1. Controversial issues and post-16 citizenship
Post-16 Citizenship Support Programme Training Plan:
Section 5: PowerPoint presentation notes pages
Controversial issues and post-16 citizenship

2. Aims of the session
To clarify the aims and purpose of citizenship education
To examine the relevance of citizenship for other organisational priorities and government educational initiatives
To raise awareness of the central role of controversial issues in citizenship
To clarify the meaning of ‘controversial’ in the context of citizenship
To illustrate some techniques for dealing with controversial or sensitive issues

3. What is citizenship?
Citizenship involves:
the investigation of topical, controversial, social and political issues, leading to
young people’s responsible action to influence the issue, for the benefit of the community.
It brings new knowledge and skills about our political system, and
it encourages young people to form considered opinions.
Citizenship enables young people to use their voice, within both their community and their learning organisation.
This slide summarises the main components of citizenship, i.e. that it deals with real, topical and often controversial issues, that it involves responsible action based on knowledge and understanding, and that it enables young people to develop a view and to be heard. Citizenship does involve the teaching about democracy, although students are encouraged to consider whether democratic principles are always adhered to.
The three principles (from ‘Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools’, QCA, 1998 Crick Report), which participants may have heard of, are:
Social and moral responsibility
Community involvement
Political literacy
The last of these is the one that causes most confusion. Political literacy is the ability to apply knowledge and skills together in action to change things. A useful analogy is with literacy itself. When a child is taught to read, he/she has a set of skills and can choose what to read and when. Political literacy enables people to make their own choices about what issues they choose to take action on.

4. Citizenship is not the same as…..
Lifeskills/PSHE
Citizenship looks at the public issues rather than the personal ones
Volunteering or charity fund-raising
Citizenship develops critical understanding as well as action
Nationality
Citizenship encourages existing, new and would-be citizens to get involved and take an interest in topical and controversial issues
To emphasise the distinctiveness of citizenship, it may be necessary to clarify further.
The three areas (Lifeskills/PSHE, volunteering and fund-raising, and nationality) are all commonly confused with citizenship education.
Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) provides valuable guidance for young people on personal issues and helps them in decision-making. Citizenship adds political and economic understanding to the topics covered by PSHE.
Many schools and colleges have volunteering programmes and fund-raising events. These are laudable and can support citizenship education, but are not sufficient on their own, since they do not always enable critical questioning of the actions of the charities or the voluntary bodies.
Because applicants for British citizenship are taught for the citizenship test, there is often confusion with citizenship education, which is aimed at all residents whether British or not. The whole issue of the test, is an interesting citizenship issue for debate.

5. Post-16 citizenship should provide three essential opportunities for learning through action:
To identify, investigate and think critically about citizenship issues, problems or events of concern to them, AND
Decide on and take part in follow-up action where appropriate, AND
Reflect on, recognise and review their citizenship learning.
These three essential opportunities are part of a framework for citizenship learning included in the QCDA Guidance (Play your part. Post-16 citizenship, then QCA, 2004)
The framework also provides possible learning objectives and examples of citizenship actions that would be appropriate for this age group.
The guidance pack provides advice on getting started, planning provision, setting up a programme and assessment. There are also case studies of citizenship activity taken from a variety of post-16 settings.
The guidance can be downloaded from or can be ordered in hard copy from
QCDA Orderline
PO Box 29
Norwich
NR3 1GN
Telephone

6. Six approaches to post-16 citizenship
Six different (although not mutually exclusive) approaches have been identified. These are:
Citizenship through
learner voice and representation
qualifications and personalised programmes
group tutorial and enrichment programmes
voluntary and community-based activities
single events
research projects
It should be stressed that many post-16 providers use several of these approaches in order to provide as many opportunities for learners as possible.
Effective citizenship education enables young people to learn and practise skills in different contexts, but it is also necessary for them to reflect on their learning (as emphasised in the three QCDA essential opportunities) and so they need some taught time for this to occur.
You could also use or recommend ‘Citizenship Uncovered: a young person’s guide to post-16 citizenship’ a DVD available from to download from

7. Four principles of post-16 citizenship
Active learning
Community involvement
Youth-led action
Real, topical and controversial issues
This slide makes the point that controversial issues are central to citizenship education and cannot be avoided.
If more information is required on the three other principles (active learning, community involvement and youth-led action) see the PowerPoint presentation for the Getting Started package.

