Unit 5 Progression and assessment in Citizenship v 1.0 … 5 Progression... · Unit 5 Progression and Assessment in Citizenship ... has been made by individual pupils and it is not

National CPD Distance Learning Programme 2010 v1.0 © Citizenship Foundation and Birkbeck, University of London

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Unit 5 Progression and Assessment in Citizenship

5.1 Assessment as a controversial issue in citizenship

Introduction

Let us be clear: the assessment of student progress in citizenship education is one of the biggest challenges facing citizenship teaching. This is for a number of different reasons, which we shall look at. Not only is the question of whether it is educationally or ethically right to assess progress in citizenship hotly contested at the moment, there is also a lack of expertise and experience in actually assessing the subject. In a large measure citizenship teaching is starting from a low baseline. In their 2006 report Ofsted expressed the view that

Assessment is one of the weakest areas of citizenship teaching. Towards Consensus, Ofsted 2006

Despite the publication in 2007 of an 8-level scale, this is still an area which teachers are getting to grips with. And despite some modifications to the original version of the 8 levels in 2008, the actual ‘criteria’ set out in the new scale have not yet been tested or refined in the light of extensive use by teachers.

The statutory requirement to assess citizenship

Any discussion of assessment in Citizenship education must be set in the context of the statutory requirements. There is no legal requirement to assess students’ progress in Early Years settings or in Key Stages 1 and 2 but observations of children’s citizenship learning against the Early Learning Goals contribute to the Foundation Stage Profile. In Key Stages 1 and 2 schools are required to keep a record of pupil progress and report this progress to parents. Such reports must include reference to PSHE and citizenship. In the secondary phase, schools should record students’ progress throughout KS3 and 4. There must be annual reports to parents at the end of each year and there must be an end of KS3 assessment. The end of key stage Attainment Target is to be used as the reference point for the assessment. There is no legal requirement in place to assess students at the end of key stage 4 though schools must still report on what progress has been made by individual pupils and it is not clear how such a report could be made without some form of assessment having been made. The lack of a legal requirement at this stage arises from the place in our education system of external public examinations at the end of Key Stage 4. The requirement for citizenship is thus in line with all other National Curriculum subjects.


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Originally, the debate about whether to assess or not (and whether citizenship is different as a subject in respect of assessment) resulted in a compromise solution developed by the then Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (now the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority). This was that students should be assessed in broad terms as working ‘towards the level’ (as set out in the attainment targets for KS3 and KS4) ‘at the level’ or ‘beyond the level’. This arrangement appeared to satisfy the legal requirement that all National Curriculum subjects should be assessed and reported on against clear attainment targets whilst, at the same time, allowing considerable scope for teachers to step back from the oppression of the progression ladder which, in recent years, has dominated many teachers’ approach to teaching. However, the three broad levels were relatively undefined as to how wide the different achievement bands were and were widely felt by teachers to be inoperable because, set against the expectations of other subjects, they lacked clarity and precision – they were not useful reporting tools and they lacked credibility with students and parents (Richardson, 2009). Many teachers were adamant that the introduction of an 8-level scale would make teaching easier. Some teachers began to invent their own scale to meet this need and some local authorities supported this development in response to teachers’ demands. At the school level, some educational software used by schools for monitoring and reporting required the use of a scale for citizenship that was in line with every other subject, providing a managerial, if not an educational, incentive for change (Richardson, 2009). In 2007, as a result of a secondary curriculum revision, a tentative 8-level scale was published for citizenship education, to be introduced progressively from 2008 onwards with key stage 3 students, such that by 2011, all KS3 students would be assessed against the new levels. The Rose Review of the Primary curriculum, published in 2009, which recommended that citizenship education should be a statutory part of the primary curriculum, provided an opportunity for the citizenship levels to be revised in the light of continuing consultation by QCDA. However, the implementation of the primary curriculum and the proposed revisions to the assessment scale were lost in the Parliamentary ‘wash-up’ at the end of the 2005-10 session and hence doubts exist, at the time of writing, as to whether the revised version of the 8-level scale is actually legally in force (no primary legislation is required to make changes in assessment criteria). However, other problems remain with the current arrangements which we shall now turn to, including the fact that the debate about the appropriateness of assessment for citizenship continues.


