Making Connections Between Civics and Citizenship ...

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Making Connections Between Civics and Citizenship and Education for Sustainability Peter Brett

University of Tasmania

Introduction International research in civics and citizenship education underlines that ongoing work is required to achieve outcomes for students that address some of the critical civic and geopolitical realities facing young people in the world today and in the future (e.g. DeJaeghere 2013; Grossman, Lee and Kennedy 2008; Kerr et al. 2010). At the Rio Earth Summit in 2012, the world’s governments affirmed their commitment to an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable planetary future. However, in relation to such phenomena as species loss, deforestation, climate change, rising carbon emissions, ice-sheet melt and water quality and shortages, there is still insufficient global action and attention to these critical issues (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014; World Wildlife Fund 2014). There is a widespread recognition that education and curriculum policies have a key role to play in engaging mindsets, shifting dispositions and enhancing young peoples’ abilities both to acknowledge contemporary problems and to develop and apply their knowledge and skills in remediating unsustainable practices in the future (Wals 2011; Sterling 2014). Yet the mainstreaming of what can too often be seen as marginal areas of education remains an imperative. A holistic, focused and joined-up approach to teaching and learning in the area of sustainability is recommended in the research literature; indeed it is seen as vital and urgent (Sterling 2014). Civics and citizenship (CC) education and education for sustainability (EfS) have the potential to be natural partners in their promotion of global awareness, a more socially just future and informed citizen action; and there are strong reasons why there is a need for this partnership. Australia is the

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Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia

highest emitter of carbon dioxide per capita in the world (OECD 2013). The Climate Council’s (2014) synthesis of research showed that Australia’s largest population centres are at increased risk from extreme weather events such as flooding and bushfires which will have long-term impacts on people, property, communities and environments. Environmental questions have been especially high on Australian political agendas in the past decade: renewable energy targets, urban transportation investment, governmental protections for World Heritage Areas, the policy implications of climate change and especially the pros and cons of a carbon tax have all prompted heated political argument. There is thus a compelling logic to a coming together of EfS and CC to develop a deeper understanding of issues such as alternative energy sources, declining biodiversity, international strategies to limit global warming and sustainable consumption (UNECE Expert Group 2013). There are also ideational moves for a more interdisciplinary direction as prevailing orientations of EfS attempt to replace a narrow ‘green’ focus on ecology and the protection of nature with more of a focus on social justice and ‘the pedagogies of humans as agents for change’ (Elliott and Davis 2009: 67) The practical challenge for teachers is how to make these connections where ‘horizontal’, cross-curricular and whole school initiatives struggle to find space in a ‘vertical’ world of traditional disciplinary curriculum dominance (Bernstein 1996: 171). There are some obvious links. For example, the Australian primary curriculum for CC offers a number of possible elaborations, exploring EfS themes such as: ‘developing a position on a civics and citizenship topic and providing reasons for the position’ (Year 3); ‘identifying possible solutions to an [environmental] problem … and locating people or organisations within the local community that could help to resolve the issue’ (Year 4); ‘establishing criteria to justify an inquiry into an important citizenship issue associated with the environment, such as waste disposal or river pollution’ (Year 5); and ‘investigating the moral or ethical disposition people may have as a global citizen, such as how they relate to the environment’ (Year 6) (ACARA 2013a). There are rich overlaps of subject content. This chapter explores the possibilities for a more integrative paradigm in Australia for teaching EfS in a conjoint and integrated way with CC. It provides a brief review of the relevant policy context and an acknowledgement of implementation challenges, before going on to outline a shared conceptualization of EfS and CC and to exemplify some case studies of school and communitybased CC and sustainability practices. The chapter then develops a model for a form of sustainable citizenship education committed to promoting an

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active concern for the common good. The eight dimensions of this model are outlined and discussed. The chapter argues that a closer alignment of CC and EfS can contribute towards the building of a ‘culture of critical commitment’ to sustainability, shared by teachers and students (Gray-Donald and Sterling 2007).

