Conference Agenda

This study addresses a critical gap in the scholarship on citizenship education by examining the decolonisation of knowledge within UK GCSE Citizenship Studies textbooks. The study is vital because, as the UK's educational system attracts a global student body, its curriculum must include international and multicultural perspectives, and diversifying education is essential for protecting the well-being of minority student groups. Despite policy intentions, prior research suggests citizenship education has become marginalised, unevenly delivered, and often taught by non-specialists, with its radical potential underdeveloped. Textbooks, as "authorised condensations of curricular knowledge," play a key role in this dynamic, yet there is limited analysis of how they systematically construct national identity and global relations through post-colonial narratives. This study contributes by critically dissecting these narratives and evaluating the substantive engagement with decolonisation, offering evidence-based insights for curriculum reform aimed at fostering genuinely critical and transformative citizenship.

Therefore, the core objectives of this study are to assess how UK GCSE Citizenship Studies textbooks address multicultural issues and respond to decolonisation demands through cultural discussion. Specifically, the study aims to analyse how three GCSE Citizenship Studies textbooks construct meanings regarding Britishness iconography, belonging, and the world “outside the UK”, thereby judging whether these textbooks perpetuate colonial thinking or genuinely integrate decolonisation political practices into civic education.

Accordingly, this study is guided by three core research questions examining the representation of knowledge in UK GCSE Citizenship Studies textbooks: (A) To what extent are British and foreign content presented in the textbooks examined?(B) Is multicultural content, knowledge, pedagogy, and fairness demonstrated evenly across the textbooks? and (C) To what extent do the textbooks provide learners with opportunities to develop intercultural communicative competence oriented toward decolonisation?

The analysis is framed by an integrated theoretical and methodological approach. The primary theoretical framework is Critical Multicultural Education, understood through "the critical lens of knowledge decolonisation" (McKivett & Paúl, 2023; Udah, 2024). This research operationalises James A. Banks' Five Dimensions of Multiculturalism as "operational theoretical lenses for critical text analysis." This framework serves to deconstruct textbook content across: Content Integration (examining inclusion of marginalised perspectives); Knowledge Construction (evaluating epistemic justice); Equity Pedagogy (assessing inclusive learning design); Prejudice Reduction (investigating stereotype dismantling); and Empowering School Culture and Social Structure (analysing engagement with structural inequalities). Accordingly, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is employed to examine "how textbook narratives are constructed," treating language as a form of social meaning-making shaped by power, and analysing texts through complementary micro (textual features) and macro (socio-political context) lenses.

To address the research questions through this CDA approach, the study is guided by the operationalised theoretical framework of James A. Banks' Five Dimensions of Multicultural Education (Content Integration, Knowledge Construction, etc.). This framework directed the analytical scrutiny towards specific discursive patterns. For instance, to examine the representation of foreign content (RQ1), the analysis draws on the notion of 'the other' as a discursive construction, using CDA to examine "how alterity is produced through lexical choices, comparisons, and implied hierarchies, and how these moves organise citizenship imaginaries across the textbooks." The findings on managed multiculturalism, distorted global images, and sanitised Commonwealth narratives are thus the direct products of this methodological synthesis, where the theoretical lenses shaped the interrogation of the textual evidence gathered from the three textbook sources.

This presentation addresses the question of which democracy-related skills students can acquire through digital learning projects that are integrated into global school partnerships. It presents a study focusing on students’ experiences and how these relate to the framework conditions of the learning setting. Data was collected via a pre-post survey of Tanzanian participants in a digital learning week, which was carried out at the end of 2024 in cooperation between four Tanzanian and four German schools. The study demonstrates that digital learning projects in global school partnerships can contribute to the acquisition and development of democracy-related competencies.

Democracy is more than a modus of government; according to Oskar Negt, it is a ‘way of life [Lebensweise]’ (Negt, 2016:13). This way of life is the foundation of the governmental form. Edelstein, for example, speaks of a ‘democratic habitus [demokratischer Habitus]’ (Edelstein, 2005). Therefore, democracy is founded on values, attitudes and an ethos that must be embedded in routines of exchange and communication. In addition to knowledge, it requires specific skills and competencies. Various democracy-related pedagogical approaches (Himmelmann, 2001; Veith, 2010; Council of Europe, 2018) share the understanding, that educational programmes cannot rely solely on the cognitively mediated subjects, but must also be linked to learning through and in democracy. Therefore, participatory spaces in schools and in the wider social environment are relevant (Himmelmann, 2013). As democratic negotiations and decision-making often occur beyond the national level, and as the issues to be resolved are frequently global in nature, the glocal condition (Robertson, 1995) must be incorporated into education that promotes democracy.

Digitality as a sign of the present (Stalder, 2017) is a transnational social phenomenon that affects the lives of individuals and changes the conditions of social coexistence. It influences communication processes, decision-making, and the handling of conflicts. The link between democracy and digitality stems from the fundamental changes communication media and, consequently, in the formation of opinions and forms of participation (Krommer, 2021; Schulz et al., 2018). Furthermore, the validity of knowledge and information is now subject to social resonance spaces and referential systems. Against this backdrop, the concept of digital literacy (Samaniego, 2023) is receiving increasing attention, with links being made to citizency as digital citizenship (Choi, 2016). The Council of Europe (Council of Europe, 2024), for example, is promoting conceptually this connection between digital and democracy-related areas of competence. One focus of this relationship is the development of values, particularly critical thinking skills (Culp, 2019; Culp, 2023).

With the support of the PROBONO Foundation (Germany), a digital project week was held at the end of 2024, involving four tandems of Tanzanian and German schools. The subject was 'Nutrition at the heart of the SDGs' and the week was structured around interlocking digital and analogue activities. This allowed the students to familiarise themselves with the topic and its local characteristics (e.g. crop rotation in agriculture), learn about their partners' contexts through collaborative work and presentations, and develop a broader understanding of the topic through cooperative reflections on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Digitality was therefore the medium of the project week (learning through digitality), with the setting encouraging education that promotes democracy (learning in and through democracy) through a focus on understanding, negotiation processes and changing perspectives. The presentation of the study will focus on which democracy-relevant competencies were stimulated in this setting and whether factors that cause differences in competency stimulation could be identified.