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Citizenship and postmodernityAlison Scott BaumannPublished online: 03 Jun 2010.

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Intercultural Education, Vol. 14, No. 4, December 2003

Citizenship and postmodernityALISON SCOTT-BAUMANN

ABSTRACT Citizenship has to be taught in the UK as a new strand in the schoolcurriculum. This citizenship initiative is intended to replace a general feeling of politicalapathy among the young, yet the initiative itself is leading to concern about whatcitizenship is and how it can be taught. Citizenship teaching may fail if there is too greata dissonance between the sincerity of citizenship and postmodern scepticism. Hermeneuticalphilosophy can provide an antidote to doubt and connect the various levels of meaning inour lives: the personal, the local and the global. Citizenship with a global component cansucceed by enabling us to compare ourselves with countries where postmodern doubt is notprevalent, as shown in a collaborative project with the Department for InternationalDevelopment.

Introduction

It is as citizens that we become human. (The Just, Ricoeur, 2000, p. xvi)

Why should those unable or unwilling to consume—on a societal or globallevel—be excluded from full participation in social life? … If postmodernitymeans anything, it means the consumer society. (Lyon, 2000, pp. 87–88)

What is citizenship? Is it an antidote to modern life? It can be argued thatconsumerism and the loss of morals compromise some of our communities in theUK. The term “postmodern” is often used to refer to what has happened, if by thatwe mean scepticism about faith systems, relativistic permissiveness and difficulties inunderstanding and tolerating other communities in our increasingly multi-ethnicsociety. The prefix “post” often seems to be used to imply that we have gone beyondan earlier phase in some irrevocable way: “postcolonial”, “post-industrial”, “post-historical”. While it may be argued that these “posts” are meaningless, it may benecessary to consider such terms, if only because they exist, even if we then rejectthem. Interestingly, the currently fashionable term “citizenship” has not come to uswith a “post” prefix, perhaps because it is intended to rectify the “post” problems.There are questions we need to ask about what needs to be done, to consider whyour culture shows a certain egotism (characterised by our consumerist behaviour)and consider whether the new compulsory citizenship curriculum can alter that.

The citizenship initiative is based upon the principles of developing politicalliteracy, underpinned by European human rights legislation and predicated upon ahumanistic vision of responsibility. It will become clear that I have concerns about

ISSN 1467-5986 print; 1469-8489 online/03/040355-12 2003 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/1467598032000139813

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the gulf that separates postmodernity from its intended antidote: citizenship. If thetwo are indeed so far apart, and yet one is intended to cure the ills of the other, thenthe journey from one to the other may be too long and difficult. We can attempt todevelop a middle ground, not in the sense of compromise or mediocrity, but in orderto bring together the extreme differences between optimism and pessimism. Then itmay be possible to explore the possibility of reducing the gap, partly through synergybetween the local and the global, and partly by supporting teachers so that citizen-ship can be taught through subjects of the National Curriculum. The compulsorynature of citizenship may prove counterproductive to its development in schools, yetthis is currently the only opportunity we are being given in the UK education systemto develop an ethical sense of community and purpose.

What do we believe in, in the UK education system? A good place to start wouldbe to ask what it is that we think we believe in. The most challenging way of thinkingabout the way we live, is to think ontologically. Ontology, I believe, is the analysisof what we think is worth believing in. One way of testing the strengths andweaknesses of ideas (in this case citizenship and postmodernity) is to use philosoph-ical means to tackle the real core of what we think is worth believing in, so that wecan act on our beliefs (the “ontology of action” as Ricoeur calls it). The wisdom ofthis French hermeneutical philosopher (1913–) spans nearly a century. Ricoeurrecommends that we understand our actions as characterised by a surplus ofmeaning, by the possible meanings that can develop if we see multiple interpreta-tions as the better way to access provisional truths, rather than narrowing ouropinion (Scott-Baumann, 2003b). He warns us of the dangers of foreclosing ondifference and equating facts with truth, as reality is very complex. By offering theprovisionality of truths, he does not thereby endorse the postmodern adage that“anything goes”, nor does he see unhappiness as a new problem. He believes that wehave always found it difficult to overcome circumstances and act according to ourconscience, and that we must work hard to overcome our personal doubts about ourcapacity to act for the good (Ricoeur, 1986, first published 1960). He writes as aperson who is convinced that there is too much human suffering and that we havethe ability to help others and ourselves (Scott-Baumann, 2003a).