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The assessment debate There has been a considerable debate amongst teachers of citizenship about whether it is educationally or ethically right to assess citizenship at all. The philosophical concerns arise from the complex aims of the subject (as ‘more than a subject’) which include not only knowledge and understanding but certain public values as well, and possibly, even, a young person’s suitability to be considered a ‘good’ citizen. Many teachers have expressed unease at the prospect of being asked to assess students’ values and what the effect of such as assessment might be on their sense of self-worth or personal development. They argue that schools could be put in a position of appearing to fail pupils as citizens – the exact opposite of the aims of the ‘inclusion’ agenda which is dear to many teachers of citizenship. Values, in any case, are not easy to assess, even if it were ethical to do so. Arguably, the real behavioural outcomes, such as voting in public elections or taking part in community involvement activities, which might be the result of citizenship lessons, could take years to show themselves. So paper-based assessments of citizenship knowledge can be argued to be not at all representative of what the subject aspires to achieve. One anxiety that might surface in respect of assessment in citizenship education is that it could be thought to be a mark of a totalitarian regime that it seeks to assess whether its young people are developing as ‘good’ i.e. passive, uncritical, obedient, patriotic, citizens. That, of course, is very much against the cultural traditions of modern Britain. The ‘patriotic’ model of citizenship (Rowe 2001) is not very clearly visible in contemporary citizenship discourse in the UK. Nonetheless, once structures and procedures for assessment are in place, it might be a small step for a future government to demand teachers rank students on some scale indicating their pro- or anti-social attitudes. One response to such arguments is to concede that not all aspects of citizenship are assessable (in the same way that assessment in RE does not claim to measure a student’s spiritual development). It is possible to assess students’ developing grasp of social and political affairs and their abilities to analyse, debate and discuss such issues, leaving the question of their own personal values as a private matter. However, if this means a drive to assess only that which is easy to assess, it opens the assessment regime to the charge of missing the point of citizenship (Pike, 2007). Pike argues that one danger of assessment is that of teaching to the test which could result in citizenship becoming over-narrowly defined as no more than knowledge: At GCSE, Citizenship Studies does not reflect the full statutory

programme of study in citizenship for Key Stage 4 (ages 14-16) and it


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has been argued that the ‘choice of title is significant and sends a clear message that it is not assessment of citizenship but of a particular and partial aspect of it’ (Arthur and Wright, 2001, p 135). Presumably, this is intended to avoid the possibility of a citizen failing ‘citizenship’ (with all this implies) or their quality as a citizen being graded, but for many this will be regarded as unconvincing semantic ‘spin’. As soon as ‘accrediting citizenship’ is undertaken ‘there is a tension between citizenship as an entitlement of all and the nature of qualifications, such as GCSE, which differentiate between candidates using grade criteria’ (Arthur and Wright, 2001, p 128). Certification which rewards some rather than all citizens may well serve to reinforce inequality. It may also perpetuate the notion that citizenship is an academic subject rather than being primarily concerned with learning how to live out one’s values with integrity and sensitivity in a community. Pike, (2007) p 221

Pike here expresses what appears to be a well-founded fear that by assessing only the forms of knowledge and skills deliverable via citizenship lessons, citizenship education will become shaped (even narrowed) by these assessment structures and that certain elements of it will become foregrounded and assume the kind of importance unintended by those who originally designed the curriculum. We noted in unit 1 that a ‘civics curriculum’ which is knowledge heavy was not the intention of the national curriculum framework but that the need to assess could restrict the focus of what is taught in ways which would damage the original holistic conception of citizenship education. Pike argues that students might utilise a device like a portfolio, collected over time, to record the range of citizenship activities, emphasising that citizenship is not exclusively ‘school’ work separated from what takes place outside of the school: Ideally, there should not be an exclusive reliance on academic means of

communicating knowledge and children might even wish to use cameras and give verbal explanations to describe the work they have done and what they have learned. (ibid, p 221)

In this discussion, Pike goes on to argue that citizenship needs to be seen as a strong cross-curricular theme because the moral and public values that permeate citizenship cannot be divorced from the legitimate concerns of other subjects or from the life of the whole school. He takes issues with David Bell, former Chief Inspector of Schools, who criticized schools in which students did not know they were ‘doing’ citizenship (Bell, 2005) arguing that citizenship does not need to be visible for it to be present or influential. However, it does not follow from this argument that there should be no explicit citizenship teaching on the curriculum as Pike seems to be suggesting. Richardson (2009) surveyed 117 teachers about their attitudes to assessment and found that their responses showed that teachers tended to divide into three camps on the issue:


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a) those who were reluctant to allow assessment to affect what they taught in citizenship

b) those who tended to be saddled with the responsibility for citizenship and who ‘toed the line’ and assessed students as required with little or no imagination or enthusiasm

c) those who were enthusiastic for assessment because of the need to ensure that citizenship gained status and credibility alongside all the other subjects.

