Asking Some Hard Questions About Citizenship, Morality and Identity

This paper calls into questions some assumptions about citizenship which are more or less taken for granted in academic, political and social contexts. Such assumptions include: That there is a clearly defined conceptual link between citizenship and the identity of citizens. That conceptions of citizenship – and, therefore, of citizenship education – inevitably vary from one cultural context to another; That the values underpinning citizenship are public or objective; and That the concept of citizenship has moral or ethical connotations which justify the inclusion of citizenship (or civics) education in school curricula; I argue that with respect to individuals, matters of identity are not directly tied to citizenship or to any other “collectivist” conception. Instead, these identity conditions are grounded in the actual concept of person, and are best construed in relational terms. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012