Living as Citizens and Learning to Be Citizens

One of the key discussions about children, youth, and citizenship is the attention given to the type of education that will create the “ideal” citizen in the future. Through compulsory schooling, young people are exposed to various forms of citizenship education which is considered necessary by governments to nurture the ideal citizen, equipped with the knowledge, skills, and values required for active participation in society. However, citizenship education often overlooks how young people “live as citizens” and “learn to be citizens” in their everyday lives with priority given for a formal “taught” curriculum. This narrow perspective fails to recognize the diverse and creative ways in which young people actively engage as citizens in their everyday lives, neglecting the significance of their lived experiences as a source of citizenship learning. Underpinned by feminist theory and using Singapore as a case study, this chapter explores young people’s development of critical citizenship dispositions and competencies in the context of their everyday locations and relational networks in family and communities.