Teachers were not necessarily wholly in one or other of these camps but did recognise aspects of their practice in these three typologies. Richardson reports that some teachers felt acutely that fact that their subject was often scorned by fellow teachers:

M Do you think other staff understand what citizenship is? T No, particularly the younger, newer teachers. They have a rather

condescending attitude towards citizenship and some say that they don’t respect it as a subject because it has no formal qualifications.

Many students in KS4 told Richardson that they resented spending time on a subject which offered no qualification because they could usefully use that time for exam revision. Other felt that there seemed to be no point to a subject which failed to provide them with feedback on their progress:

A I think it helps if you have an assessment. It tells you how you are doing and then you can really take it quite seriously.

B If you get good marks then it encourages you, but, if you are not assessed, there is, like, no drive to the lesson….

A There’s nothing to achieve from it. (Pupils in school N, Y10)

A key finding of Richardson’s is that across the board, it was not possible to claim that the National Curriculum levels in place at the time were providing any standardized set of criteria. This is because of the ‘variety and lack of parity between schools’. Whilst in school D, pupils were taking written tests and conducting

self-assessments on a regular basis, in School B, all pupils had to take a GCSE qualification and in School N there was no assessment at all.

Whilst the situation has moved on and an 8-level scale is now in operation, it is still possible to claim that, because of the openness of the wording of the ‘criteria’ set out in the 8-level scale and the consequent need for each teacher to interpret the levels in the context of their own school, standardization between schools is still not being achieved. Consider, for example, part of the description for level 4: Level 4

Pupils explore a range of sources of information to engage with topical


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and controversial issues, including where rights compete and conflict. They identify different and opposing views and can explain their own opinion about what is fair and unfair in different situations. They develop research questions to explore issues and problems and begin to assess the impact of these for individuals and communities. They use what they find out to make informed contributions in debates.

QCDA describes the content of subject levels as ‘success criteria’ but this description is problematic. Criterion referenced assessment strictly speaking means that a students has achieved a certain level when they can demonstrate the ability to perform certain activities described with clear criteria. Criteria for these purposes need to be clear and unambiguous, such as the ability to multiply a doubt digit number by another double digit number. Students have either mastered such a procedure or they have not. When they have, they are clearly at a particular stage in their progress towards more complex multiplication procedures. Traditionally, schools practised a form of assessment described as ‘norm referenced’. Students were ranked in order against the norm for their age group and were described as ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ of the class or year group, without the need to describe precisely what level they had achieved. A glance at the level descriptions for citizenship shows that mostly the ‘criteria’ offered are in fact ‘processes’ (such as exploring information or identifying different points of view) which can in fact be achieved by students at different levels of development. These processes in the QCDA levels are then often modified by a contextual statement which gives a clue as to the kind of context students at this particular level might be operating in. In the above extract from level 4 descriptor, we learn that students are beginning to assess the impact of issues and problems and that their researches are helping them to make informed contributions in debates. From the latter criterion, teachers will doubtless infer that younger children’s contribution to debates are likely to be much less informed but clearly it would be wrong to use ‘being informed’ as suddenly a distinguishing mark of a student breaking through into level 4 thinking. Obviously students below this level are also informed but the nature of the information they are able to handle at level 3 and below is likely to be less complex, possibly more concrete and naïve than that of the level 4 student (though QCDA gives few clues in this direction). And again, whilst we can expect level 4 students to be able to assess the impact of issues and problems at a more sophisticated level, it cannot be the case that students below this level are unable to predict any consequences of people’s actions. (“If you break the law you will get into trouble and a policeman will come and put you in prison” is a statement we might well expect from an average Y1 student.) So the QCDA criteria offered in the 8-level scale are not assessment criteria in the strict sense. They point to the types of activities or processes that teachers of citizenship should expect their students to


