What does it mean to be a citizen? It's a term which really ought to be obvious, but it's a slippery concept. At one level, a citizen is 'a legally recognised subject of a nation state' - that's what it says in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary - but it's not a very satisfying definition. We expect rather more.
'In a democracy,' says David Archard (2004: 98), 'a citizen is someone who participates in the government of their society.' That's an exciting idea. Combine it with the dictionary definition, and it suggests that any legally recognised subject can be involved in the decisions that affect them, no matter who they are.
Sadly, the reality is not quite so embracing. David Archard goes on to say that democratic citizens participate in their government 'by casting votes in elections', and that has huge implications for children. In the UK, it slams the door on all legally recognised subjects under the age of 18, thus barring a sixth of the population from participating in government in this way.
And the idea that children are not really citizens does more than exclude them from the vote. It influences their position in society, directing how - or whether - they are consulted, and seeping into all their relationships with decision-making. The younger the children are, the more true this seems to be.
In England, education for citizenship is now a statutory area of the national curriculum in secondary schools. At primary school level, the subject is part of the non-statutory Personal, Social and Health Education framework, appearing under the heading 'preparing to play an active role as citizens'. So, citizenship is definitely on the map in education, although the terminology that is used shows that even older children are not yet considered citizens. They are being educated for citizenship, not as citizens, and they are preparing to play an active role, not actually playing it.
For young children in England, recognition as citizens is even further off in the curricular materials for their care and education. The words 'citizen' and 'citizenship' do not appear once in either the statutory framework or the practice guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage.
And yet the skills and experiences that are needed for active citizenship - developing positive relationships, taking on responsibility, making choices, care for the local and wider environment, interest in fairness - are all the stuff of young children's daily lives, and they are at the heart of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage.
SCOTLAND: 'RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS'
That understanding has been embraced by the government in Scotland, where children's role as 'responsible citizens' is one of four capacities of education in the Curriculum for Excellence for children aged three to 18. (The others are that children should be successful learners, confident individuals and effective contributors.)
'Having citizenship embedded in the curriculum makes it explicit,' says Jane Stirling, development officer for early years at the Scottish curriculum authority Learning and Teaching Scotland. 'It spells out the work people are doing on a daily basis, rather than something that is addressed for an hour a day.' Under the curriculum, children's participation should be part of the culture and everyday life of the setting.
'Our approach to education for citizenship is rights-based,' says Ms Stirling, 'and the guidelines suggest that children should be regarded as "citizens of today" rather than "citizens in waiting".'
She is adamant that this process must start with the youngest children, but is aware of the discomfort that involving them can create. 'Most settings will say that they ask children for their views, but it can be daunting if those views are contrary to the practitioners' thoughts.'
Ms Stirling's understanding of these practical objections suggests that Learning and Teaching Scotland will work with practitioners to overcome them. Certainly, Jonathan Sher, director of research at Children in Scotland, believes this kind of involvement is crucial if the 'very good aspiration' for children's active citizenship is to work in practice.
'Not all areas will implement the citizenship capacity equally well,' he says. 'Success will come down to resources - not just financial resources, but human resources - and not just people who believe that young children are citizens, but those who can enable them to be citizens.'
Even with Scotland's curricular commitment to young children's citizenship, it remains a 'very good aspiration' that will be difficult to achieve. It follows that young children's participation as citizens may be even harder to deliver in England, where the curricular framework aims to nurture citizenship qualities without any reference to young children's broader rights as citizens.
COVENTRY: 'SUPPORTIVE FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES'
Thankfully there are many settings, services and authorities in England that recognise that more is needed. Coventry City Council has added a sixth outcome to Every Child Matters on which all settings and schools must also report.
'When ECM was first proposed we felt that something was missing,' says Sandra Shipton, Coventry's senior advisor for education, inclusion and participation. 'Direct consultation with children made it clear what was needed, and we now have the sixth outcome: have supportive friends, families and communities.'
One of the goals for this sixth outcome is recognition of children's contribution to their community. This starts from a principle that children already act as citizens - a very different assumption from the one suggested by the goals for the Government's citizen-related ECM outcome, 'Make a positive contribution'. Here, the aim to have children participating in positive activities is linked to reductions in crime and risk-taking behaviour, suggesting that the principle concern is to divert children away from acting against society, rather than to nurturing their responsible citizenship.
If the sixth outcome is an authority-wide example of the approach to children's citizenship in Coventry, the work of Hillfields Children's Centre brings respect for young children's citizenship to a very personal level and illustrates how, in our complicated world, it is no longer enough to grant the experience of citizenship to Britain's 'legally recognised subjects'.
'Coventry is a receiving area for asylum-seekers,' explains Helen Watson, head of Hillfields. 'Almost 60 per cent of the centre's community are refugees or asylum-seekers, so we see very high mobility. Families can be deported or moved on to other centres at very little notice, so we concentrate on enabling children to be citizens right here and now.'
But Hillfields' determination to recognise children's citizenship rights does not involve controversial methods. The kind of work they do is seen in the day-to-day practices of many high-quality settings.
'All of our planning is co-constructed through interaction and dialogue with the children,' says Helen Watson. 'Staff always re-present to the children what happened yesterday so they can talk about what they liked or didn't like, and what they would like to do in the future.'
There are 43 different languages spoken by children and families at the centre. In these circumstances, says Ms Watson, it is important to be creative when thinking about the children's experience and how they might answer the question, 'What of me is here?'
One solution is a home-setting 'profile book' in which children, practitioners and family members can celebrate children's learning in the centre or at home by contributing any material they wish, in any format - whether written or illustrative - and in whatever language they choose.
