necessary but not sufficient steps to social  justice. Given the continuing disparities of 
income and wealth between men and women, to give a single example, in the UK and 
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globally, there are many national and global agendas with which citizens concerned with 
human rights and gender equity will wish to engage.  
Madeleine Arnot has, by her writing over many years, ensured that the gender dimension 
of  citizenship  education  receives  scholarly  attention  from a  sociological  perspective. 
This book draws together key authored and co-authored publications from the decade 
1997 – 2006 all of which address gender in a context of citizenship and education. It is 
therefore uniquely well placed to challenge the male dominance of citizenship education. 
I therefore approached reading this very welcome book looking for some sociological 
insights  that  might  inform a  political  engagement  with  national  and  global  agendas. 
Indeed, since agenda implies action and citizenship is about agency,  I was hopeful of 
finding key elements of a manifesto. 
There is a political agenda articulated in the introductory chapter. I warmly concur with 
the observation that the ‘extent to which the study of gender education is marginalised in 
current discussions of citizenship education is therefore really quite shameful’. The twin 
aims  of  the  collection  of  papers  are  to  make  a  strong  case  for  the  ‘importance  of 
researching  the  schooling  of  the  gendered  citizen’  and  to  highlight  the  ‘political 
significance of current gender struggles over education’. The admirable intention is to 
contribute  to  defining  ‘the  terrain  within  which  schools  can  contribute  to  a  form of 
democracy which offers women and men equal status’. 
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The  to  inform  policy  on  the  schooling  of  the  gendered  citizen,  Arnot  and  Jo-Anne 
Dillabough guide their readers through key feminist debates that engage with women’s 
position in liberal democracies, in theory and in practice. Citizenship is a feeling a status 
and a practice and all of these can be inclusive or exclusive. Women may feel excluded 
from the political or public sphere, they may in some cases lack the status to be included 
and  they  may  also  lack  the  agency  to  participate.  The  work  of  Carole  Pateman  is 
acknowledged  in  several  chapters  as  revealing  the  ‘fraternal  pact’  or  underlying 
masculine  assumptions  within  liberal  democracy.  By  drawing  a  rigorous  distinction 
between  the  (male)  public  sphere  and  the  (female)  domestic  sphere  women  are 
constructed as less politically capable and excluded from full citizenship.  The authors 
raise the valid question of the extent to which ‘the development of educational systems 
mirror and institutionalise the fraternal pact’. This is certainly a potentially rich research 
agenda.
A gendered approach to citizenship education, as Arnot argues, challenges ways in which 
democracy  has  traditionally  been  taught  and  conceptualised.  Feminists  have  been 
concerned with ‘debunking myths about the egalitarian nature of democratic citizenship 
in  the  nation-state’.  Civic  education,  with  its  emphasis  on  formal  structures  and  the 
imparting  of knowledge,  is  inadequate  to  provide a  basis  for  an inclusive  citizenship 
education.  The  women’s  movement  in  the  UK  has  challenged  the  political  agenda, 
insisting that the personal and the private is also the political. As Ruth Lister has argued, 
the  scope  of  politics  has  widened  as  women  have  used  their  informal  meetings  and 
networks to bring forward new agendas such as protection from domestic violence.
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Hugh Starkey
Much of the feminist critique of ways in which democracy and citizenship have been 
enacted has focused on disciplinary forces. Social and cultural influences within school 
structures and from wider society impact on the choices that girls  and young women 
make.  This is  well  illustrated in Osler and Vincent’s award winning study  Girls and 
Exclusion (2003), a prime example of an empirical research study of gendered citizens 
and cited in Chapter 6. However, as Arnot acknowledges at least implicitly, the liberal 
concept of citizenship based on individual rights is both disciplinary and emancipatory. 