8. What do we mean by controversial issues?
If a number of people disagree with statements made about a social/political/economic issue and there is insufficient evidence to settle the matter, then it is controversial. So ALL citizenship issues are controversial
But some issues are sensitive, more so at different times in history, at different place in the country or world, with different groups of learners
Staff and learners need to be aware of the potential pitfalls when dealing with controversial and sensitive issues, and need training
This slide stresses that controversial issues are unavoidable within citizenship programmes.
However, the difference between ‘controversial’ and ‘sensitive’ is vital to understanding how to handle these issues. It is worth sharing with students that sensitive issues need special care and thoughtfulness when they are discussed because people have very strong feelings about them.

9. What is the disagreement about?
Some or all of the following:
what has happened
the causes of the present situation
the desirable ends to work towards
the appropriate course of action to be taken
the likely affects of that action
Being clear exactly where disagreement lies can be helpful in acknowledging that there are also some areas of agreement.
You could suggest to participants that analysing arguments closely can help students to understand issues better. They could do this analysis on less sensitive issues first.

10. Citizenship and democracy
Everyone needs to accept the following:
Within a democracy, people can legitimately disagree
There are acceptable ways of dealing with disagreement
Views should be expressed in ways that are respectful and non
intimidating
Democracy is built upon the principle that people will, inevitably, disagree. It requires structures, procedures and processes to deal with this disagreement in ways that people can accept. Hence we have regular elections, rules governing Parliament, laws protecting the rights of protest and freedom of speech, opinion and association.
Young people should be encouraged to debate whether these procedures are sufficient, or even whether they are ever threatened. ‘How free are we?’ is a popular topic for debate.

11. Facilitator roles
Staff and learners need to be aware of the variety of roles that facilitators can take:
Neutral chair
Balanced approach
Stated commitment
Challenging consensus
The whole of activity 3 involves discussion of the different facilitation styles, which each has strengths and weaknesses (as on Handout 4).
It is very important to point out that a skilled facilitator will move from one style to another, according to the way students are responding to the debate. For example, if everyone in the room takes the same position, then the facilitator needs to challenge the consensus. If some students are not responding when the facilitator is neutral, he/she should introduce a range or arguments, as in the balanced approach.
Some staff believe that if they are asked for their views, they should give them, while stressing that this in not ‘the right answer’. Others will never give their own views. This is an area for debate.
The video clip referred to in the programme shows just two of the styles: neutral chair and stated commitment.
(DVD Extra 2)

12. Procedures Distancing procedures Compensatory procedures
Use case studies of an analogous situation if very close to home
Compensatory procedures
Inject information into a group where there is ignorance of an issue
Empathetic procedures
Use role play/simulation when learners have no experience of an issue
Exploratory procedures
When feasible, learners carry out research to clarify an issue
Engaging procedures
Sometimes a need to inject some enthusiasm when no interest at all
Examples of four of these five procedures (all except the Exploratory procedure) are provided in Agree to disagree: Citizenship and controversial issues (LSDA, now LSN, 2005)
They appear in Section B of the booklet, available on In some circumstances, you may wish to use one or two of these activities in order to illustrate the techniques better.
One again, the different styles of facilitation would be used during these activities.

13. Whole institution policy
Staff involved with delivery need some training to build their confidence
Senior management need to understand that there will be controversy
Learners should be involved in the process of developing a policy
Controversy can sometimes cause problems for institutions. There are numerous examples of local press stories that give a negative slant. For example, a college seriously trying to deal with gang culture within the curriculum, and finding in a survey that many students were anxious about knife crime, was exposed by the local paper as having gang members on roll and a knife ‘problem’.
The senior management of an institution will need to be supportive of efforts to deal with controversial and sensitive issues. Staff will find that a policy statement and guidelines for action will help them deal professionally and effectively with issues that arise.
If young people are consulted about and involved in the development of a policy, they will support its aims and, hopefully, act responsibly when controversial issues are explored in citizenship programmes.

14. Which approaches could we try here? What support would we need?
Action planning
Discuss:
Which approaches could we try here?
What support would we need?
What obstacles might we meet?
If the participants are ready for detailed action planning, they could use the form provided as Handout . However, it may be, if they are absolute beginners, that they need the opportunity to discuss these three questions at some length.