Introduction
In the last decade, educational scholars have built curriculum frameworks for intercultural, religious, moral and democratic citizenship education that complement cognitive approaches with participatory, experience based, dialogical, reflexive and interpretive approaches (Fielding and Moss 2012; Mazza 2014; Oser Althof & Higgins-D’Alessandro 2008; Veugelers 2011). Applying different teaching strategies not only enables educational professionals to serve students with different learning styles. It also widens the scope of educational aims: the various developments and learning processes that educational professionals might seek to cultivate.
In our research, we develop a theoretical framework for narrative teaching and learning in democratic citizenship education. As Clark & Rossiter (2008) describe, narrative learning theory builds on knowledge about learning as located in the life world; experiential learning; constructivism; situated learning; and a critical cultural perspective on learning. Typical for a narrative learning approach, they argue, is that that it “connects experiential learning and the notion of narrative as a sense-making medium” (Clark 2010, 5). Whilst scholars in adult education, higher education and religious education have contributed to the theory and practice of narrative teaching and learning for professional and religious development, a framework for narrative teaching and learning in democratic citizenship education is still lacking.
This paper presents the first findings of a theoretical inquiry into possible and legitimate strategies for narrative teaching and learning for thick democratic citizenship (TDC) education. In particular, we present three sets of narrative teacher strategies that educational professionals in vocational education, upper secondary education and higher education can utilize in this context.
Theoretical framework
In general, narrative learning can be defined as ‘developing one’s self-identity’ (Goodson 2013). Based on an earlier inquiry into Dutch adolescents’ democratic citizenship engagement (De Groot, Goodson & Veugelers 2014b) and related explorative theoretical inquiries we here identify three key components of a located ‘democratic citizenship narrative’: democratic citizenship philosophy; civic self-images; and narratives about one’s democratic citizenship experiences. Democratic citizenship philosophy is defined as one’s view on how one, and citizens in general, can and should contribute to the democratic process. Self-image is defined as the conglomerate of one’s experiences of one’s place in the civic communities that one is part of and one’s ‘sense of connections to different civic communities and the civic roles individuals play within each community’ (IEA 2007: 18). and ‘narratives about one’s democratic citizenship experiences’ refers to one’s learning experiences with democratic practices (Biesta 2011) and narratives and to how people make sense of these experiences, how they are lived.
Typical for TDC-education, in our view (see also: De Groot, 2013) is that educational professionals not only teach about democracy and organize participatory experiences in existing democratic practices and procedures, but also guide students in the process of giving meaning to their citizenship in a high-modern democratic and pluralist society and challenging their understandings of, and their willingness to help address civic and political issues on the macro and meso level that affect the daily lives of different groups of citizens. We also suggested that guidance in meaning making processes can be offered, amongst others, through cultivating students’ democratic citizenship narratives. In this paper, we theorize about possibilities for narrative teaching in this context.
