European citizenship in school: supplementing the curriculum

Abstract

The project of creating a common European citizenship requires that the educational systems from the different member-states of the European Union (EU) contribute to the education of European citizens that are critical and active regarding the objective of continuing and perfecting the European project. In Portugal, previous studies of upper secondary education have shown serious shortcomings, both in the curricula and the textbooks of several subjects, in the pedagogical approaches suggested for the process of teaching/learning about this European dimension. In this article, we have tried to find out which kind of extra and co-curricular activities the schools have been organizing to fill the previously mentioned shortcomings. To that end, we have interviewed 16 teachers from 4 different schools of the Portuguese upper secondary educational system. Their accounts have allowed us to identify several kinds of extra and co-curricular activities that have been implemented by their schools in order to increase their students´ level of knowledge and reflexiveness regarding the EU. The analysis of these accounts has also allowed us to identify both the potential and limitations involved in developing these activities and to make some general recommendations towards improving the conditions for the schools to give a more efficient contribution to the objective of consolidating a active and critical European citizenship.

European citizenship; Co-curricular activities; Extracurricular activities; Teachers