The encouragement of women to participate in paid employment may be liberating, but it 
may also serve to restrict the choices of those women who wish to be full-time mothers or 
carers. The requirement for migrants to learn the official language of their country of 
residence  may be  perceived as  controlling,  but  it  may also  open up opportunities  to 
women who might otherwise feel isolated (Lister et al., 2007). If women seize on the 
emancipatory potential of citizenship they can feel a sense of collective belonging within 
the polity. They can claim their status as holders of universal human rights based on the 
principles  of  equality  of  dignity and equality  of  rights.  They can use the  democratic 
spaces ensured by state guarantees of fundamental freedoms of thought, conscience and 
belief; of peaceful assembly; of the right to receive and impart information to practice 
their citizenship, acting in solidarity with and for others.
Chapters 3 and 4 of this volume are based on the results of a European project exploring 
the understandings of citizenship of a number of trainee teachers from four EU member 
states.  The  fact  that  student  teachers  and  their  trainers  were  found  to  have  little 
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understanding of the concept of citizenship is suggestive of a crucial agenda for teacher 
education  in  Europe.  The  institutions  of  the  European  Union  are  founded  on 
commitments to human rights and participative democracy as the social component of a 
compact  with European citizens,  the other  side of  which is  economic  policy and the 
development  of  markets.  Thus Europe depends for its  legitimacy with its  citizens  on 
explicitly promoting human rights and gender equality. Education policy needs both to 
promote  understandings  of  these  foundational  principles  and  to  ensure  that  they  are 
observed and reflected in public institutions such as schools. On the evidence of this 
study, as of others (e.g. Wilkins, 2001) the education of teachers as gender and human 
rights aware citizens is much needed.  
Since Simone de Beauvoir declared that one is not born a woman but one becomes one 
([1949]  1972),  the  discursive  link  between  ones  sex  and  supposed  capacities  and 
dispositions  is  broken.  Although  gender  is  socially  constructed,  however,  the 
characteristics  associated  with  masculinity  and  femininity  are  profoundly  rooted  in 
cultures and institutions. In Chapter 6, which explores parallel campaigns for gender and 
race equality, the characteristics of male and female citizens, as proposed by Ruth Lister 
(1997),  are  introduced.  The  identification  of  masculinity  with  action  and  rationality, 
whilst femininity requires emotions and passivity, for example, was also evident in the 
discourses  of  the  student  teachers  in  Chapters  3  and 4.  One way to  challenge  these 
persistent binaries is to present them as cultural features, which in a liberal society can be 
borrowed, used, adapted or rejected. If men wish to develop their  range of emotional 
expression, to act as carers or parents or home makers, these are legitimate aspirations 
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Hugh Starkey
and part of developing new subjectivities and life politics. The ascription of gendered 
characteristics by society or by schools can be challenged individually and collectively on 
the  grounds  of  freedom  of  cultural  expression.  Educational  projects  to  challenge 
homophobic  bullying  or  heteronormativity  are  potentially  sites  of  emancipatory 
citizenship education. They are likely to use ‘a pedagogy that engages critically with the 
affective domain’ (p.150).
By  linking  race  equality  and  gender  agendas  in  Chapter  6,  Arnot  engages  with  the 
influential  Parekh  Report  on  the  Future  of  Multi-Ethnic  Britain (Runnymede  Trust, 
2000). From this she takes a transformative recognition strategy based on a ‘pluralist 
human rights agenda’. This addresses the tensions between human rights principles of 
equality  and  right  to  cultural  expression  or  difference  by  re-thinking  the  concept  of 
difference in terms of complex identities and cosmopolitanism. 
There  is  a  logic  in  the  development  of  the  arguments  from national  to  European  to 
engagement  with minorities  and then  in  the  final  three chapters  to  global  citizenship 
education. Once a discourse of human rights is adopted as a powerfully emancipatory 
discourse of entitlements and solidarity, the focus widens to include what the preamble to 
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) conceptualises as ‘all members of 
the  human  family’.  This  metaphor  of  human  family  is  in  itself  a  cosmopolitan 
perspective, as is the claim in the title that the rights are universal. 
