Democratic Citizenship Education: A New Imperative for the Americas
Main Article Content
Abstract
During the last decade, countries across the Americas have been active in revising programs for civic education in order to create a broader and deeper democratic political culture. Perennially a bulwark of national identity and allegiance for more authoritarian or populist regimes, civic education has been reconceived as a space for fostering democratic citizenship. Yet school-based civic education remains but one actor in the drama, variously competing and aligning with the many forces and influences that shape the construction of citizenship, from popular culture and the media, to peer groups and economic relations, to political opportunities and the balance of rights and responsibilities present in each particular context. In discourse across the Americas, civic education is giving way to “citizenship” education, and the broader term, “citizenship formation,” is often preferred, especially in the Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our usage, then, democratic citizenship education (DCE) includes state-sponsored initiatives in schools and in non-formal education programs, as well as informal socialization processes and organized civil society initiatives.
During the last decade, the Organization of American States (OAS) has also played an important role in the region promoting DCE. At least since the Second Summit of the Americas, held in Santiago de Chile in 1998, numerous mandates for attention to “democratic values and practices” have been promulgated during OAS general assemblies, plenary sessions, and Summits of the Americas. Such efforts were strongly bolstered by the signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS in September of 2001. Articles 26 and 27 of the Charter placed emphasis on the need to develop a “democratic culture” to accompany democratic political reforms. In particular, Article 27 mandated that “special attention shall be given to the development of programs and activities for the education of children and youth as a means of ensuring the continuance of democratic values, including liberty and social justice.” Since that time, the Department of Education and Culture, in collaboration with the Department for the Promotion of Governance of the OAS, has taken the lead in convening meetings with participants from governmental and non-governmental institutions throughout the Americas to share knowledge of best practices across borders and to exchange ideas through open discussions and debates.
Downloads
Article Details
The parties agree to the following terms of publication:
1. The Author grants and assigns the entire copyright for the Work to the Publisher who shall be the exclusive holder of the copyright.
a. The Inter-American Journal of Education for Democracy is the owner of all such copyrighted materials including electronic and all machine-readable formats. No material may be reproduced in any format without permission of the Publisher. The author retains the right to store and link an electronic version of the Work on his/her own personal website, as long as it displays the Journal’s copyright.
NOTE: A work prepared by a government employee as a part of his/her official duties is called a “Work of the U. S. Government,” and is not copyrightable. If it is not a part of the employee’s official duties it may be copyrighted. If the Work was prepared jointly, and any co- author is not an U.S. Government employee, that author must be delegated to the co-authors to sign the complete agreement.
2. The Author ensures the Publisher that he/she has the right to assign the copyright and that no portion of the copyright to the work has been assigned previously.
3. The Author may reprint the work in anthologies or books which are comprised of the Author’s writings, and agrees to notify the Editors of the Journal of any such reprints of the Work.
4. The Author agrees to hold harmless and indemnify the Publisher against any claim, demand, suit, action, proceeding, recovery of expense of any claim whatsoever arriving from any claims of plagiarism, libel, slander, obscenity, unlawfulness, or invasion of privacy or copyright infringement in the Work, that are finally sustained in a court of competent jurisdiction.
5. Permission to use previously copyrighted material shall be obtained at the Author’s expense from the copyright proprietor.
6. The Author is to submit camera-ready copy for graphs and figures with their manuscripts or provide the publisher with a separate .tiff or .jpeg file. Text in figures and graphs is to be Times New Roman or a similar sans serif typeface. Graphs and figures should be approximately twice final desired size.
7. The Author shall read and correct proofs of the Work when submitted to him/her, and shall return same to the Editors on the date specified by the Publisher.
8. It is understood that the Author receives no monetary compensation from the Publisher for the assignment of copyright and publication of the Work.