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undertake and give some contextual clues as to the level students might operate at, but by and large, teachers are still required to make many inferences for themselves about what distinguishes a level 4 ‘informed contribution’ from a level 3 or level 5 one. The conclusion that must be drawn from this is that a considerable amount of ‘norm referencing’ must also go on as teachers try to decide which students are more successful at e.g. making informed contributions to a debate and indeed what a typical level 4 contribution might look like. It is of course extremely difficult to devise criteria which are genuinely related to stages of learning and development, though some work has been done in this direction drawing on evidence from developmental psychology which claims that children do go through distinctive phases in their thinking about citizenship and political issues which can indicate whether they are progressing normally compared with other students of similar age and experience (see below, section 5.4). Thus, we experience a situation where claims are made about placing students on a national scale of progress, whereas in practice, the criteria are too loosely constructed and not sufficiently evidence-based to allow for genuine standardisation or correlation with developmental stages. It is worth commenting at this stage that citizenship is not alone in having to grapple with relatively unclear ‘success criteria’ by which to assess students’ progress. Teachers of related subjects such as history and geography have wrestled for years with their level descriptions. As Mark Cottingham (2004) put it: One of the key difficulties in assessing progress in history is that it is

difficult to reach agreement on exactly what progress looks like or indeed what we should be assessing. Try cutting up the statements that make up the Key Stage 3 level descriptions, then putting them back in order if you need convincing how problematic these statements are as a measure of progress. Given that an average pupil is expected to progress by about one Level every 18 months it has always seemed demoralising to use these numbers as a measure of progress. ‘Well done Memoona, at the start of Year 8 you were on level 5 and now you are in Year 9 you are still on level 5, keep up the good work’ never seemed likely to inspire.

Cottingham here hints at the kind of pressures teachers experience when having to use these levels for public reporting purposes, as opposed to monitoring pupils’ progress for educational reasons such as supporting slower developers. Many schools developed their own assessment ladders by introducing ‘sub levels’ to satisfy parents and school assessment policies, and even students like Memoona who have a right to know how well they are progressing, but which are against the advice of QCDA to use levels as ‘best fit’ indicators only at the end of KS3. When citizenship education was introduced, there was perhaps the opportunity to develop a new style of progression framework which might resolve some of these


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difficulties, but in insisting that the citizenship criteria conform to the style of existing subjects, arguably an important opportunity was lost.

Study Tasks

• How sympathetic are you personally to the anti-assessment

arguments of the kind rehearsed above? Can they be convincingly

repudiated, in your opinion?

• How true is the claim that assessment over-determines the

curriculum? Does this have to be true of citizenship?

• How strong, do you think, is the argument that unless citizenship

takes on the full trappings of a subject, including assessment, it

will not be established as a full subject, earning the respect of

fellow teachers, students and parents, nor will it be taught with

appropriate levels of rigour and expertise.

_____________________________________________________

5.2 The mechanics of assessment

What is assessment for?

The purpose of assessment in citizenship education could be divided into three, as follows:

• administrative or managerial grades can rank students for reporting or setting purposes; grades can be used to motivate or punish students (they can also de-motivate, of course); they can demonstrate the school’s effectiveness in the delivery of the curriculum; they can demonstrate an individual teacher’s skills as a citizenship teacher; they can demonstrate to parents that progress has been made;

• teaching and learning the assessment process illuminates the effectiveness of learning or the quality of teaching; it provides a check on the students’ development as social, moral and political thinkers; it informs the development of lessons, teaching materials and courses;

• personal development positive assessment can motivate students and promote a commitment to the values and practices of engaged citizenship; broad assessment statements can show approval of positive attitudes shown by pupils.


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What should be assessed?

There are a number of elements to the existing citizenship programmes of study and decisions need to be made concerning whether, and if so, how, to assess each of these elements. The different elements of learning are in areas of knowledge and understanding, skills of critical thinking and enquiry, advocacy and representation, and skills of responsible action. Clearly different kinds of assessment task need to be developed in order for appropriate forms of evidence to be gathered. In ‘Making Sense of Citizenship, a CPD Handbook’ (Huddleston and Kerr, 2006 p.148) list a range of evidence types which can help teachers decide how well students are progressing. The list which is not exhaustive, includes:

• essays/articles

• letters

• logbooks/diaries

• discussions/debates

• presentations

• role plays

• web pages

• videos

• photography exhibitions

• self/peer assessments

• peer mentoring

• research projects.

Study task

• Against each of the elements below write a number of techniques you could

use now to make a judgement on student progress. (This might include

asking students themselves to make judgements on their own or their

peers’ work).

Knowledge and understanding

Skills of critical thinking and enquiry


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Skills of advocacy and representation

Skills of responsible action

In the revised citizenship curriculum, which came into effect in September 2008, what are described as ‘skills’ in the previous curriculum, became ‘key processes’ of:

• Critical thinking and enquiry, including skills of reflection, research, analysis and evaluation of sources

• Advocacy and representation, including expressing personal opinions, considering different viewpoints, justifying a position and persuasion

• Taking informed and responsible action, including identifying citizenship issues, planning and taking action to try to influence others, analysing impact, reflection and evaluation of action.

