Proposed Study

Rationale

Political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest point in more than a decade in 2017, extending the period characterized by emboldened autocrats, and beleaguered democracies (Democracy in Crisis, 2018). India is the biggest Representative Democracy in the world with 17.74% of world population. India is the young nation with 25% population below the age of 25years. If Citizenship education is implemented properly then it may reflect positively on the entire nation and world. ‘National policy on Education’ and milestone recommending documents like ‘Kothari Commission (1965)’ has clearly articulated these needs long back, which clearly states the expectations from the Education is to ‘foster democracy as a way of life rather than only a system of governance’ for which ‘creation of a citizenry conscious of their rights and duties, and commitment to the principles embodied in the Constitution is the prerequisite’. This need was highlighted again in National Curriculum Framework 2005 which reads ‘greatest national challenge for education is to strengthen our participatory democracy and the values enshrined in the constitution”. It was reiterated in Section 29 (1) of the (THE RIGHT OF CHILDREN TO FREE AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION ACT, 2009) which mandates that the curriculum framed for the schools should be in ‘conformity with values enshrined in the Constitution’.

Considering the above demands, there are a few programs which are being implemented in the Indian school system. Mulyavardhan is one such programme to help children imbibe democratic values, attitudes, and skills in an enabling school climate. Mulyavardhan program is currently being implemented in two Indian states name, Maharashtra and Goa (About Mulyavardhan, 2018). Another organization, ‘We, the People’, believe that the development of responsible citizenship is a critical building block for the nation. It is focused on fostering the Active Citizenship and empowering the communities (We the People, 2018). Similarly, Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation engages with the Indian youth in a unique way that the students imbibe the WILL (inspiration) and develop the SKILLS (knowledge) to emerge as contributing citizens (Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation, 2018). Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA) is on the mission to transform the young into concerned, thinking and active citizens for an inclusive and sustainable India (CMCA - Spark Change, 2018).

Policy directions and discourse on Value Education in India has shifted a bit over the period of time and current focus is on the core Indian constitutional values namely Justice, Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty. The National Curriculum Framework 2005 published a separate position paper on Education for Peace. The National Council of Educational, Research and Training (NCERT) produced another ‘Value Education in Schools – A Framework’ in 2012 to include Value Education in the State Curriculum. Subsequently, in 2013, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) provided a handbook for teachers focused on operationalizing the Value education. Apart from above all efforts by Government and Non-Government institutions in India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, India and NCERT is in the process of the developing Common Minimum Programme for Value Education (The Economic Times, 2018).

Political history considered as one of the variables affecting civic participation (HOSKINS, BARBER, NIJLEN, & VILLALBA, 2011). Further research has confirmed that the number of years of uninterrupted democracy has had a consistent and stable association with higher levels of democratic participation (van Deth et al. 2007) and greater levels of liberal values such as tolerance. I come from the place which is practicing democracy for more than 65years (since independence). Still 6.3 females are raped in 100,000 population when 99% of the rape cases go unreported, 300000 farmers committed suicide during the last two decades in the agrarian country like us (Sainath, 2018), and about 25% of children from the age 14-18 still cannot read basic text fluently in their own language (The twelfth Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2017:Beyond Basics), 2018). It does not mean that people in my country are not active, on the contrary, they are proactively participating in social life. Maratha caste got 16% reservation as Special Economically Backward Caste (SEBC) which increased overall reservation in the state of Maharashtra to 63%. A large number of Hindus offered volunteer service (KarSeva) to demolish mosque at Ayodhya (https://youtu.be/CXsjmdF0OP0) in 1992. After that, Indians are fighting over temple for more than 25 years now and it’s still an important point in the manifesto of a few leading parties in the country. There is a divide based on the language as well. A beef ban has provoked vandalism and there are incidences of murder as well.

People in India are active and participating in social life but is it what was expected from an active citizen. A good citizen may mean the Personally Responsible Citizen; the Participatory Citizen; and the Social-Justice Oriented Citizen. (Westheimer & Kahne, 2003). There is a need to measure the Civic and Social participation in such a democratic environment, against this definition of Citizen. Citizenship Education and Civic Engagement related programs in India need to be assessed on the International standards. These measurements should inform the policy decisions and educational programs design. There are no current efforts in this direction by the center or any of the state governments in India.

