CW-Department of Educational Management Policy & Curriculum Studies
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Browsing CW-Department of Educational Management Policy & Curriculum Studies by Author "Arnot, Madeleine"
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Item Citizenship education and political engagement: voices of Kenyan youth from Nyeri and Nairobi(2005-09) Chege, Fatuma N.; Wawire, V. K.; Arnot, Madeleine; Wainaina, Paul K.Education plays a major role in equipping individuals with skills that enable them to participate fully as citizens in society. This paper interrogates this in the context of the nature of political engagement for schooled young persons living in impoverished rural and urban settings in Kenya. Using qualitative methods that include focused group discussions and interviews, young people are given a chance to express their views on how education has enabled them to enact their citizenship. They discuss their political identifications, their rights as citizens, and the failure to achieve these, the effects of schooling on their feelings of belonging and inclusion and the perceived potential of second chance education in helping them move forward. The findings indicate that while the Kenyan education system is designed to shape young people’s civic consciousness, varying schooling experiences based on socio-cultural and geographical divides determine the level to which they are able to enjoy their citizenship rights and see possibilities of achieving full citizenship. Young people voice concerns to government which centre on unemployment, security and the importance of listening to young people, which if addressed would improve the civic education outcomes of young people living in impoverished communities. The expressed faith in a perceived necessary link between education and the attainment of full citizenship creates a running theme in the discourse shaping discussions with the youth.Item Youth citizenship, national unity and poverty allev iation: East and West African approaches to the education of a new generation(Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, 2009) Chege, Fatuma N.; Casely-Hayford, L.; Arnot, Madeleine; Dovie, D. A.Youth citizenship is now on the international agenda. This paper explores what that concept might mean in the context of two African nations: Kenya and Ghana. Post independence, both countries focused on rethinking the colonial concept of citizenship in line with their political-cultural traditions, providing education for all youth and to encouraging new notions of national citizenship. Programmes for civic education were established that have been reshaped over the last fifty years. These citizenship education programmes display the tension between different political goals of national unity, economic progress and the promotion of human rights, working with diversity, and encouraging collective responsibility and individual development. The aim is to use the education of the citizen to encourage civic engagement although there is evidence that these programmes might not, for a variety of reasons, engage all young people into the nation building project. The paper considers evidence from a wide range of documentary and social scientific sources to open debate about how to encourage young people’s citizenship within the project of poverty alleviation.