Curriculum and policy context Australia has been part of international endeavours in EfS since the field’s inception, with a range of policies, programmes and resources being put in place over the years (see Whitehouse 2014 for examples). The Department of the Environment and Heritage released Education for a Sustainable Future: A National Environmental Education Statement for Schools (DEH 2005) during the first year of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. This document’s intent was to provide a nationally agreed description of the nature and purpose of EfS. The five components of EfS identified within this statement were: Envisioning a Better Future, Critical Thinking and Reflection, Participation, Partnerships for Change and Systems Thinking (Australian Research Institute for Education for Sustainability 2009: 3). ACARA’s subsequent (2012) commitment to the Cross-Curriculum Priority of Sustainability in the Australian Curriculum brought these ideas together: Education for sustainability develops the knowledge, skills, values and world views necessary for people to act in ways that contribute to more sustainable patterns of living … Sustainability education is futures-oriented, focusing on protecting environments and creating a more ecologically and socially just world through informed action. Actions that support more sustainable patterns of living require consideration of environmental, social, cultural and economic systems and their interdependence. (ACARA 2012, para. 3)

Of the five components which were outlined, only ‘Systems Thinking’ may require stronger emphasis with CC educators, and yet might usefully be embraced in the context of helping students to understand the nature of economic, political and legal systems of national and international governance. Socio-ecological systems thinking is a central component of the Sustainability cross-curricular priority. There are nine organizing ideas (OIs) in this curricular space formed around three categories: Systems, World Views and Futures. Within Systems are the following ideas: the biosphere is a dynamic system providing conditions that sustain life on Earth (OI 1); all life forms, including human life, are connected through ecosystems on which they depend for their well-being and survival

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(OI 2); and sustainable patterns of living rely on the interdependence of healthy social, economic and ecological systems (OI 3) (ACARA 2012). Thus, ‘Systems Thinking’ recognizes the need for coordinated and layered thinking, and responses that are ‘appropriate to the volatile, densely interconnected and dangerously vulnerable world that we have created’ (Sterling 2008: 64). Maximal forms of CC education (McLaughlin 1992) also tend to promote critical, futures-oriented and values-based approaches which encourage debate and participation in democratic processes, often in partnership with community organizations and NGOs (Print 2009), so there is a significant element of alignment with emerging definitions of EfS. There are also synergies with the critical citizenship dimensions promoted in Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) study of three forms of citizenship (responsible, participatory and justiceoriented) that they argued should be enacted in the curriculum. Civics and citizenship is a separate subject in the Humanities and Social Sciences Australian Curriculum from Year 3 to Year 10, signposting these kinds of approaches and possibilities (ACARA 2013a), but as this chapter explains, there are links to CC in other areas of the curriculum. A shared policy goal uniting CC and EfS is the education of the kind of environmental citizens envisioned in the 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians – young people who ‘work for the common good, in particular sustaining and improving natural and social environments’. The Melbourne Declaration also underlined that ‘young Australians should become active and informed citizens who are committed to national values of democracy, equity and justice, and participate in Australia’s civic life as well as be responsible global and local citizens’ (MCEETYA 2008: 9). Thus policy-settings strongly support the centrality of both CC and EfS in Australian students’ education.

Practice and implementation challenges Although there are positive stories of Australian schools implementing sustainability initiatives (ARTD Consultants 2010), the enactment of EfS remains patchy across school systems (Nayler 2011). The Australian Education for Sustainability Alliance (AESA), in partnership with the Australian government, recently completed a large, multistate research project titled The State of Education for Sustainability in Australia (AESA 2014). About 70 per cent of the responses to the survey were from primary and secondary teachers; the rest were

