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Recent trends in Western civics education have attempted to secure democratic institutions from perceived threats. This paper investigates how political securitisation historically operated within civics textbooks in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. It further evaluates how Māori, Aboriginal and other Indigenous peoples were variably incorporated or marginalised in these educational discourses.

This discourse analysis evaluates a sample of civics textbooks circulated in Australia and New Zealand between 1880 and 1920. These historical sources are interpreted through theories of decoloniality and securitisation.

The sample of textbooks asserted to students that their self-governing colonies required the military protection of the British Empire against undemocratic “threats”. They argued that self-governing colonies strengthened the empire by raising subjects who were loyal to British military interests and ideological values. The authors pedagogically encouraged a governmentality within students that was complementary to military, imperial and democratic service. The hypocritical denial of self-government for many Indigenous peoples was rationalised as a measure of “security” against “native rule” and imperial rivals.

Under a lens of securitisation, the discursive links between imperialism, military service and democratic diligence have not yet been examined in civics textbooks from the historical contexts of Australia and New Zealand. This investigation provides conceptual and pedagogical insights for contemporary civics education in both nations.

The purpose of this paper is to understand, more deeply, what the field of citizenship education stands for, in both theory and practice, historically and currently, and especially, in relation to the new Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship. The authors have drawn on the backgrounds in social studies/social education, multicultural education, democracy education and Indigenous studies, in order to more deeply and profoundly understand “civics and citizenship education” and what it represents today in Australia.

Methodologically, the authors see epistemological spaces as discursive productions from post-structural/post-modern and critical perspectives. These positions draw upon the notion of discourse as an absent power that can validate/legitimize vs negate/de-legitimize. The authors employ a meta-level analysis that historicizes the spaces made possible/impossible for those in deviant subject positions through a critique of the current literature juxtaposed with a presentation and analysis of “citizenship snapshots” of the authors. In this way, the authors attempt to move beyond conceptions of deviant citizenship based on curricular content and instructional method, and explore the realms of epistemology through the study of exclusion/inclusion.

Reflecting the highly personal and individualized nature of the type of research required to be conducted in this aspect of national and personal identity, each of the authors draws here on personal experiences with aspects of citizenship that are not noticeably present in the current national curriculum. Specifically, the three “citizenship snapshots” at the heart of this paper’s discussion and analysis – snapshots constructed by academics who both understand and resist the racialised/classed privilege bestowed upon them by nation states – are: “The boomerang citizen”, “privileged and non-privileged citizen immigrants”, and “Indigenous citizenship, sovereignty & colonialism”.

Drawing both on the current international scholarship on citizenship, power and social changes and the critical/post-structuralist qualitative methodology set forth by the authors, this work describes and problematizes the evolving “citizenship identities” in an attempt to critically assess the new civics and citizenship component of the Australian curriculum; understand the ongoing development of national, regional and global “trans/international” citizenship youth identities; and make connections between citizenship education, identity development and the global youth “occupy”/liberation movements.

The state of citizenship education in Australia continues to attract media attention as evidenced by two recent newspaper headlines, Students take apathetic view of democracy and Teach young about democracy. These headlines were reporting on the latest findings of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on school students understanding of democracy. As a part of a 28‐nation civics survey, the ACER found half of Australian students had no grasp of democracy (ranking them behind countries like Poland, Cyprus and the Slovak Republic); lacked clarity about the Constitution, elections, voting systems or the role of groups like trade unions; were unwilling to engage in politics; and believed politics was relatively unimportant

Given the resurgence of Americans’ interest in the national electoral process and civic issues, social studies educators have a unique opportunity to highlight citizenship education and related activities in K-12 teacher preparation programs. Especially at the elementary level, educators can support pre-service teachers’ mastery of civics content, skills, and critical thinking strategies with experiential, as well as classroom, based learning. This article describes how two educators integrated a field experience component into an elementary social studies methods course to increase students’ civic knowledge and model standards-based curriculum planning. Collaboration with local experts provided opportunities for preservice teachers to start a learning community outside of the classroom, connecting course instruction to real-life civic issues.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the impact of the marketisation of the English HE sector on academic staff and the nature of their professional work is felt to the same degree in different English universities. The study was conducted between November 2015 and April 2017.

Using the interpretivist paradigm, a qualitative, inductive approach is adopted. In total, 12 semi-structured interviews of 60-90 min each were conducted with academics of six English university types (ancient, old and new civics, plate-glass, technological and post-1992). Participants who were identified by non-probability sampling included professors, principal, senior and lecturers and associate lecturers.

Six key themes emerged regarding the impact on academic staff and their work: efficiency and quantity over effectiveness; autocratic, managerialist ideology over academic democracy and debate; instrumentalism over intellectualism; de-professionalisation and fragmentation of the academy; increased incidence of performativity, bullying and workplace aggression; and work intensification. The ancient university is least impacted by marketisation in terms of academic staff and the nature of their work. Next are the old and new civic universities, followed by technological, plate-glass universities. The most impact is felt by academics (and the nature of their work) in the post-1992 universities.

There is a relatively small number of interviews in this study; therefore, it is difficult to categorically correlate an academic biography with their opinion in the context of their university type. More male than female participants were interviewed. International staff were not interviewed, and this could bring a varying perspective to the narrative found in this study. A mixed approach in further research would aid this objective. Some of the questioning in the pilot study was not as focused as any further primary research would have to be.