'It's one of the ways in which we help children and families in this disenfranchised community to recognise their right to have a voice,' says Ms Watson. 'Many families take the profiles home every night in case they are repatriated suddenly. That's how important these documents are to them.'
Hillfields demonstrates that children's rights to be consulted and to be credited for their contribution to the community work very effectively within the EYFS, and that the slippery concept of citizenship can be both concrete and rewarding in reality. The trick is to know the vast potential for children's active citizenship in all aspects of their experience, to have an explicit commitment to enabling that citizenship, and to act on it.
PAISLEY: ACTIVE CITIZENS
Given the aspiration in Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence that children, no matter what age, should experience active citizenship through the curriculum, it is little surprise that Learning and Teaching Scotland has singled out Paisley Children's Centre in Renfrewshire as an example of good practice in this area.
There has been a children's meeting room at Paisley since 2004 - long before citizenship was identified as a key capacity for education in the Curriculum for Excellence. The room is the space in which practitioners consult small groups of children as part of their involvement in decision-making at the centre.
'But the meeting room has grown arms and legs since we first installed it, because the children have thrived so much on responsibility,' says head of centre Bernadette Macpherson.
Children's views about what they learn are now integrated in the centre's planning routines. Ms Macpherson says, 'Before our long-term planning meetings every month, we do a mind-mapping with the children to find out what they are interested in and which learning opportunities they would like to have.' The staff then combine this information with their own observations and knowledge of the children to develop activities and experiences that will support the children's learning and development.
Children are also involved later on. 'In the past six months, we have started going back to the children with their mind maps and using assessment for learning approaches with them,' says Ms Macpherson. 'We ask them what they remember about recent activities, what they got from them and whether we succeeded in offering the opportunities they had asked for.'
But citizenship at Paisley is not all talk; it's very much about action too. Children in the nursery belong to one of several responsibility groups through which they gain hands-on experience of looking after resources and caring for each other. Each group has a name that spells out what they do. The Healthy Bunch remind everyone to wash their hands, prepare informative displays and maintain bags of active play resources that go home with children at week-ends; the Big Helpers act as buddies to children who first arrive in the nursery or who move from one room to another; and the Toy Tidiers make sure that everything goes in its right place by encouraging others to tidy as well as doing it themselves.
'The children carry out their jobs with such pride,' says Ms Macpherson. 'They support each other's responsibilities because they know what it's like to have responsibility themselves.' And, she explains, it has made day-to-day management of the nursery much easier. 'We used to spend a lot of time and energy reminding children to take care of resources. We simply don't have to do that now.'
The children at Paisley are not preparing to play an active role as citizens. By offering views about their learning which are acted upon, and in taking responsibility for their environment and those within it, they are active citizens of the centre. Ms Macpherson stresses that being able to do this does not depend on individual personalities - 'Any child can take this on.'
LEICESTER: CHILDREN IN PUBLIC LIFE
'Towns and cities are not very child-friendly,' says artist Jo Dacombe. 'They're full of shops and activities aimed at adults. If you want children to spend some time in town, you must have something that is for them and which makes it their space.'
This view led her to propose the idea of a Children's Trail to Leicester City Council. 'I thought, if I can put beautiful things in St George's - an area of the city that is full of industrial history - perhaps children will spend some time in it.' She was delighted by the council's response. 'They were commissioning public art in general and liked the idea of having something specifically for children.' The project was funded jointly by Leicester City Council and the European Regional Development Fund.
Although Ms Dacombe has worked on many projects enabling children to make their own art, the Children's Trail is a completely new venture into public art for children driven by their interests and created by a professional artist.
Ms Dacombe's consultation for the Children's Trail has its roots in her collaborative work with other artists in enabling children to express their views about their neighbourhood.
To create the trail, she ran a series of consultative workshops with children aged between five and ten. Following detailed research into the history of the St George's district, she borrowed several objects from the county museums for the children to consider. They included a bus conductor's ticket machine, tiny printing blocks with individual letters, a stocking stretcher from the days when Leicester produced woollen stockings, and an Imperial typewriter that was made in the city.
'The children started by trying to guess what each of the objects was,' Ms Dacombe explains. 'After all, how would you know a bus conductor's ticket machine if you've never seen one?' She noticed that the children particularly liked small things, that they were interested in detail and were drawn to numbers and letters.
Later on, a walk around the district enabled her to gather more information about what interested them. 'The children liked looking up and they noticed some small details, even if they were quite high up. They noticed a Victorian drain with a cast iron detail at the very top of a building.'
The result of this consultation is seven inspiring pieces of work that were recently installed in St George's as the Children's Trail. 'Each is a reworking of a real historical object,' Ms Dacombe explains. 'They appear as ghosts in their environment because they are solid objects made of clear plastic with a blue light glowing inside.' The artworks relate to the surrounding buildings and children can try to imagine how those things were once used in that place.
'The trail is contained in a relatively small, quiet public space, less than a square mile,' says Ms Dacombe. 'It will soon be pedestrianised and so will be very accessible for children and their families. That's what I was after.'
Pat Gordon-Smith is a writer and editor for the early years.
MORE INFORMATION
- Archard, D (2004) Children's Rights and Childhood, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
- For more about Paisley Children's Centre and other examples of good practice related to citizenship in Scotland, visit www.ltscotland.org.uk/citizenship/sharingpractice
- For more information on the Children's Trail, visit http://cqart.leicester.gov.uk/childrenstrail.html
- See www.thinkspace.org.uk for information about the 'Own Zone' project, in which nursery and primary children redesigned a street that was closed to traffic for the day