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from principals and executive and support staff in schools. Ninety-two per cent of the individuals surveyed thought that sustainability education was important, of value to students, and should be integrated into curriculum. However, 80 per cent of the respondents were either unaware of EfS or did not understand what it was. Perhaps not surprisingly, 91 per cent of the same respondents reported they were yet to integrate sustainability into their teaching practices. Moreover, pre-service primary teachers in Australia, although generally keen to use environmental teaching in their future careers, feel underprepared and lacking in confidence to do so (Kennelly, Taylor and Serow 2012). There have been calls for the ‘mainstreaming’ of EfS in Australian pre-service teacher education programmes (e.g. Steele 2010), a clear implication that the area has often been confined to elective backwaters or requires greater attention. Past CC initiatives in Australia have also struggled at the level of policy implementation. After the end of the Discovering Democracy project (1997– 2003) and the Values Education Good Practice Schools Projects (2005–2006 and 2006–2008), the development of CC education lost momentum. The Discovering Democracy materials were used in no more than half of schools nationally (Erebus 2003). There were convincing arguments articulated that more imaginative, active and participatory approaches were needed to enable CC to fulfil its transformative potential (e.g. Dejaeghere and Tudball 2007; Hunter and Jimenez 1999; Reid and Gill 2009). The national assessment programme’s threeyear surveys of Year 6 and 10 Australian students’ civic knowledge have shown poor and flatlining results over several years (ACARA 2011). Teaching CC education effectively is professionally challenging and teachers have an urgent need for high-quality and targeted professional learning to enable them to make sense of what is, to many, a new disciplinary area. There is thus evidence that schools, teachers and teacher education have yet to recognize the urgency of EfS and CC imperatives, or indeed the relevant enabling language of the Australian Curriculum, including the geography learning area which directs educators to develop students ‘as responsible, informed and active citizens who can contribute to the development of an environmentally and economically sustainable, and socially just world’ (ACARA 2013b: para. 1).

A shared conceptualization of EfS and CC Areas of common ground between EfS and CC extend beyond a coincidence of content matter, although the linkages to politics and economics do not necessarily

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loom at the forefront of teachers’ minds as they identify the key dimensions of EfS (Dyment, Hill and Emery 2014). Both areas often encompass aspects of political literacy and the pursuance of social change, and both incorporate skills and pedagogies which are exploratory and experiential. Student voice should also be integral within both areas. In conceptualizing citizenship education, educators have found it helpful to reference the three Cs of Culture, Community and Curriculum (Huddleston and Kerr 2006: 10). The three Cs are equally applicable when it comes to EfS. Lead schools within effective Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI) projects usually demonstrate a well-developed and systematic whole school culture of sustainability (ARTD Consultants 2010; AuSSI 2010). They encourage deep student analysis of how, for example, schools use water, generate energy, think systemically about transport to school and apply biodiversity principles in their school grounds. Moreover, in relation to purchasing and waste disposal they tend to extend institutional responses well beyond superficial recycling and litterpicking initiatives to student action across diverse issues. In terms of culture, for leading-edge schools, EfS and CC can be integral components of – and indeed drivers for – school planning and school improvement (ARTD Consultants 2010; Kadji-Beltran, Zachariou and Stevenson 2013). At a community level, schools can be hubs for learning about sustainability and play an integral part within local active citizenship projects and intergenerational partnerships. And given that superficial cross-curricular treatment rarely makes for high-quality learning, both EfS and CC benefit from being the focus of discrete and developed curriculum units. In defining what good CC and EfS both is and is not, variants of Figure 10.1 may prove helpful. The three circles of the diagram include interrelated and interdependent aspects of knowledge, skills and active participation. If one of the three dimensions is missing within an educational programme, it is unlikely to achieve the desired learning in EfS or CC. For example, if a project focuses solely upon skills and actions – through volunteering or a service-learning type environmental project – it may be light on knowledge, content, political literacy and systems context. Alternatively, classroom-based approaches emphasizing only knowledge and structures and which draw largely upon text-book information and activities only occupy one of the diagrammatic circles. Programmes need to be constructed in pedagogically valid ways involving enquiry, collaboration and critical thinking, and include an active ‘make a difference’ dimension (Westheimer and Kahne 2004). There is also here an acknowledgement of interlocking values, dispositions and substantive concepts around the outside of the diagram, providing the

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Enquiry skills, critical thinking and advocacy

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Community involvement and taking informed action

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Figure 10.1 Combining Civics and Citizenship Education and Education for Sustainability Knowledge, Conceptual Understanding, Skills, Values and Action. Source: Brett 2015.

context and driving purpose of learning in CC and EfS. As students experience and shape integrated EfS and CC projects, educators need to be alert to raising questions relating to the rights and responsibilities of citizens in environmental contexts or to the challenges of democratic participation. Teachers may seek to provide opportunities for students to reflect upon the ways in which competing views, freedoms or identities throw light upon the sustainability issue in question. Asking questions about fairness, social justice, global equity or conflict resolution in relation to a specific sustainability challenge can bring a conceptual lens to core aspects of learning.

