From civic to citizenship education: Toward a stronger citizenship orientation in the Ethiopian CEE curriculum

Abstract

Recent research on Civic and Ethical Education (CEE) in Ethiopia has revealed a need for improvement in a number of areas with regard to the current CEE curricula. These materials are currently oriented to a conservative form of civic education than on citizenship education, whose aims are more progressive. The essential problem identified in the present study is that CEE content does not match the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s stated goals for CEE, including the promotion of global citizenship. An inductive method was used to categorize themes found in the CEE curricula and textbook, which were analyzed with reference to Tawil’s (2013) framework for education for global citizenship. A concept in textual analysis known as ‘internal critique’ was also utilized to identify inconsistencies in the materials between the stated aims of the CEE program and the textbook content itself. The analysis revealed three main characteristics of the CEE textbooks, namely, an emphasis on sovereignty, patriotism, and responsibility; ambivalence to Ethiopia’s independence from/dependence on wealthier nations, and abstraction in CEE content. This content does only partially match the Ethiopian government’s stated aims for CEE. The findings of this study suggest that the content of the ethical dimension of Ethiopia’s CEE curriculum could be greatly improved through the inclusion of content that reflects an emphasis on citizenship education. Such an approach is more progressive than civic education and promotes a more learner-centered and critical orientation to ethical issues on the part of students within the framework of Global Citizenship Education (GCE).