On the face of it, this looks more like a re-presentation of the same areas of skills rather than a radical new conception of the citizenship skills. Critical thinking as a skill in itself is prominent in a way it was not in the first version of the curriculum. This is consistent with the emphasis of the newly framed ‘Personal. Learning and Thinking Skills’ (PELTS) which extend right across the new curriculum framework and to which all subjects contribute. Curiously, in the PELTS framework, the term ‘critical thinking’ does not appear but two of the main types of thinking skills are concerned with developing ‘independent enquirers’ viz. young people who are prepared to question and think for themselves and ‘creative thinkers’ who can question their own and others’ ideas to construct new understandings. Together, these two different kinds of thinking arguably offer a workable definition of critical thinking, which is, in practice, often left undefined. Given its importance in democratic life, teachers of citizenship will want to place considerable importance on assessing the extent to which individual students can think critically, i.e. take elements of knowledge and understanding, evaluate them, deconstruct them, interrogate them and make them their own, and then express personal viewpoints backed up with reasons and rational argument.


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Study Tasks

• Think about the scheme of work you are devising for this course. During

the three to six lessons, consider how you might incorporate two or

three assessment activities, including some self- or peer assessment

activities (for more on these, see the next section).

• What will be an appropriate end of unit assessment task that could,

perhaps, assess students’ developing knowledge and understanding

plus some of the key skills or processes? What in particular would

indicate student progress in critical thinking in relation to the topic you

have chosen?

____________________________________________________________

5.3 Assessment of and for learning

‘To ensure assessment supports teaching and learning, the new curriculum encourages a range of approaches to assessing learners’ knowledge, skills and understanding. With greater emphasis on personalising learning, assessment also needs to be personalised to ensure that individual learners have the opportunity to make progress and achieve. More flexibility in the curriculum will give teachers more time to focus on assessment for learning strategies and to provide more targeted assessments to meet individual learners’ needs.’

http://www.qca.org.uk/downloads/OverviewBrochure_v03e_FIN.pdf The quotation above, taken from a booklet entitled ‘The New secondary curriculum, what has changed and why’ (QCA, May, 2007), hints at the revolution that has taken place in assessment over the last ten years or so. The leaders of this revolution include Professor Paul Black of Kings College, London and Dylan Wiliam (note the spelling). Black and Wiliam were profoundly dissatisfied with current approaches to summative assessment, which too often appeared to have negative rather than positive outcomes. Negatives outcomes of the retrospective assessment of learning (AoL) include:

• the encouragement of rote or superficial learning in order to achieve particular academic outcomes,

• giving of marks and grades as the main vehicle for feedback is a poor substitute for constructive comments to students on which to base improvements

• over-emphasis on comparing students with one another, rather than encouraging personal improvement, which can be de-motivating, particularly for low attainers

• test results often give poor information about students’ actual learning needs.


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Black and Wiliam conducted a major meta-study of research into formative assessment methods published up to 1997. The seventy-page review looked at data from 250 papers out of the 681 identified as relevant. The study found considerable evidence of the need for a ‘paradigm shift’ away from summative forms of assessment. The findings published in the research review were then publicised in a paper which has become very influential called Inside the Black Box1 (Black and Wiliam, 1998). Subsequently, Black, Wiliam and colleagues worked in six schools with over 30 teachers and 1,000 pupils to put into practice the ideas emerging from the research. Whilst the teachers found the changes in their practice challenging, it appeared to be, overall, positive and transforming not merely of how they understood the value and purpose of assessment but more importantly of the role of assessment as a positive learning tool for students. The findings have been published in Assessment for Learning: putting it into practice (Black, et al, 2003).

Overall, the action research identified four main components of the Assessment for Learning (AoL) approach as the most important:

• Asking questions in class: Many teachers leave less than one second for pupils to answer a question, and elicit answers from a small minority of volunteers in the class. The teachers learnt to change this, asking open rather than closed questions and giving students significantly more time to think about a question, at the same time expecting everyone in the class to be able to respond if called on. The effect is that teachers gauge much better the students’ learning needs and students become more articulate in identifying what they themselves do not understand.

• Marking homework: Usually, when given grades or marks, pupils look only at these and ignore suggestions for improvement. So the teachers concentrated on giving only comments, on which pupils were expected to take action to improve the work. This shifted attention away from competing for marks and merits, and towards each student using the opportunity to produce their best work based on the better quality of feedback they received.