Examples of civics and citizenship and sustainability in action There are some inspirational projects to draw lessons from generated by young people themselves, often involving organization and action through the Internet.

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A good example of this is the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), which has a network of 110,000 members. The AYCC believes that climate change is the single greatest threat facing humanity, and puts young people and future generations at risk. We also believe that addressing the climate crisis is our biggest opportunity to create a world that is more sustainable, just and fair … This will require thousands of people committed to changing hearts and minds and willing to take deep action. (AYCC 2015)

In 2014, the AYCC organized national ‘Switched on Schools’ summits, run in conjunction with local councils across Australia, that involved over 1,000 students learning about climate change and how they can make a difference in their school and community. Their programme then reached out to 20,000 young people through five regional workshops and high school presentations in 400 schools. Past successful campaigns include ‘Don’t Risk the Reef ’ (which focused on plans to build the world’s biggest coal port in Queensland), ‘Renewable Generation’, ‘Walk for Solar’ and ‘Safe Climate Roadmap’. Current campaigns include ‘Dump Your Bank’, bringing customer pressure to bear around banks funding fossil-fuel projects, and ‘Re-power Port Augusta’ (where two coal-fired power stations are closing and there are debates about replacement energy sources). All of these campaigns have succeeded in creating sufficient political mass to force political concessions or rethinking. The AYCC is a non-partisan, young-people-led organization engaging practically in projects central to EfS and CC agendas around democratic citizen action. AYCC working methods mirror those of effective citizenship teaching and learning, and include awareness raising, critically questioning existing systems and actions, problem-solving and community action which often makes imaginative use of social media (for more on AYCC campaigns, see Henderson and Tudball, forthcoming). There are also numerous examples of effective combined EfS and Citizenship Education practices in early childhood settings across Australia (Davis 2010). The pivotal place of children’s rights and agency in educators’ early childhood EfS practice has been highlighted in the research literature (e.g. Edwards and CutterMacKenzie 2011; Kinsella 2007; Mackey 2012). All of these studies use their findings to advocate for young children’s rights to participate in taking action for the environment. For example, Davis (2005) outlined the active citizenship work of a Brisbane kindergarten which responded to the dumping of a supermarket shopping trolley in their play space with open letters to both the supermarket and the perpetrators. The subsequent newspaper photo story outlined the children’s ethical and aesthetic concerns about dumping shopping trolleys and the paper’s editorial column praised the children for their social responsibility. The same

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kindergarten went on to undertake an assessment of its ecological footprint in partnership with a nearby university school of engineering which assessed consumption of electricity, water, food, waste, transport and paper (McNichol, Davis and O’Brien 2011). The information unearthed was then incorporated into the centre’s education programme. And a range of school-based projects have shown that it is genuinely possible to think global and act local. More than 2,000 schools and 570,000 students across Australia have participated in the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative. Participating schools have reported reductions in waste collection of up to 80 per cent, reductions in water consumption of up to 60 per cent and savings on energy consumption of 20 per cent with commensurate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (ARTD 2010). For example, Chatham Primary School, located in an eastern suburb of Melbourne, has become a community leader in sustainability. It has installed solar panels, put in water tanks to irrigate the oval, instituted rubbish-free lunches and planted a series of gardens to create biodiversity. The local council has helped to finance sustainability projects and has invited the school to various sustainability events. Every student assumes an environmental leadership role in Grade 6. Their regular assembly presentations educate other students about sustainability issues, and introduce conversations around sustainability into the school. Every grade in the school has a sustainability task – for example, one class is responsible for rinsing and emptying compost bins once a week, while another collects water flow from buckets underneath the school’s taps to water the garden (ResourceSmart AuSSI Vic 2015). An evaluation of the AuSSI programme in Victoria across 500 participating schools found that 67 per cent of survey respondents had been prompted by the success of practical sustainability schemes to further embed sustainability in their redesign of curriculum documents, and thereby provide more opportunities for students to learn about sustainability (Rickinson, Hall and Reid 2014).

