Critical Summary: Westheimer, J. (2008) On the relationship between political and moral engagement. In: f. Oser & W. Veugelers (Eds.) Getting involved: Global citizenship development and the sources of moral values (pp. 17-29). Rotterdam: Sense.

In his contribution, Westheimer shares some of his reflections on how teachers can use their educational role to train students to be citizens who are democratic, politically engaged and act in an ethical way.

He makes a distinction between ethics and morality: while the former is rather secular and has hence more space for critical thinking and freedom of choice, the latter has religious connotations and is formulated against invariable virtues that responsible citizens should possess.

Westheimer argues that reforms in school curricula tend to leave little space for students to develop a fully-fledged understanding of critical citizens. To elaborate this, he distinguishes three distinct definitions of citizenships that are promoted to varying degrees is school curricula: the personally responsible citizen; the participatory citizen; and the so-called justice oriented citizen. While it is common in schools to expose students to what constitutes a good character or to what constitutes individuals civic responsibilities vis-à-vis their fellow citizens and the political system, they hardly encourage “thinking about big ideas, tackling controversial social and political issues, and asking sustained, philosophical questions”. In other words, while educational systems promote personally responsible or participatory citizens through their curricula, they hardly foster a critical disposition among students; one that would aid students to engage in actual problems of society at local and global levels.

He then moves to argue that moral citizenship is not necessarily a democratic citizenship. The more emphasis is put on how to act morally in society, the less emphasis is put on critical thinking and critical engagement, both of which constitute the very conditions of a more just society.  When education focuses on the moral component, it adheres to a form of conservatism that maintains the status quo. But when curricula empower teachers to pursue a politically engaged moral education, students will turn into active rather than passive citizens. While curricula can advance the cause of educating critical citizens, teachers can take measures to ensure students are aware of their agency as active ethical role-players in society. Teachers can encourage their students to ask questions rather than absorbing pat answers; they can give information on competing narratives and encourage students to critically evaluate the subject matter of each of these narratives; and they can root instructional contents in local contexts.

I found the content of the article brilliant. I personally believe that it is important to train individuals who are critical of the status quo, as the wave of globalization seems to lead to more social, political, economic, and cultural imbalance in society. Therefore, sticking to the status quo does not lead to a more just society. This being said, I believe that there are several challenges inherent to promoting justice-oriented citizenship.

The first challenge relates to the higher educational systems in how they prepare their teaching candidates for such an endeavor. Do these institutions have enough resources to undertake this task? The second challenge is whether or not teachers are ready to engage in such activism or not. Teaching a justice-oriented citizenship requires teachers to adopt a leftist political view and the question is whether teachers adhere to such political view, and even if they do, are they informed enough to incorporate aspects of critical thinking in their teaching methods? The third challenge is whether the two other forms of citizenship do not form the basis of justice-oriented citizenship? A citizen that takes political citizenship seriously will feel responsible towards the decision he/she makes in voting, and the political parties in power can do more justice to social injustices than an individual or a group of individuals can do. And finally, I am just wondering whether justice-oriented citizenship does not promote a kind of hegemony on the global scale? It is again the center (citizens in the industrialized world) that will talk on behalf of the periphery (citizens in developing countries).