A further area of study, which could have practical implications, add originality and value would be to investigate how good practice in “employee engagement” in the university context might pave the way forward. This has the potential to benefit academic staff directly and the institution, a win–win solution for all stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the curriculum developments of civic education in three emerging Chinese societies: China and two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, which are increasingly under the impacts of globalisation in this information world.

The analytical method is used and the following are identified: active and global civic education-related learning units and key themes and main contents in official curriculum guidelines and updated textbooks related to civic education.

A major finding is that elements of both active and global citizenship, such as participation in the community and understanding about the world and thus forming multiple identities, can be found alongside their emphasis on enhancing national citizenship. Thus, ideas of global citizenship and multiple levels of citizenship from local, national to global start to develop in these three Chinese societies.

The implications of such findings of both active and global citizenship, as well as multiple identities, found in these three Chinese societies could be huge for informing civic literature and sociological point of views, in particular, pointing to the next generations receiving a broadened and transcended notion of multiple levels of citizenship, apart from local and national citizenship.

The significance of this paper is that it argues that ideas of active citizenship in terms of community participation and global citizenship have been found in China, Hong Kong and Macao civic education curriculum and textbooks because of the expectations placed on students to compete in a globalized world, though national citizenship and patriotic concerns have been primary concerns. Globalisation makes the world society by impacting on these three Chinese societies for active and global citizenship, though they still retain their particular curricular focusses.

How do you get people – particularly young people – to engage with social and political issues? Activists and academics alike have been plagued by this question for some time, and answers to it have ranged from greater organizational involvement to framing. Another possibility is meeting youth where they are at; that is, connecting youth’s existing interests in popular culture with broader social problems and issues. A group that is doing just that is the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), a story-fueled nonprofit organization that turns fans into heroes. In this chapter, we trace the development of the Harry Potter fan community, the stories’ resonance with fans, and how the HPA has drawn on the community and the story for mobilization. We argue that the HPA leverages culture in two ways that are relevant for social movements and political communication scholars. The HPA is able to tap into the fan community for bloc recruitment using its ties and connections to media – in this case, the fictional story – as a point of mobilization. Additionally, the HPA is able to bloc recruit from mass society – a process they refer to as “cultural acupuncture” – by strategically connecting the story with social justice issues when cultural attention is at its peak. We conclude with a discussion of the HPA’s impact on its members and how bloc recruitment and cultural acupuncture may be relevant for other fan communities.

Both the Austrian and Bloomington Schools emphasize the dispersal of information to the level of individual agents. An underappreciated difference is the Bloomington emphasis on the moral psychology of agents and its relation to covenant. Covenant refers to a habit, a sense of obligation to consider the interests of the other in decision making, and a commitment to do so that is not easily or unilaterally broken. This chapter seeks to elaborate the lineage of covenant in constituting political order and its implications for the moral psychology of agents and artisanship. This exploration raises issues of metaphysical foundations as they relate to values and to the Hobbesian–Aristotelian divide in starting points. An application to the environmental crisis, with particular reference to vested interests promoting disinformation, obfuscation, and doubt about anthropogenic climate change, suggests value in emphasizing covenant.

Over the last decade, engineers, designers, community organizers, and government employees have rallied around “civic tech.” What exactly does this term mean for urban technologists and “smart cities”? In formulating a definition, after describing the relationship of this term to the city, I examine how civic tech has been defined by practitioners. They have typically defined civic tech using umbrella definitions based on broad values and bucket definitions based on technologies. Although helpful, these definitions tend to obfuscate the political nature of civic tech’s practices and organizational techniques. In response, I suggest civic tech is a form of “technical pluralism” – iterative technology design and implementation among organized actors working toward predominantly administrative reforms. Because practitioners are inspired by redesigning systems of governance and redistributing power, civic tech’s most important provocations are organizational and political, rather than purely technological. Civic tech, as a form of technical pluralism, presents a route to bridging community and government in the pursuit of more equitable ways to achieve sustainable technology design in urban contexts.

This chapter examines the initiation of educational change in post-Soviet Russia, using the eight-factor change framework developed by Michael Fullan. Interviews were conducted with 24 key individuals, including members of the Ministry of Education, teacher educators, university researchers, and members of advocacy and school reform organizations. Important primary (government, policy, and school) documents related to the change process of educational transformation were also examined. The format for the interviews involved a common, open-ended unstructured questionnaire, upon which the researchers elaborated with additional probes as the interview unfolded. The interviews ranged from 1–2 hours in length; approximately 50–55 hours of material were recorded. Data analyses involved examination of the transcribed interviews, extensive notes, and documents acquired by the principal researcher. With a specific focus on decentralization reforms, the Russian experience was matched against the initiation stage of Fullan”s framework in order to understand Russia”s transformation as a “change” process. The data show that Fullan”s conceptual framework does clearly have utility for helping us understand events in Russia. However, we propose a revised framework, which is more consistent with the revolutionary rather than the evolutionary transformation and, therefore, better accounts for the dynamic character of dramatic and sudden change typical of Russia and other former Soviet countries.