Are we making a place in education for Cultural Citizenship?
Submissions are invited for a Special Issue of Education in the North.
Education in the North, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal, invites submissions for a special issue on Cultural Citizenship.
How does culture shape ones understanding of citizenship?
How does citizenship ensure cultural rights and wellbeing?
The starting point for the development of this issue is the observation that a citizenship curriculum can conceptualise citizenship as having four aspects: political, social, economic, and cultural.鈥� This suggests citizenship entitles citizens to rights across these range of aspects and confers responsibilities to ensure the collective wellbeing within each of these aspects. The relation to the political and the economic rights may seem self evident, but cultural citizenship has received less attention and requires further exploration. This issue seeks to open up questions about how and where cultural citizenship is taught/learned and experienced recognising educators work in a variety of spaces beyond formal school structures and with a range of worldviews.
Possible topics this issue is eager to explore:
- How do different forms of knowledge, cultural understandings and worldviews become recognised and made possible within curriculum, teaching and learning?
- Is there a culture of citizenship? If so, how is this shaped by the wider culture of a community or society? How do educators support learners to navigate this?
- Public space has changed markedly with the advent of social media; how do educators work with learners to understand and engage with the culture of public spaces and to develop inclusive and socially just cultural citizenship that is resistant to manipulation?
- Marginalised cultures have rights that require equal recognition and provision: what is education's role in raising awareness of this? In developing the skills that enable it?
- How do educators support the relationship between literacy, literacy of one's鈥痗ulture and cultural literacies?
In this issue we understand culture not as object but as process in conversation with context: material, historical, and ontological.鈥� We are particularly interested to hear from learners, arts workers and educators from marginalised cultures and keen to explore formats that lead from their strengths rather than expecting them to conform to conventions if they are prohibitive. As we work on this issue we take inspiration from these passages from Freire’s work:
Shifting boundaries between the state, the market and civil society demand greater democracy and autonomy in order to facilitate a new kind of settlement between the cultural formation of the nation and the political formation of the state … (and therefore) a more pluralistic and participative political culture. (Tett, 2006, p.75)
A humanizing education is the path through which men and women can become conscious about their presence in the world. The way they act and think when they鈥痙evelop all of their capacities, taking into consideration their needs, but also the needs and aspirations of others. (Freire and Betto, 1985, pp.14—15)
Different types of submission are possible:
- Articles dealing with empirical research, not published or submitted elsewhere (up to 8000 words).
- Features detailing ongoing research or innovative practice (up to 4000 words).
- Interviews, Dialogues, or Open Letters (up to 4000 words).
- Literature Reviews (up to 2000 words).
We value submissions in other creative forms eg visual essay, poetry, artwork, podcast so please do contact the editors below.
Submission Guidelines
Submission Deadlines
1. Expression of Interest and 250-500 word abstract sent to eitn@abdn.ac.uk by 11th January 2027.
2. Invitation for full papers circulated by 29th January 2027.
3. Submission of manuscript/media sent to eitn@abdn.ac.uk by 21st May 2027.
4. Special Issue published in November 2027.
Special issue editors
Beth Cross, beth.cross@uws.ac.uk
Siv Ingrid Nordkild, siv.i.nordkild@uit.no
Jennifer Markides, jmmarkid@ucalgary.ca
Helen Martin, h.martin@abdn.ac.uk
Journal editors
Helen Martin and Claire Molloy