A model for linking EfS and CC The literature for EfS and CC only intermittently intersects (for exceptions, see Berkowitz, Ford and Brewer 2005; Henderson and Tudball, forthcoming; Warwick 2012) but they have plenty in common. Both fields contest definitions, lament their low status and have concluded that education about and in fail to meet the satisfying richness of education for sustainability and democratic citizenship. What might a more integrative framework look like?

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Critical Literacy Dimension

Ecological Dimension

Creative Thinking Dimension

Temporal Dimension

Spatial Dimension

Sustainable Citizenship Education Active concern for the common good

Ethical Behaviour Dimension

Active Citizenship Dimension

Political Dimension

Figure 10.2 Conceptual links between EfS and CC Source: Adapted and developed from Warwick (2012: 136).

Figure 10.2 identifies ecological, temporal, spatial and political dimensions shared by EfS and CC. It also denotes critical literacy, creative thinking, ethical behaviour and active citizenship as transdisciplinary and shared pedagogic dimensions. Information and communication technology would constitute a component threaded through each of these eight components. It is suggested that teachers planning an integrated unit of study involving EfS and CC may find the diagram helpful as a shaping or auditing tool in thinking about the kinds of knowledge, skills and joined-up learning promoted by an envisaged conjoint sequence of learning.

Ecological dimension In the Australian Curriculum, the ‘World Views’ Organising Ideas of the Sustainability cross-curricular priority recognize the dependence of living things on healthy ecosystems and underline the value of ecological diversity (OI 4). And the ‘Futures’ OIs are notably closely aligned with elements of the

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CC curriculum, since they posit that the ecological systems on which humans depend can be renewed through positive human actions. They spell out that - the sustainability of ecological, social and economic systems is achieved through informed individual and community action that values local and global equity and fairness across generations (OI 6); - actions for a more sustainable future reflect values of care, respect and responsibility (OI 7); - designing action for sustainability requires an evaluation of past practices, the assessment of scientific and technological developments, and balanced judgements based on projected future economic, social and environmental impacts (OI 8); and - sustainable futures result from actions designed to preserve and/or restore the quality and uniqueness of environments (OI9). This is very much a message of hope in that when students are confronted by sustainability problems and dilemmas, they can start to take practical steps to restore ecosystem health at whatever scale they are able to act.

Temporal dimension With regard to sustainability issues such as climate change, ‘the temporal dimension raises the profile of the time lag that is present in many lifestyle and political decisions today’ (Warwick 2012: 137). The effects of climate change being experienced today are a result of greenhouse gas emissions and human behaviour that have contributed to environmental degradation from thirty to fifty years ago. Similarly, the emissions released today will have an impact up to 2040 and beyond (Hutchins 2009). There are opportunities in Australia to consider the long-view value perspectives and viewpoints around the environmental concerns of the nation’s first Aboriginal peoples. For example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s beliefs about and approaches to land management, water conservation and protection of ‘Country’ can contribute to a healthier sustainable environment for all Australians (Lynch, Fell and McIntyre-Tamwoy, 2010). And intergenerational equity – a central concern of those working in the field of EfS – is a concept that proposes that each successive generation should live sustainably, so that future generations might experience a comparable quality of life to that of past generations.

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Spatial dimension In both CC and EfS, the emphasis on place, space and the environment offers significant opportunities to learn about conflicting interpretations and concerns; to extend knowledge about political and social groupings and the activities of voluntary bodies and pressure groups; and to evaluate the consequences for people, places and environments of decision-making. Recent research in this area highlights the effectiveness of curriculum approaches which expand and deepen children’s understanding of sustainability through embodied action prompted by affective connections generated by and in local places and contexts (Power and Green 2014; Somerville and Green 2012). In this way, national and global sustainability issues can be made sense of and contextualized. The idea of sustainable citizenship can disrupt localized spatial mindsets as the imperatives of the ‘global village’ encourage at least a proportion of more enlightened citizens to exercise responsibilities in relation to distant people and places.

