Citizenship outside the Classroom

Abstract

In the context of an increasingly pluralist and in some ways troubled society, work was undertaken to investigate the role of formal education and non-educational organisations in building good citizenship in girls and young women (9-19 years old). Different stages in the developmental process are identified, and the paper describes a number of ways in which experiential and attitudinal information was obtained from the range of respondents: these included a Citizen's Forum and quantitative omnibus research. Methodologies to involve the young people in focused and relevant debate during the one-day Forum were developed and are discussed.