The Struggle for “Thick” or Transformative Citizenship and Democracy in Australia: What Future Teachers Believe and Why it is Important

Abstract

This paper analyses pre-service education student perceptions and perspectives related to education for democracy in Australia. Using a critical-pedagogical framework to analyse data from an on-line survey, the paper presents both quantitative and qualitative responses to contrast understandings of democracy. The paper begins by outlining the concepts of thick and thin democracy, and revisiting the (parlous) state of civics and citizenship education (CCE) in Australia. Overall, pre-service teachers in this study display a tendency to view democracy in a very narrow or thin way that may impact their classroom practice.

Keywords

• Civics and citizenship education
• Neo-liberalism
• Democracy
• Critical pedagogy