Children's citizenship education in politically sensitive societies

Citizenship is both an individual and collective identity. In politically sensitive societies, the aim of citizenship education is to transform discourses around 'us' and 'them' into a more inclusive 'we'. Yet promoting an inclusive citizenship is beset with challenges and contradictions as it may integrate young people into mainstream political structures to which some of them will have limited allegiance. In politically sensitive societies, discourses around citizenship may promote discourses of silences around existing communal tensions. The paper demonstrates this by drawing on Northern Ireland as a case study. It explores a number of dilemmas associated with citizenship education, including the crucial need to acknowledge the dynamics of power and control which characterize adult/teacher and child/pupil relationships in the school classrooms where citizenship education is transmitted.