• Pupils assessing one another: When students mark each other’s work in pairs or groups, they learn to think about the aim of a piece of work and to understand the success criteria. The opportunity to examine another student’s work throws light on students’ own

1 You can download Inside the Black Box from

http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kbla9810.htmX. It is also purchasable as a booklet from

NFER/Nelson. See also on the QCA website ‘AfL Key Resources’ for a list of useful

documents and teacher guides, some of which are downloadable free.


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work and shows them ways in which their work can be improved. In helping their peers, their own knowledge becomes more secure. Importantly, opportunities for revision and re-drafting at that point, provide opportunities to raise the overall standard of output considerably. This method also helps pupils internalise the way the success criteria operate.

• Involving pupils in their tests: Students are too often kept in the dark about the criteria by which their work will be marked. This is bound to affect their ability to achieve the success criteria. By involving pupils in setting test questions, in inventing mark schemes, and in marking one another’s answers, teachers helped students to achieve a different view of why they were being assessed.

One teacher in the study described the change in terms of the fact that previously he was doing too much of the thinking and students too little. Students became more engaged with, and more aware of, the learning processes they were involved in. One very important finding of this shift in emphasis from summative to formative assessment was that all students appeared to be able to benefit from it, but the students who benefited the most were the lowest attainers. This may well because of the removal of de-motivating systems of comparisons and low grades and because of the more structured and scaffolded learning built into assessment for learning approaches. Since then, the findings of these and similar studies have found their way into mainstream curriculum thinking in England. They have been adopted by leaders of the National Strategy for Learning and, as the quotation at the top of this chapter suggests, have been also incorporated into the thinking which shapes the new curriculum framework. If learning is to become more personalised and thus more effective, it follows that assessment methods also have to be more personalised. For citizenship education, the new approaches also seem to be very much in the spirit of participation and capable of offering techniques for assessing or evaluating forms of activity which more traditional methods find hard to reach. _________________________________________________________________

5.4 The development of Citizenship thinking: finding the level

Any attempt to assess young people’s progress in Citizenship education must take into account the development of thinking about the moral, social and political issues with which citizenship education is concerned. It is very important for teachers to be aware of how thinking in this area develops and not only for the purposes of setting learning outcomes or


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assessing progress. Ever since the work of Piaget, developmental psychologists and educators have sought to better understand how young people’s ideas about the world around them are gradually transformed as they grow up and become aware of increasingly complex, distant and abstract issues. Some scholars speak of the expansion with age and experience of young people’s ‘horizon of significance’. In other words younger children can be seen to have a more limited range of understanding than older students because of their less developed cognitive skills, relative lack of experience and more limited knowledge. Citizenship education was traditionally thought of as a secondary school activity, because national politics in its fullest sense is not readily understandable by the average primary school child, but it is now accepted that many of the most important citizenship concepts (such as fairness, equality, rule/law, right/wrong) begin to develop way before children enter school. In her study of the beginnings of social understanding amongst children aged 3 and below, the psychologist Judy Dunn (1988) noticed that the moral concepts in which these children showed a marked interest were not merely those of the immediate family circle but were those same concepts which permeate the whole of our culture – ideas to do with positive justice (fairness), responsibility, mitigation of guilt and so on. So key ideas which become translated into the political realm for teenagers and adults are the same ideas with which, as children, they wrestled throughout childhood, albeit in more limited, inter-personal contexts. Connell (1971) undertook an important study to elucidate the developing political knowledge and awareness of 119 Australian young people between the ages of 5 and 16. The data revealed how the young people constructed their understanding of the political world in a number of clearly recognizable phases or stages. Connell suggested that, in the first instance, young children do not recognise the existence of an explicit or distinct political realm at all, although they are clearly developing pre-political ideas about rights, responsibilities, fairness and so on. Then, from the age of 8 or 9, they begin to think about politics but in naïve and childlike ways, extrapolating outwards from their own understandings of the way the world works. (This is why, e.g., young children commonly assume that police officers make the law, as well as enforcing it. It is their early experience that rule-makers are also rule-enforcers, namely parents and teachers - why would they assume anything different regarding the police?) From around 10 or 11, the beginning of realism can be observed as children begin to engage more with the outside world but politics is understood in ‘personal’ terms. So, at this stage, whilst students mostly are aware that the country is run by a government, they still tend to think that the Prime Minister runs the country on his own. The complexities of the government machine or the abstract influences on


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policy and so on are still beyond the ‘horizon of significance’ for the vast majority of students. Only after the age of around 14 (for most young people), coinciding with the end of Key Stage 3, does the research suggest that the concept of ‘society’ begins to emerge in its fullest sense. Ask a young person in Key Stage 3 how they understand the term ‘society’ and you will very probably be told something like this2:

Simeon Y8: I think a society is just a place where you are living,

really. Jordan Y8: Yeah, where you live, who is around you, what’s going

on around you. Sarah Y9: I think society means a lot of people coming together

and knowing each other, and doing things to help other people, and people who live near each other.

It’s clear these students recognise the concept ‘society’ but that it is still ‘under construction’. They speak in terms of people interacting with each other but largely still in some kind of physical contact. This is of course partly true but society is much more than this. It is a thing in its own right and individual people form part of it but are by no means the whole. Compare the thinking of Tom, who though still in Y9, has developed a much more complex concept of society:

Tom: … laws represent what society believes is good and bad, so if you’re breaking the law, you are going against the majority decision. […]

Interviewer: And what’s the law based on? Tom: It’s based on society, because the society, the

community, votes for the politicians, and that’s the majority vote, and then the politicians will do a majority vote on whether to pass a law or not and therefore it goes indirectly back to us the people.

Note that Tom speaks of society not as many people but as one entity. He uses the singular for both ‘society’ and ‘community’. He thinks of society as a whole, and in his mind there are subtle, invisible forces or influences, linking the leaders of society to ‘the people’ (again used as a singular term). Only when young people can recognise there is such a thing as society, which operates like a machine with interdependent parts and with individuals making up the whole, does genuine political reasoning, of an adult kind, begin to be seen. At this stage, students begin to realize that,

2 These interviews were conducted by Don Rowe in 2004 and are taken from

Citizenship:raising the standard, section 7 (Rowe, 2005)


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social and political processes are at work as opposed to merely individual actions. Furthermore at this stage, young people develop their own personal ideologies and refer to them more explicitly. Connell’s framework is compatible with a large number of other studies which have been undertaken in the development of social understanding, including ideas about the law, society and economics. Using Connell’s framework, which coincides quite significantly with the English Key Stages, we can develop a more holistic picture of the development of citizenship thinking (see figure 5.1, below).

Figure 5.1 The Development of Social and Political Thinking in Young Citizens © Don Rowe. Not to be reproduced without permission

A Age ((approximate)

Nature of social and political thinking

Stage

Below 9 years approx. (some overlap with KS1)

Children do not recognise politics as a distinct part of social life. Rules and laws are understood as prohibitions from people in authority to prevent bad consequences. Reasons for obeying the law would be to obey authority or to avoid getting into trouble. There is no understanding of the social purpose of laws and little empathic understanding or ability to be ‘in other people’s shoes’. Thinking is ‘embedded’ in concrete examples, is egocentric and concrete. Nevertheless, children can recognize and discuss quite complex social situation e.g. of rule breaking, punishment and mitigation based on personal experience.

‘Pre-political’ stage ‘Implicit’ social and moral thinking. The development of social and moral concepts, e.g. fairness, equality, rules, justice takes place in the context of personal relations.

Age 9 to early adolescence approx. (some overlap with KS2)

At this stage, children’s ideas about the social and political world are growing rapidly. However, their thinking about the social world is naïve and generally lacks reality or detail. Also, children seem unable to see politics in terms of the tensions between different interests (their solutions to problems are simplistic and non-problematic). Some ideas (e.g. about the role of kings and queens) are still more influenced by stories than real life. Much social and moral reasoning goes on but it is still implicit at this stage – embedded in day-to-day situations. Politically, for most children, there is now the beginning of the recognition of social roles and institutions, including e.g. Prime Minister, ‘Queen’, and ‘police officers’. So the political world begins to emerge but it is ‘personalised’ and not yet about institutions, organizations, or social forces. Children of this age recognize limited elements of political problems and their problem solving tends to be of a black and white nature (i.e. opting for one-sided solutions). Reasons to obey the law are still egocentric and largely lacking in empathy or awareness of other people’s interests or rights. Laws are still seen as authority-based, and generally prohibitive rather than socially enabling. At this stage children develop a new form of moral thinking which is influenced by the nature of peer relationships which are developing rapidly. Children will say ‘it’s OK to steal if everyone else does’ or ‘if they hit you, you can hit them back’. Equally, stealing could be wrong because ‘if you steal from others, they might steal from you’. On the positive side, children may suggest it is right to do help others because one day they might do the same for you.