Citizenship and postmodernity seem to embody the extremes that many individu-als struggle with. On the one hand, as members of a community we have the desireto play a part in society and, on the other, we despair of ever being able to make adifference, the feeling of hopelessness that it is all too much. It may be possible toexplore some of the limitations of both extremes and use that knowledge towardsunderstanding how to make citizenship work. I shall start with the British curricu-lum definition of citizenship, contrast that with postmodernity and open the debateup by considering citizenship in two other countries, India and Kenya.

Citizenship

At the University of Gloucestershire, we are running a project that enables traineeteachers in UK, India and Kenya to work together on learning how to teach globalcitizenship. The global citizenship project will be discussed in the third section, with

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three aims in mind: a descriptive analysis of the project, a comparative summary ofthe differences between the three countries and a look into the future, so that we canimagine what such a project can achieve. First, I shall attempt to define citizenship.

The Crick Report is a national report commissioned by the Labour Governmentand was published in 1998. It launched the four-year preparation period for teachingcitizenship and admits that there are no clear agreements about what citizenship is.McLaughlin highlights the variety of approaches that the report touches on, underthe rubric of citizenship as reasoned public debate. One definition from the CrickReport, that has been influential in the debate about citizenship, describes citizen-ship as:

to include the nature and practices of participation in democracy; theduties, responsibilities and rights of individuals as citizens; and the value toindividuals and society of community activity. (Qualifications and Curricu-lum Authority (QCA), 1998, p. 4)

Crick et al., with their emphasis on political literacy, encourage community activityand active learning through subject areas, with some mention of multicultural work.Crick himself challenges the “safe haven of learning the articles of the constitutions,federal and state” that some countries choose for citizenship teaching, and it is likelythat much citizenship teaching will not enter these areas. Do modern governmentswish to have a politicised population with a world view, or simply a population thatobeys the law and picks up litter? This paper assumes that citizenship really isdesigned to transform the voters of this country into politically literate individualswho will take action to right injustices.

Is Citizenship a metanarrative to be suspicious of, or an exciting new possibility?We know that a phenomenon called Citizenship is being taught in the EnglishNational Curriculum from September 2002 (Citizenship Advisory Group, QCA,1998, p. 45). It is intended that three interrelated and mutually dependent elementswill constitute “active citizenship”, when they interact with each other. The threeare: social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy(McLaughlin, 2000, p. 545). At their different levels of engagement, narrativesabout democracy and human rights underpin these phenomena. There is muchemphasis on responsibility for one’s own actions and for others. Many UK schoolsare already engaged in local, national or international projects, and many teachersalready see the importance of running the school as a community and of the key roleplayed by the school within the wider community. Yet the education system as awhole is relatively unprepared for an initiative that will change lives if it succeeds, byinfluencing curriculum structure, pedagogic strategy and school organisation(McLaughlin, 2000, p. 544).

For Crick, “political literacy” is highly significant, and he also endorses “activecitizenship” as a desirable goal. McLaughlin discusses the difficulty of rousing theBritish to active citizenship (2000, pp. 553, 554). As a country where citizenshipmay, in future, be tested in adult applicants for British nationality, many see it as apossibly tainted, certainly complex and ambiguous word. McLaughlin summarisessome of the major arguments made against the Crick Report, but concludes that we

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are on the right track, and it is not intended here to challenge the initiative, ratherto see what we can make of it. Adding the “world” dimension is one way of makingsomething out of citizenship.

The aims of global citizenship

Global citizenship uses the terms sustainable development, social justice, values andperceptions, diversity, interdependence, conflict resolution and human rights. Theword “global” in the context of this project is intended to communicate some senseof the world citizen, and there are many debates around the term, of which I givethree examples. For Waters, globalisation is a social process in which people noticeincreasingly that the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangementsare diminishing. (Waters, 1995). Held notes the increasing intensity of this process,and its ability to pervade all aspects of life, cultural to criminal, financial to spiritual(Held et al., 2000). Beck sees the tragedy that Raymond Williams identified in the1970s:

The spaces in which people think and act in a morally responsible mannerare becoming on the one hand, smaller and more intense in personalrelationships. On the other hand they are becoming global and thusdifficult to manage. Young people are moved by that which nationalpolitics largely rules out; how can global environmental destruction beresolved? How can one live and love with the threat of Aids? What doestolerance and social justice mean in the global age? These questions slipthrough the political agendas of nation states. (Beck, 1998, p. 29)

Global citizenship aims to develop awareness of world issues and take responsibilityfor each individual’s relationship with other cultures. Some of the major beliefsbehind global citizenship are as follows: economic activity has become increasinglyinternationalised, and the term globalisation has been used since the 1990s todescribe this phenomenon (Held et al., 1999; Giddens, 1999). Multinational corpo-rations have been increasing their hold on the world markets, with US in the lead,and also German, Japanese and British companies indicating their power. The riseof consumer power shows us that we have redefined what it is that we think is worthbelieving in. Firat et al. (1995, pp. 52–53) analyse the way we are witnessing theincreasing eclipse of the citizen and its replacement by the consumer. In politics,social relationships and community relationships, there is an increasing temptationto see our lives through our role as consumers. The consumer “is increasinglypassive, being the presence necessary, so to speak, for the product to perform itsfunction” (Firat et al., 1995, p. 255–256). By “joining the objects”, despite Bau-drillard’s warning not to, we have fallen prey to instrumental action, losing sight ofthe communicative reason that, as Habermas believes, should characterise thehuman being.

The global market is a paradox, because it is usually experienced locally: as anindividual I am in my home and my locality when I experience the global market.Coca Cola stated recently that it is not a multinational, it is a multilocal, a clever

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marketing ploy but surely not believable. This is one of the great challenges facingcitizenship teaching—how to bridge the gaps between personal, local and global.One way is by developing a sense of solidarity with poor nations, as they experiencethe same mechanisms of global consumerism as we do, but more acutely in the senseof being more exploited. Yet this may not help us to understand just how much weare manipulated into exploitative consumer practices at home. This is the dangerthat faces citizenship: we can develop an informative curriculum and an activepedagogy that aims to support sustainable practices, but it may still prove difficultfor our target group (the British children of today) to find a framework of belief andto believe that they can make a difference in their school and their community.

Moreover, the work I do with experienced teachers suggests that much literatureon citizenship lacks substance with regard to belief systems. One of my postgraduatestudent’s searches of the British Education Index between 1999 and 2002 produced248 articles on citizenship, of which many were about the difficulties of implement-ing citizenship rather than the beliefs that underpin such work (Ross, 2002).Without some belief structures, citizenship initiatives in schools will not lead tosustainable practices in the adult citizen population.

It will also certainly be a challenge for teachers to make explicit certain ethicaldimensions that they might previously have left implicit, for pupils to decide whetherthey wished to engage with such matters. Our current research at the University ofGloucestershire shows that those who are being compelled to teach it in order tofulfil regulations resent the new citizenship initiative. There are, of course, teacherswho have been teaching to the precepts of citizenship for years, although they maynot have called it that. Yet some schools are constrained by understaffing and a veryfull curriculum, fitting citizenship into PSHE lessons or tutor period, andtimetabling teachers who have free lessons rather than an interest or expertise incitizenship. Is this apathy, loss of hope or desperation about teaching world affairs?

Postmodernity

Crick states that, in many countries, the trigger to introducing citizenship in schoolshas been “some historically contingent sense of crisis” (1999, p. 338). Certainly inthe UK, the Government has suggested a causal link between perceived apathyamong the young and the need for citizenship teaching. Every society has felt fearabout loss of faith, and there is much modern writing that can be disturbing, suchas Chadwick’s (1975) work on the secularisation of the European mind, andWilliam’s (1979) ideas about the connections between modern tragedy and socialdisorder. In 1979, Williams saw humanity’s dilemmas as characterised by the loss ofhope, the loss of a future and the inability to communicate with others. Williams alsosaw how difficult it is to move forward from seeing what it is that we do not wantto be, and deciding what it is that we want to become (pp. 218, 219). Suchintimations of doom can be seen both in our daily lives and in the complex (oftenincompatible) ideas that comprise postmodernity, and therefore need some con-sideration. Postmodernity is difficult to define, and this slipperiness makes it difficultto formulate arguments that could clarify the situation. Lyon believes that it must be

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seen in the context of three eras: first, premodernity, when we believed in God, fateand omnipotent powers; second, modernity, when we sought support from reasonand the scientific revolution; and finally, postmodernity, which allows for all possiblepermutations of lifestyles. Modernity is often considered as existing in the time spanbetween the French Revolution (1789) and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989),incorporating the philosophies of the Enlightenment, the time when Europeanthought began to doubt religion and put its faith in scientific developments instead.In their turn, each has to be seen as a period of time in the context of its predecessor,and Lyon argues that, with caution, we can analyse the history of the Europeanworld in this three-stage model.

