National Curriculum for Citizenship in England: Social Foundations, Strands and Essential Elements

Although citizenship education in England has been a statutory subject in the National Curriculum since 2002, schools have had independence in setting their own teaching programmes for the subject since a revision made in 2010. This led to different programmes being applied in almost every school and Citizenship became a school-specific subject. The purpose of this study is to discuss the social foundations, common strands and essential elements of the different citizenship education programmes in three secondary schools visited in London. Document analyses method was used in this qualitative research. The main documents reviewed for this study include the Crick Report (1998), the Ajegbo Report (2007), and the 2002, 2008 and 2013 Citizenship programmes. Citizenship programmes at three different public secondary schools in London were also reviewed. It is significant that there were still four common strands of the programmes in the schools visited even though each school can independently set their own programmes. These common strands were: rights and responsibilities, social participation, government and democracy, identities and differences. Additionally, these schools also had three common essential elements in the programmes: concepts, values and dispositions, skills and aptitudes. In spite of the revision made in 2010, schools are still following the recommendations of the Crick (1998) and Ajegbo Report (2007) on citizenship education. It is also noteworthy that the process of seeking a solution to certain social problems was the key for the introduction of citizenship education and revisions of the programmes in the years following 2002.