Political dimension CC offers EfS an opportunity to embrace its political and controversial dimensions (Hicks 2007). UNESCO’s (2010) four dimensions of sustainable development strongly represented democracy and peace, equality and human rights, political decision-making and people living together within its framework. Examining controversial issues around sustainability can encourage: an understanding of the interests, beliefs and viewpoints of others; the valuing of a respect for truth and evidence in forming and holding opinions; and the appreciation of fairness as a basis for making decisions. In this way, teachers can promote the development of civic dispositions which underpin civil public and democratic discourse. If students are to be capable of acting on their choices and influencing environmental decision-making, then their experience of CC must develop their knowledge of political-legal processes and their skills in political advocacy. This can involve students participating in real-life debates and communicating with newspapers, community audiences and authorities across different layers of government. Current examples in Tasmania of areas for exploration might include investigations into the future of the forestry industry; the protection of native, old-growth trees; the granting of heritage status to land in the Western Tiers (locking up or protecting?); the future environmental status of the Tarkine area in the north west of the state; the rights of four-wheel drivers and surfers set

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against Indigenous sites and ancient middens in the sand dunes of the West Coast; the pros and cons of the construction of Wind Farms on King Island (or indeed other parts of Australia); and whether or not a ‘supertrawler’ should be allowed to operate in waters around the state. These are all issues where it is legitimate for young people to have a voice and an informed opinion. Open minds and a disposition of tolerance for views other than one’s own do not come into existence through a process of serendipitous osmosis – they are qualities which have to be educated for and practised.

Critical literacy dimension Both sustainability literacies and political literacy deserve their place in the pantheon of ways in which it is important to induct young people into reading the world around them (e.g. Davies 2008; Nolet 2009). The key qualities that citizenship educators are looking to nurture in young people parallel many of the qualities that high-quality EfS is looking to promote – independent and critical thinking; the capacity to appreciate more than one point of view and a range of different interpretations; and the communication of substantiated arguments, in other words, critical engagement in substantial ways with contemporary environmental and political issues that matter. Thus equipped young people can respond with emotional intelligence to the panoply of images, events and ideas with which they are bombarded in a relentless digital information media cycle. In designing learning activities which achieve this objective, it is important for educators to seek to extend outwards from individual prosocial environmental activities to wider social and political dimensions of sustainability. In other words, haptic school vegetable gardens, wormeries, litter initiatives, improved composting and waste paper regimes and an annual beach clean-up campaign – however purposeful and experiential – can sometimes only take deep, critical understanding so far (Dyment and Reid 2005). There can be a danger that approaches which model individualistic responses tend not to challenge dominant, systems-embedded practices.

Creative thinking dimension Both EfS and CC share a concern with helping young people to imagine a different, better, more socially just global future. Kelsey (2014) writes insightfully

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about ‘hacking into’ dominant narratives of impending environmental gloom and disaster in order to embrace ‘more holistic, integral, emotive, perceptive [and] creative ways forward’ (2014: 8). And the ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’ General Capability of the Australian Curriculum explicitly acknowledges that ‘responding to the challenges of the twenty first century – with its complex environmental … pressures – requires young people to be creative, innovative, enterprising, and adaptable with the motivation, confidence and skills to use critical and creative thinking purposefully’ (ACARA 2013c: 66). Creativity can, of course, take many forms, but opportunities for fresh thinking and imaginative solutions are likely to incorporate plenty of student dialogue and an opening up of traditional teacher-centric classroom approaches to co-created outcomes and possibilities (Cam 2006; Andreotti and Warwick 2007). Some of the most powerful articulations of young people’s environmental or political hopes and visions can come through mobilizing the persuasive capacities of the visual and performing arts or cutting-edge uses of technology, including, for example, social media (Mellor and Seddon 2013).

Ethical behaviour dimension A key component of EfS relates to developing an ethic of personal responsibility, care and stewardship towards all aspects of the environment (Fien 2003). There is an interrelatedness of citizenship and consumption – young people are exhorted to act responsibly and practice ethical consumerism in countering the ethos of a throwaway society. However, Davis and Francis (2014: 423) found ‘a socialisation to greenness, which is not translated into everyday practice’ – plenty of young people who can ‘talk the green talk’, but rather fewer who ‘walk the green walk’ (Preston 2012). An in-depth understanding of the connectedness of chains of consumption was not clearly in evidence – although young people are not alone in seeking to hold on to ‘the reassuring belief that neoliberal capitalism and ecological sustainability are compatible and interdependent’ (Huckle 2014: 231, see also Schindel Dimick 2015). In the Australian Curriculum, ‘Ethical Understanding’ involves students in building a strong personal and socially oriented ethical outlook that helps them to manage context, conflict and uncertainty, and to develop an awareness of the influence that their values and behaviour have on others (ACARA 2013c). Since consumerism and popular culture are key forces shaping students’ identities, both CC and EfS can deal critically, yet constructively, with the politics