Lyotard (1984) coined the term “postmodern” for this position, with his disbeliefin everything (such as religion and science) that has presented people with itshegemony of truth. His views are at odds with those in more traditional societies inIndia and Kenya, in which time-honoured belief systems still elicit widespreadrespect (Massoudi, 2002). He described the “postmodern” approach as character-ised by “an incredulity towards metanarratives” (1992, p. 72). If we follow Lyotard(1984), the “big stories”, the metanarratives that we have told ourselves in the past,such as the premodernist acceptance of religion and the modernist belief in science,are all, relatively speaking, no better than each other. They should be treated withthe scepticism proper to postmodern life, thereby liberating us to see new, as yet notknown, possibilities. Yet our Indian and Kenyan colleagues on this project tell usthat they view such scepticism as a hindrance to ethical action, at odds with theirstrong religious and cultural frameworks, predominantly Hindu and Christianrespectively.

If postmodernity denies that there are foundational truths to live by, perhaps thereare reasons to think that postmodernity is, in fact, just another metanarrative that,by its own principles, cannot be believed? One way to contextualise this debate is tolook at our collective past. Whatever postmodernity is, it has not arrived out ofnowhere, and Lyon (1999, p. 11–15) notes the strong influence of Nietzsche, Marx,Heidegger, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard and Simmel. Williams (1974, p. 73) analysesthe background to their ideas: the defeat of rationalism (into mechanical realism),followed by the defeat of irrationalism (into nihilism). He believes that we are leftwith the choice of either accepting the “inevitable” or rejecting politics, to “see thereality of human liberation as internal, private and apolitical, even under the shadowof politically willed war or politically willed poverty or politically willed ugliness andcruelty”. It is also necessary to get a flavour of the range and variety of postmodernargument, from Habermas, who argues that we should not give up on modernity, toBaudrillard, for whom nothing is real any more.

Williams wrote prophetically in the 1960s about the tragic world revolution thatis unfolding, in which underdogs create tragic revolutionary acts, more for generalwrongs that they suffer as members of an underprivileged group than for specificwrongs done to them as individuals. This extremism may be a feature of post-modernity, and there is also an element of confusion created by the differencebetween pluralism and relativism, between whether we should tolerate all differenceor resist the risk to our integrity by challenging views we do not accept. There is

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often something hopeless and deeply offensive about postmodern arguments. Attheir most extreme, they can embody a denial of hope, of human dignity and of thecapacity of humans to be responsible for themselves and for others. Norris believesthat postmodernity can constitute a “large-scale failure of intellectual and moralnerve” (Yamamoto, 1999, p. 243). Norris argues the need for clear, principledthought in several texts and in different contexts (1993, 1997, 2000a, b). Yetpostmodernity, this “cuckoo in the nest” of a philosophical movement articulates theviews of many non-philosophers, namely, that there is no point in believing in onething more than another any more.

What belief structures are available to us? One belief structure is the Church. Inpremodern times, organised religion was powerful, and its hegemonic status wasthen eclipsed by the scientific revolution that offered reason and progress as theanswer to the meaning of life. In England, the Church has now become mar-ginalised. Christianity is now a “minority leisure pursuit” (Lyon, 1999, p. 77).Religions and education enjoy a uniquely favourable relationship in Britain, com-pared with Europe (Skinner, 2002), yet there is great difficulty in implementing thisin new ways with, significantly, the British Muslim community (Scott-Baumann,2003a). In the UK, many of us seem to be disappointed in religion, and alsodisappointed by the promises of science in the Enlightenment. Yet the citizenshipinitiative in schools may be damaged by the power of enduring positivistic ap-proaches: despite our acceptance of the limitations of science, we endorse evidence-based practice as if it is the only reliable phenomenon left. This is a problematicposition; human activities can never be fully understood from surface features, yetthis model is currently highly influential in education, and may tarnish our hopes forthe citizenship initiative. The thirty-page-long document entitled Inspecting Citizen-ship (HMI 699, May 2002), makes it very clear that all citizenship must be seen asa measurable outcome of the school curriculum and, moreover, one upon whichonly dispassionate outsiders can adjudicate:

Where schools have developed their own assessment systems for citizen-ship, data may be analysed. Since these are the teachers’ own assessments,which are not moderated locally or nationally, such data should be inter-preted with care (10, p. 2002)

Effective teaching is to be seen here as reflected in tangible targets. In their attemptto gauge outcomes, inspectors will question children, asking them, for example,

Does the work that you do in citizenship make sense to you? Are thereconnections in subject content? Can you use skills from one lesson toanother? (14, p. 2002)

Such dependence upon visible, measurable outcomes, while it may possibly be anecessary measure, is definitely not a sufficient estimate of citizenship, and suggestsa lack of trust in teachers’ judgements.

The sincerity of citizenship and the scepticism of postmodernity are rather farapart. What can be done to ensure that citizenship survives the corrosive effects ofdoubt and is a transforming force? For my part, as a philosopher, I take Ricoeur’s

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idea of ethico-practical action and his desire to rehabilitate hope. Citizenshipattempts to give us back our faith in human nature, by encouraging us to find outabout injustice, by developing responsibility for ourselves and others and by recom-mending active participation. Ricoeur’s philosophy is consistent with the citizenshipview, offering a reconstructive antidote to the confusing moral maze drawn byso-called postmodern thinking. I should not see myself reflected, narcissus-like, asconsumer or the consumable object of my desire, I should see myself reflected inanother person (Ricoeur, 1992). Pupils, and therefore their teachers too, will beexpected to consider their multiple, contradictory roles as local, national and worldcitizens. These initiatives require commitment and confidence in our ability to knowwrong from right. Many children and adults in the UK and Europe lack thatconfidence, particularly in the face of so many apparently intractable wars, disputesand injustices throughout the world. Lyotard saw many world trends clearly; forexample, he predicted correctly in 1970 that the gap between the developed nationsand the poor countries, would grow bigger (Lyotard, 1984). If we can adopt hiscritical approach without losing hope, it will be a valuable aid to implementingcitizenship, and one way to do that is to work closely with those countries.

The Department for International Development Global Citizenship Project

Acting on the need to take responsibility, the Department for International Develop-ment (DFID) has set up several projects in the UK, in England, Wales, Scotlandand Ireland. The DFID has a well-articulated set of objectives, contributing to thealleviation of poverty, to improving health and education in poorer countries andfacilitating sustainable development.

The following is a descriptive analysis of the England pilot project, presented aswork in progress. This project has been in the planning for several years and is nowentering the second year of a three-year cycle. The University of Gloucestershire,working in partnership with a non-governmental organisation (NGO), a local NGOcalled Global Dimensions, has received funding from the DFID to develop citizen-ship with a global dimension and to integrate that into subject teaching in the schoolcurriculum. We are developing practical projects with active pedagogies withincurriculum subjects, incorporating local and global connections.

Initial teacher education provides a robust infrastructure for this project, becausea teacher training partnership works simultaneously with trainees, teachers inschools and lecturers in higher education, and pupils. Teachers are well placed toinfluence pupils (Young, 1998; Mason, 2000). The teacher education programme inGloucestershire is well established and built on good cooperative working relation-ships with the staff and schools in the Gloucestershire Association of Headteachers(GASH) (Scott-Baumann et al., 1999). The project enables pupils, trainee teachersand their mentors to turn slogans such as “Think global, act local” into reality byworking with their contacts in Kenya and India. In this project, the use of e-mail andwebsites as media for learning and communication and for learning about othercultures helps us to learn more about others and also about ourselves. Teachers andtrainee teachers are able to visit each other’s countries and develop joint projects

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between UK, Kenya and India. We are developing structures within the project thatallow people of different faiths and cultures to spend time with each other, in eachother’s schools, homes and communities in the UK, in Kenya and in India, learningabout each other.

A comparative summary of the differences between the three countries yieldsmajor benefits to all three. Thinking globally and acting locally, we are developingschool-based community projects which combine comparison with other countriesand illumination of local practice with new clarity. Collaborating with an experi-enced NGO provides experience in working abroad, networking with NGO’s inKenya and India and guidance in moving away from the white supremacist thinkingthat still characterises many Europeans’ views. The NGO experience in workingwith other countries is a great benefit to the teacher training programmes (Kumaret al., 2003, work in progress). The work is complex, and some aspects proveresistant to our plans; for example, establishing a website link has proved feasiblewith India, but more problematic with Kenya. In spite of disappointments, theIndian, Kenyan and UK teachers and trainee teachers who are being funded by thegovernment to visit each other’s countries, believe themselves to be much changedby the experience. This is particularly true of the UK teachers, who have seen thesincerity of Kenyans and Indians in addressing daily poverty, injustices againstminority groups and girls, water pollution and waste mismanagement. The UKparticipants have also noted the Indian and Kenyan visitors’ surprise at how passiveand disrespectful the UK pupils can be. There is an attitude, which seems postmod-ern, implicit in the actions of parents and in some school staff rooms that it is “toolate” to “save” the British children. In response to this, our Indian and Kenyancounterparts suggest that we can use our citizenship work to teach our childrenrespect for themselves, responsibility for others and an ability to think criticallyabout the world around them. In the Indian and Kenyan projects, we see realcommitment to human rights, passion for interdependence in local causes and desireto act in accordance with social justice.

