Educating Active Citizens: What Roles are Students Expected to Play in Public Life?

Purpose – Educating active citizens engaged in civic life is a critical goal of citizenship education. This study examines how citizenship education is practiced in three public high schools in the City of Ottawa, Canada, and how teachers through their instruction prepare their students for active citizenship.Design – This investigation draws on citizenship theories and an examination of citizenship pedagogy through observations of class instruction and interviews with teachers and students.Findings – The research shows that despite shared provincial guidelines, in practice, there are dramatic differences in the design and provision of citizenship instruction across classrooms, shaped largely by teachers’ understandings of what constitutes active citizenship. I detail three distinct understandings of active citizenship that are advanced through class instruction: the duty-based, the make-a-difference, and the politically oriented active citizenship.Value – The article discusses important implications that these differing understandings and pedagogical approaches have as they delineate different expectations and paths for youth citizenship participation in public life.