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of ethical consumerism and youth identity, by considering such policies as ecolabelling and fair trade, and such practices as buy-nothing day and free-cycling. The Australian Curriculum seeks to nudge young people towards internalizing an ecological identity committed to a more environmentally informed global future, or at least to address some questions which concentrate the mind around daily choices which promote sustainability. Do I believe ‘buy local’ campaigns and farmers’ markets promote sustainability? What do I see as the benefits from Australian towns working on an ambition to become plastic bag-free? What view do I take of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power? Should I try to influence the big two supermarkets to introduce more sustainable practices through my family’s weekly grocery purchases? Further curricular validation in the ‘Ethical Understanding’ General Capability is the view that ‘Complex issues require responses that take account of ethical considerations such as … environmental issues and global justice’ (ACARA 2012: 75). This area obviously offers fertile territory for CC educators to draw upon a wide range of sustainability contexts which allow young people to explore and apply their values.

Active citizenship dimension Real-world problem-solving and community involvement are core to the purposes and goals of both EfS and CCE. Educational opportunities are opened up when community expertise (which might reside in parents, community organizations, NGOs, local government or businesses) offers the capacity to catalyse and accelerate processes of change. NGOs and programmes such as Landcare, Waterwatch, the CSIRO’s Sustainable Futures programme, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s Reef Guardians and the Australian Conservation Foundation Earth Kids programme can involve young people in rich, developed school grounds-based projects, the restoration of wetlands, treeplanting, marine or freshwater river research, the rehabilitation of local habitats or support for endangered animals. Young people require certain skills, information and knowledge and competences to fully realize their capacities as active citizens. Competencies for effective and responsible participation in political, social and cultural life include: self-awareness, social and emotional literacy, a capacity to work collaboratively with others, a critical understanding of all media forms, technological selfconfidence and problem-solving and communication skills. Civic engagement

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projects which address specific problems related to sustainability can offer powerful contexts to develop precisely these key learning capabilities (InterAgency Working Group on Children’s Participation 2008). An important millennial study of Citizenship Education Policy involved 264 policy experts from nine nations in discussions around what competencies citizens would require in the twenty-first century. One of the capacities foregrounded was young people’s ability to ‘change lifestyle and habits to protect the environment; think, reflect, discuss, and act in ways that are rational, reasonable and ethically defensible; be sensitive towards and to defend human rights; and, participate in politics at local, national and international levels’ (Cogan and Derricott 2000: 9)

Conclusion Active and informed democratic citizenship is one of the defining features of a sustainable society. The most effective CC projects engage with authentic, live, local, national or global contemporary issues (Dejaeghere and Tudball 2007; Keating, Kerr and Lopes 2009). This approach to CC aims to empower learners by increasing their capacity to understand the underlying causes of problems and to be agents of change through engagement in the public sphere. Such agency both promotes and requires political literacy. Sustainability issues provide an excellent setting for this kind of citizenship enquiry, advocacy and action, where there are a range of opportunities for young people to learn and to exercise their democratic views via lobbying, consciousness-raising through changing minds, promoting themes which lie at the heart of the Earth Charter or campaigning in support of what they believe (Comber, Nixon and Reid 2007; Earth Charter Initiative 2012). It has been suggested that the citizen who understands the importance of sustainability displays ‘pro-sustainability behaviour, in public and private, driven by a belief in fairness of the distribution of environmental goods, in participation, and in the co-creation of sustainability policy’ (Dobson 2011: 10). This involves schools and teachers committed to building the kinds of civic values and skills that can prepare young people to be leaders in the transition to a sustainable future. The conceptual frameworks proposed in this chapter seek to build the disciplinary and pedagogical bridges for CC and EfS to work together. Putting the environment at the centre of the Civics and Citizenship curriculum can have the effect of drawing teachers and students into engaging explorations of place, space and environmental contestation and prompt reflection around the values and eco-dispositions which they might wish to bring to bear upon a particular issue or problem.

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