Abstract

ARIZA, Alejandra. Democracy, Citizenship and Civic Education: An Approximation. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2007, n.27, pp.150-163. ISSN 0123-885X.

This article examines some of the ideas developed in Western culture around the political and social organization of democracy. It argues that the way we understand democracy today (the liberal model) by no means exhausts its different meanings or possibilities. The article shows that there is not just one kind of democracy and, therefore, that there are various ways of understanding citizenship and civic education. The first part of the article describes the historical conditions in which democracy arose in Greece, as well as its characteristic features, and discusses their notion of citizenship and what could be called civic education. The article then addresses liberal democracy in its different stages of development, again noting the corresponding ideas of citizenship and civic education. The third part notes some criticisms made of the liberal model in the current context of the weakening of the social welfare state (Estado Social de Derecho) and the rise of neoliberalism. How should we now understand citizenship and civic education? I address this question in the concluding remarks of the article.

Keywords : Democracy; citizenship; liberalism; civic education.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )