A couple of weeks ago, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters released their report “From Classroom to Community” which examined civics and citizenship education in Australia. It coincided with the delayed (due to COVID) release of the NAP-CC results (more on that later). This has contributed to something of a ‘boom’ in civics and citizenship and civics and citizenship education news – including me being interviewed for the Daily Telegraph, and appearing on FM radio. Very exciting. I should note that I was not, of course, the only person interviewed. Both Professors Print and Riddle were interviewed too, and Stewart Riddle even got to appear on ABC Triple J Hack. Oh well, perhaps next time!
Both of these reports address topics that I am intensely interested, and so I’ve written a few notes outlining my initial thoughts. In this post, I am going to focus on the JCSEM report, and especially the recommendations. The whole report is more than 150 pages, and while I will read it, it will take me a while. Instead, I’ll make some initial comments on the recommendations – and I should note that it was quite gratifying to see my name appear in the report a number of times!
- We’ve been here before.
There are a lot of recommendations. This is good, but recommendations aren’t worth much. What matters is what happens next: and
2. Read the dissenting/ alternative points of view.
James McGrath wrote a dissenting report. It largely agrees, but hews closely to the current line from that side of politics about diversity = division. I think this is simplistic, and ignores the specific challenges that some marginalised groups face in terms of enfranchisement. Kate Chaney wrote some additional notes, and these are definitely worth reading – they emphasise a much more active approach to civics and citizenship education – one that closely aligns with my own interest.
3. Civics and citizenship education as a national security concern
This is a bit of a shift – but in reality it shouldn’t be. For myself, this awareness was stimulated by conversations with a colleague, Professor Naomi Barnes from QUT, who first started discussing CCE in terms of national security. It is interesting that the report (and subsequent media attention) both touch on this. No doubt this is moderated by concerns related to mis- and disinformation, and the role that third party actors promoting these have played in recent elections. Professor Tanya Notley was cited a lot in the report for her work in this space.
4. Same same, but different
CCE has been poor in Australia for a long time; this report notes that’s the case, and also identifies various reasons why that is so. I don’t disagree with any of these reasons. However, what I do note is that there is a focus on social media in this report that has been largely absent in previous reports. Again, this is not because misinformation and disinformation are new – they’re not – but because social media offers new opportunities for proliferation of this information, at a hitherto unknown scale.
5. The Richard Branson principle
I like a lot of the recommendations. They address some of the concerns I have – principally the place of CCE within the broader curriculum and syllabus framework. While I am, at heart, an integrationist (that is, I think CCE is better delivered through other subjects) the evidence suggests that this is not happening, and pragmatically speaking, we need to do something different. So I like the idea of a stand alone subject. But somebody needs to teach this – and it can’t just be left to History and Geography teachers. Instead, we need expert CCE teachers. Branson always used to say, ‘Look after your employees, and they will look after the customers.’ I think that is partly true for teaching – let’s get the right teachers teaching CCE, confidently and knowledgeably, and they’ll sort out a lot of the problems. To do that, they need a credential – something more than a few PD sessions.
6. Other information
In 2024, I made a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. My submission can be found here: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/Civicseducation/Submissions.
I was also asked to give evidence. That can be found here: