The Australian Curriculum (v9) and Civics and Citizenship: A missed opportunity for student voice and agency
Finding curricular links for student voice
Schools from different sectors and regions recognise the importance of student voice and agency, both as part of the fabric of school life, but also as part of developing skills in young people for their post-school lives. However, generating and sustaining a meaningful and proactive program encouraging student voice amongst all students can be a challenging endeavour. For teachers who genuinely care about student voice, it can prove challenging to find ways to link student voice within the Australian Curriculum if that voice is regarded as extra- or co-curricular in its nature. This is important to do so, otherwise student voice risks becoming an optional extra or something that exists at the whim of the school, rather than a fundamental part of a student’s schooling experience. This article seeks to explore how the Australian Curriculum might offer some opportunities to link civics and citizenship with student voice.
Student voice is adopted in different ways in different settings. In the worst cases, bodies that purport to represent students are tokenistic. In other cases, student voice is outsourced entirely, becoming the responsibility of third parties to deliver at ‘student leadership days’ or through external volunteering events. A more recent trend has turned to using the affordances of technology, through surveys like Pivot (https://pivotpl.com/) to explore student voice. These external partners may well have a place in schools, should they also include consultation and professional learning for teachers and provide useful tools that can be used by students and teachers together. However, they represent only the smallest possibility of student voice and agency that could be present within Australian schools. And, perhaps most importantly, they miss the opportunity to take student voice away from solely a co- or extra-curricular activity, and instead to embed it deep within the curriculum through Civics and Citizenship. The Australian Curriculum is filled with opportunities to link student voice and agency with the learning of Civics and Citizenship and teachers should leverage these, not just to improve students’ knowledge of humanities and social sciences (HASS), but also to allow young people to make a contribution to their school and wider communities.
Bold expectations from version 9 of the Australian Curriculum
Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum was endorsed in April 2022. Various jurisdictions have different timelines for its adaptation (for those states like New South Wales and Victoria that develop their own version) and adoption. Still, it is an expectation that all schools will move to implement version 9 within a reasonable timeframe. As was the case with version 8.4, civics and citizenship is embedded in the HASS F-6 syllabus (from Years 3-6) and is a stand-alone learning area in Years 7-10. It should be noted that, even if ACARA stipulates that it is a stand-alone learning area, in Years 7-10, many schools and jurisdictions choose to teach Civics and Citizenship in an integrated way; for example, in NSW, it is most often taught through History and Geography).
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is clear about the standards expected of students in regards to their learning about civics and citizenship. The material is divided into level descriptions, achievement standards and content descriptions. Within each of these areas, while not overtly stated as such, there are clear links to student voice and agency. For example, in Year 4, ‘Students investigate the key values and features of Australia’s democracy. They determine how people in the community cooperate to achieve civic goals.’
This is something that teachers with a responsibility or interest in student voice could seize upon. By framing the school as one such community, and the students and teachers and other members of the school as part of that community, teachers can help students to examine firstly, what the goals of that community are, and secondly, how these are determined and achieved. Any such discussion should include commentary about the role of the members of a community in making decisions about the community - and that very naturally would lead to consideration of how students are - or aren’t - involved in determining and contributing to the goals of that community. Simply by having this conversation, students will be introduced to the notion of their own voice and agency - and how this might be developed within the schooling community. Of course, it is possible to go even further: such a discussion might stimulate a more active role for student representative bodies, and perhaps even the development of a school parliament (for more on this, look at the ACT Legislative Assembly resources).
By Year 9, ‘students analyse the role of the Australian Constitution, the federal system of government, and the process and reasons for constitutional change’. They explain policy development and legislative processes in Australia’s democracy. They identify the key features and jurisdictions of Australia’s court system and explain the role and processes of courts and tribunals.’ This is a significantly more complex expectation. Indeed, many adult Australians might struggle to ‘explain the policy development and legislative processes in Australia’s democracy’. Nevertheless, this also provides creative educators with an opportunity to connect this area with an examination of youth voice and agency, albeit in a different way to the example provided above. As well as finding opportunities to develop student voice and agency via the civics and citizenship curriculum within schools, there are numerous examples of how this might be done beyond the school boundaries, too. Questions about how policy is decided upon and how that policy is then enacted can seem a dry topic for Year 9 students when it is taught in a procedural way - but it is enlivened when teachers link this discussion of policy to things that are happening in Australia’s civic society right now - and the role that young people are playing in these. For example, students could learn about how climate change is developed by looking at the way that young people have been active in pushing for a more environmentally friendly future via events like the School Strike for Climate. This foregrounds the voice and agency of young people, while still supporting the links and aims of the civics and citizenship curriculum. Teachers and students could also examine the Voice to Parliament, or the campaigns for marriage equality. In each of these instances, educators might provide opportunities for young people to examine the way that young people organised support, built networks and campaigned for change. This is a crucial point in my opinion; rather than seeing legislation or constitutional change as something that is initiated by politicians, young people can see the role played by community in advocating for that change - and that can include the study of young people of the same age as them, which is very empowering.
Missed opportunities
The above examples show ways that teachers might connect the curricular content with broader student voice opportunities but it should be noted that the civics and citizenship curriculum is also filled with missed opportunities to truly develop student voice and agency. Some might argue that, within version 9, there is too much of a focus on the civic elements (i.e governmental mechanics and institutions) in place of citizenship, but that argument has been made about previous iterations of the curriculum, too. However, the greatest concern lies with the lack of clarity about student action. Throughout the curriculum, there are calls for students to investigate, to analyse and to plan. There are far too few opportunities for students to act, to do, to take part in. This is a significant weakness of the curriculum as it stands and it also has the potential to limit the curriculum’s application to the development of student voice. Student voice and civics and citizenship education are fundamentally entwined; claims for students to have a say in their own education are based on claims for all of us to have a say in our own lives; that is, they are democratic claims about how we are governed. In schools, this means that students must learn how to become active and informed members of their community - by being active in their school communities and beyond: simply learning about how they might be active is not enough.
Yet, unfortunately, that is exactly what version 9 entrenches. It positions young people passively: they can learn about their communities. They can learn about their governments. They can learn about change processes. But they’re not given any opportunity to actually engage in change-making. In short, they’re not required to do. For example, in Year 6, ‘Students propose actions or responses and use criteria to assess the possible effects.’ In Year 10, ‘They evaluate and compare the methods or strategies related to civic participation or action. Students use civics and citizenship knowledge, concepts and terms to develop descriptions, explanations and arguments that synthesise evidence from sources.’ This relegates students to being armchair observers in and of their own democratic agency and potential. Instead of providing clear guidance to teachers that students can and should be active participants in their communities and schools, young people are once again classified as ‘citizens-in-waiting’. It’s a missed opportunity - both to develop the skills young people need to participate within their communities, but also to embed ideas of student voice and agency within the curriculum. Even in the examples provided above (students discussing the goals of the school community, or students examining policy change as demanded by youth-led groups), there is more of a focus on discussion and investigation, rather than action. This is, of course, important - but to truly encourage student voice amongst young people, teachers who are passionate about developing student voice need to go further.
Teaching beyond the curriculum
So what might that look like? The first thing to realise is that , the curriculum as it stands is only a document; while it might highlight expectations for what is to be taught, it cannot and never will encapsulate the totality of any school’s or student’s learning experience. Simply put, there is a lot more to a learning experience than the curricular planning! Recognising this, teachers should be encouraged to link the learning happening within the civics and citizenship learning area with what’s happening beyond the classroom; that is make use of existing (or develop entirely new) student voice and agency programs, based on the idea of putting the concepts within the Australian Curriculum into practice. In this way, the curricular requirements can be satisfied, but so too can the societal requirements of encouraging young people to be active citizens -and that is likely to have profound positive effects upon both the young people themselves, and their community (as well as leading too better learning outcomes).
This article will finish by extending the examples provided above.
In the first example, I suggested that a discussion of the civic goals of a community, and how these are achieved, would help develop an understanding of student voice amongst young people. However, it is possible - and I would say desirable - to go even further than this. Why shouldn’t the next step be some kind of action, whereby students are given a role in the decision making of the school community? This might seem far-fetched, but numerous schools have already adopted a kind of school parliament (for more on this, look at the ACT Legislative Assembly resources) whereby students act as democratic citizens and voters. This is a significant step up from ‘planning’ or ‘investigating’ - now students in these schools have the voice and the agency to act as informed citizens in their school community.
In the second example, an investigation of the way that young people are involved in striving to change policy in areas like climate and equality was suggested as a focus. While studying these is a good starting point, there is potential for much more powerful learning opportunity: why shouldn’t young people be involved in organised and leading parts of these campaigns? The chance to learn by doing here is one that should not be
overlooked. There are numerous examples of this already. One is the MEG Global Student Ambassadors program. Over the course of a term, students identify, research and then undertake a student action program that is intended to address one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The key focus here is on positive social action - not just planning or investigating. -
In conclusion, teachers who are passionate about developing student voice should seek to find ways to link that goal with the existing Australian curriculum. One area that fits well with student voice is civics and citizenship. While the current version 9 of the Australian Curriculum does provide opportunities to explore some aspects of student voice, teachers should go beyond just the curriculum, and find ways to encourage learning to take action, as well as learning about an issue, in order to truly develop student agency.
Dr. Keith Heggart
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of Technology Sydney
Contact: Keith.Heggart@uts.edu.au