Background

International Association for the Evaluation of the Education Achievement (IEA) conducted three International Comparative studies about civic and citizenship education since 1976. The IEA’s International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS) serves as a rich source of information for understanding issues around “good citizenship,” often but not only characterized by personal responsibility, community or societal participation, and an orientation toward solving societal problems (Westheimer, 2015; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). It created a good framework to understand Civic and Citizenship which provides with reliable, comparative data in this critical learning area and help in shaping educational policies in the participating countries. ICCS, CELS has given a good framework (Appendix 1) for defining the indicators and variables. It can give a very good international comparative picture. This or similar established measurements can be used in India to understand the Civic Participation better.

Aim of the study

To investigate the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens

Research Questions

1. To understand knowledge about the topics related to Citizenship domain, a current status of awareness about the social issues, a realization of the responsibilities as Active Citizen and preparation for future participation

2. To understand the current policy context from the Citizenship Education perspective, compare it with the approaches taken by other countries, and suggesting better approaches based on the empirical evidence

Methodology

Social, cultural, political and educational context will be taken in the account while designing this study. Largely quantitative methods will be deployed for this study. Multi-stage Random sampling will be followed. States will be sampled from each region, followed by schools from each state and finally classes from the 8^th grade. Overall 3000-5000 students will be sampled. Teachers for the interview will be sampled from those schools. One important guiding principle while designing sampling strategies is that data should be comparable with other countries as well. Data collection methods will include Interviews, Observations, and Surveys; which will be primarily administered on students, teachers, and school leaders.

Appendix 1: ICCS Frameworks

Civic and Citizenship Framework

· Civic and citizenship content domains

o Content domain 1: Civic society and systems

o Content domain 2: Civic principles

o Content domain 3: Civic participation

o Content domain 4: Civic identities

· Civic and citizenship cognitive domains

o Cognitive domain 1: Knowing

o Cognitive domain 2: Reasoning and applying

· Civic and citizenship affective-behavioral domains

o Affective-behavioral domain 1: Attitudes

o Affective-behavioral domain 2: Engagement

Contextual Framework

· The context of the wider community

o The context of the educational system

o The context of the local community and school–community relationships

· The contexts of schools and classrooms

o School contexts and characteristics

o Teacher background and their perceptions of schools and classrooms

o Student perceptions of the context of schools and classrooms

· The home and peer context

· Student characteristics

(Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016)

References

(2018, 06 15). Retrieved from The Economic Times: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/in-2019-20-schools-to-provide-value-education/articleshow/64595157.cms

About Mulyavardhan. (2018, 11 09). Retrieved from Shantilal Muttha Foundation: www.mutthafoundation.org/index.php/about-mulyavardhan; www.mulyavardhan.org

CMCA - Spark Change. (2018, 11 09). Retrieved from CMCA - Spark Change: www.cmcaindia.org/our-cause/

Democracy in Crisis. (2018). Retrieved from Freedom House: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018

Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation. (2018, 11 09). Retrieved from Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation: https://www.deshapnayen.org/

HOSKINS, B. L., BARBER, C., NIJLEN, D. V., & VILLALBA, E. (2011). Comparing Civic Competence among European Youth:Composite and Domain-Specific Indicators Using IEA Civic Education Study Data. Comparative Education Review, 82-110.

Sainath, P. (2018, 06 23). A Long March of the Dispossessed to Delhi. Retrieved from https://thewire.in/agriculture/a-long-march-of-the-dispossessed-to-delhi: https://thewire.in/agriculture/a-long-march-of-the-dispossessed-to-delhi

Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Losito, B., & Agrusti, G. (2016). IEA ICCS 2016 - Assessement Framework. AG Switzerland: Springer Nature.

(2009). THE RIGHT OF CHILDREN TO FREE AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION ACT. Delhi: Government of India.

(2018). The twelfth Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2017:Beyond Basics). Delhi: Pratham.

We the People. (2018, 11 09). Retrieved from We The People: http://wethepeople.ooo/

Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2003). What kind of citizen? Political choices and educational goals. Encounters on Education, 47-64.