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Human rights, democracy and development are acknowledged by the United Nations as 
essential  partners.  Emancipatory  citizenship  and  effective  democracy  depend  on  the 
ability  to  claim equality  of  rights  and access  to  fundamental  freedoms.  Development 
involves  increasing  capability.  In  a  globalised  and interdependent  world,  struggles  to 
support  the  dignity  and  rights  of  others  and  to  secure  the  environment  for  future 
generations  require  the  kind  of  solidarity  and  reciprocity  that  comes  from  a  global 
perspective. By adopting a human rights perspective, struggles for gender equality in one 
country take on a wider,  universal  significance.  The fact  that  many UN declarations, 
conventions and policy commitments focus on gender equality suggests that the status of 
women in any society is a hallmark of democracy.
I readily support the main thrust of the argument in the final three chapters of the book 
and the conclusion that citizenship education requires a global perspective. I take issue 
with  the  adoption  of  the  expression  ‘global  citizenship  education’.  This  is  rightly 
attributed to the influence of the NGO sector in the UK and it is also true that there are 
contradictions  and  disagreements  over  terminology  in  that  sector.  My experience  of 
working with UK NGOs on development  education  and global  education  over  many 
years suggests that there is much continuity in their work, particularly in their active and 
participative  pedagogies  including  engagement  with  the  affective  which  have  been 
developed and disseminated by, amongst others, some committed feminists. The gender 
dimension has not been overlooked by these NGOs who have ensured its presence within 
materials for global education. When citizenship education was introduced in England 
first  as  a  theme  from 1990 and  then  as  a  formal  curriculum entitlement  from 2002, 
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development NGOs rightly saw a space for increased interest  in global education.  To 
draw attention to this some used the shorthand of global citizenship education. However, 
this  has  the  disadvantage  of  implying  an  interest  in  developing  forms  of  global 
governance.  As  I  have  developed  the  argument  elsewhere,  the  more  appropriate 
formulation is ‘education for cosmopolitan citizenship’ (Osler & Starkey, 2005). 
This is an important book that fills a gap in the literature. It would have benefitted from 
another few weeks of editing to develop it from what is effectively an edited collection, 
albeit  with  the  author  associated  with  each  chapter.  The  current  format  means 
considerable  repetition  and,  perhaps  the  most  significant  disadvantage,  the  lack  of  a 
unified bibliography, although it has an index. Whilst the introductory and concluding 
chapters attempt to engender coherence, the revisions to the chapters would ideally have 
been more substantial  so that the argument developed rather than emerged. That said, 
there is much impressive scholarship and analysis  gathered here and the book invites 
serious intellectual engagement with its multiple sociological perspectives. 
Hugh Starkey
Institute of Education, University of London
deBeauvoir, S. ([1949] 1972) The Second Sex (Harmondsworth, Penguin).
Lister, R. (1997) Citizenship: feminist perspectives (London, Macmillan).
Lister, R., Williams, F., Anttonen, A., Bussemaker, J., Gerhard, U., Heinen, J., 
Johansson,  S.,  Leira,  A.,  Siim,  B.,  Tobio,  C.  &  Gavanas,  A.  (2007) 
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Hugh Starkey
Gendering Citiizenship in Western Europe: new challenges for citizenship  
research in a cross-national context (Bristol, Policy Press).
Osler, A. & Starkey, H. (2005) Changing citizenship: democracy and inclusion in  
education (Maidenhead, Open University Press).
Osler,  A.  &  Vincent,  K.  (2003)  Girls  and  exclusion  :  rethinking  the  agenda 
(London, RoutledgeFalmer).
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (1998) Education for Citizenship and the  
Teaching of Democracy in Schools: Final Report of the Advisory Group on  
Citizenship  (the  Crick  Report) (London,  Qualifications  and  Curriculum 
Authority (QCA)).
Runnymede Trust (2000) The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. The Parekh Report. 
(London, Runnymede Trust).
Wilkins,  C.  (2001)  Student  teachers and attitudes towards "race":  the  role  of 
citizenship  education  in  addressing  racism  through  the  curriculum, 
Westminster Studies in Education, 24(1), pp. 7-21.
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Citizens for our times? The role of sociology

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Citizens for our times? The role of sociology

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