History learning activities for citizenship education

Abstract

This article describes an attempt to include citizenship within history teaching. The author considers history an ideal context for citizenship education because the learning objectives of citizenship such as enquiry, participation, action and communication are all familiar to history teachers since historical enquiry, interpretations, analysis, explanation and appreciating different perspectives have long been compulsory elements in most history curricula. Here the author uses history as a platform and then moves on to higher order citizenship concepts, in particular human rights and the democratic process. The study was carried out with students' from 12 to 14 years old in two classes from different schools, one a co-educational private school with mixed achievers and one a state girls' school with low achievers. Both classes participated separately in history tasks and activities on an historical site on the island of Malta. The main objective of the follow-up citizenship lessons was to debate whether torture should ever be used in a democratic society.