In conclusion, this project provides evidence of even greater potential than we atfirst envisaged. It is vital to be aware of the interim findings of our research, whichcan be summarised into the following five points. First, it is fair to say that hostilitytowards or lack of interest in citizenship is currently a common finding in UKschools. Teachers feel overwhelmed by centrally imposed curriculum initiatives andill-equipped to bring ideals and facts about issues like social justice into theirteaching. School timetables may be too full to allow incorporation of citizenship,without necessitating displacement of another area, such as Personal and SocialEducation, or tutor period. Secondly, teachers are passionate about the subject theyteach, and these subjects should become the vehicle for citizenship work, so thatpassion, expertise and relevance can be focused towards the development of a worldview. Thirdly, there must be permeation among and between different narrativesand vocabularies: National Curriculum terms, development education words, citi-zenship terms and philosophical ethics terms should all be tolerant of each other andhave conversations that will establish common ground. Fourthly, it seems that wecan learn a great deal from these Kenyan and Indian cultures. Their belief systems

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can prompt us to be critical of postmodern arguments and help us to decide how toface modern tragedies and still be hopeful. Fifthly, research and discussion paperswritten about citizenship have so far failed to catch the interest of many of ourschoolteachers, and this project can remedy this situation, because it works directlywith schoolteachers as well as academics. Finally, all citizenship, global citizenshipand ethics teaching should address three levels of thinking and being; the personal,the local and the global.

A look into the future will help us to imagine what such a project can achieve.Creating judicious tension between different narratives can support the optimismand hope latent in many children and adults in the UK. Plans for the future willbuild on current success in global citizenship and will aim to make the practical linksbetween the local and the global more explicit. We can help schools, universities andthe community to take this type of work seriously, by joining forces with thosealready engaged in such projects. We must work towards maximising the potentialof documents such as the paper by Association of University Teachers (1999) onglobalisation and the collection of case studies, Education for Sustainable Developmentput together by the Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority of Wales(2002). We can set processes of debate and questioning in motion, helping traineeteachers to develop specialist expertise within the teaching of their National curricu-lum subject. We must face the reality of rigid schemes of work that allow littleflexibility, and we must produce teaching materials that are compatible withschemes of work. The compulsory status of citizenship in the National Curriculummust not be allowed to diminish its potential power. We can work towards avertingcultural dislocation by building cultures of collaboration, with India and Kenya andalso with local communities. We can learn and teach others how to implement across-cultural mediation model, so that global and local misunderstandings arerecognised and resolved or tolerated where possible. We need to reconcile“traditional knowledge” with “modern technology”, and hope to show others thedangers of our consumer culture. We need to develop a hope that pluralism ispossible without relativism, so that we tolerate different lifestyles while still main-taining our own values (Vargas, 2000).

As a nation, the British are relatively unprepared for this new citizenship initiative.This Gloucestershire project is of vital importance for developing the issues thatRicoeur understands: compassion for others, an ability to see the self in another, torecognise the other as both different and similar and the self-belief to act on this.Ricoeur invites us to develop an ontology of action, a belief that our actions canmake a difference, and that we should think hard to develop many differentpossibilities for solving ethico-practical problems such as those set by citizenship. Bychallenging the events and trends that we often do not question, personally, locallyand globally, it may be possible to help our teachers and their pupils to developsustainable practices that transform their lives and those of others. Thus, we canwork together to revitalise hope for a better understanding of who we want tobecome, with citizenship as a state of mind. If human unhappiness is often causedby situations that prevent us from acting according to our conscience, then such aninitiative as citizenship must be grasped with both hands. Initially, we risk even

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deeper unhappiness, by thinking more about our discontents. Yet if we accept thatwe can believe in our actions and make a difference, we can move forwardconstructively from that critical point of creative tension created where the scepti-cism born of circumstance faces up to the optimism latent in conscience.

Address for correspondence: Dr Alison Scott-Baumann, Senior Lecturer, School of Edu-cation, University of Gloucestershire, Francis Close Hall, Swindon Road, Cheltenham,Gloucestershire, GL50 4AZ, UK; e-mail: asbaumann@glos.ac.uk

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