‘naive realism’ Children begin to take in aspects of the social world as it really is, but these ideas are rudimentary at first such as recognition of the PM as embodiment of government


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Age 10-14 approx. (some overlap with KS3)

Political issues come to seen as increasingly realistic and complex. Politics begins to be seen as more ‘problematic’ than before (i.e. concerning people with conflicting interests). Political thinking becomes more realistic as social issues become better understood but for many students, political issues are still understood in personal terms (e.g. crime is more about individual law-breaking than a social phenomenon). However, laws begin to be seen as positive as well as negative and as changeable if they do not achieve the purpose for which they were devised. Awareness of government and social structures (e.g. the local council) is developing but this lacks institutional detail and whilst there is understanding of the broad role of state institutions (e.g. to provide housing, hospitals or education) there is little knowledge of the way these institutions actually operate. This gradually modifies as they learn more about them. Some young people at this stage, think in fairly simple terms about political issues, identifying only one or two factors, whilst others are able to recognize several elements to a political problem. The economic nature of poltical issues is barely recognised at this stage. Unemployment, for example, is more likely to be thought of as caused by personal traits such as laziness rather than economic or social forces. Reasons given for obeying the law at this age begin to show greater awareness of the effect of actions on other people (empathic awareness). Behaviour can be motivated by the desire to win approval or not to hurt other people. Children begin to speak of anti-social actions as damaging the trust between people (an idea not mentioned in earlier stages). Young people still understand society to be a community of individual people who live together and help each other, nothing more. In solving political problems, young people are increasingly able to see a range of viewpoints but still find it relatively hard to hold these in creative tension, often preferring to opt for clear cut solutions.

‘inter-personal social and political thinking’ (ability to recognize political issues as they show up in the lives of individuals).

Age 13 plus (some overlap with KS4)

This phase is marked by the emergence of the idea that individuals can regarded collectively as a society which is something in its own right (rather like a machine made up of interconnecting elements). This brings greater sophistication to political understanding. Problems begin to be understood from society’s perspective, as well as from the individual’s. Individual citizens are increasingly understood as ‘a part of the whole’. The tensions between individual interests and society’s interests begin to be recognized. In problem-solving, competing interests can now be balanced against each other e.g. ‘this should be allowed – but within limits or with exceptions’. In moral thinking, this ability to hold competing claims in tension shows itself in the ability to understand that ‘bad’ actions may be justifiable or the right thing to do in the circumstances, or the over-riding of rights in favour of the greater good may be justified. Economically, wages are now understood to come from company profits. Economic inequalities are more understood as relating to type of work rather than the amount of work different people do. The idea of an inter-related economic system as an integral part of society begins to be well-established. Reasons for obeying the law now include society-focused reasons such as the need to maintain law and order, or to uphold the democratic will of society, in addition to the inter-personal reasons offered earlier. These reasons were not offered before. Moral and ideological thinking becomes more explicit in many young people of this age as their own personal values and identities (e.g. vegetarian, environmentalist) develop and there is greater internal consistency across a range of personal views and beliefs.

‘Social construction of politics’ Emergence of more generalised thinking about society as something above and beyond individual citizens in its structures and practices. Political problems now begin to be interpreted in the light of how organizations work as well as how people behave.

Early and mature adulthood

At this stage, for some, probably not the majority, there develops a social and political morality which is underpinned by abstractly conceived moral principles, rather than rules socially constructed by individual societies. Societies, as well as individuals, can now be criticized on the basis of whether they uphold these universal values. The individual re-emerges as important, embodying human rights in the face of potentially corrupt practices by the state. Rules and laws are now seen as underpinned by moral principles of justice, equality,

Principled perspective Societies now come to be seen to be answerable to higher level moral principles, such as human rights


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Sources used in the construction of this table include: ‘Moral Maturity: Measuring the Development of Sociomoral Reflection’ by John Gibbs, Karen Basinger and Dick Fuller (published 1992 by Lawrence Erlbaum) ‘The Child’s Construction of Politics’ by R. W. Connell (published 1971 by Melbourne University Press) ‘Young People’s Understanding of Society’ by Adrian Furnham and Barrie Stacey (published 1991 by Routledge) See also ‘Children’s Understanding of Society’ edited by M Barrett and E. Buchanan-Barrow Psychology Press 2005

The implications of the above chart are that there are characteristics ways in which citizenship thinking develops relating to the development of students’ social, legal, moral or political thinking. We should not be surprised that some young people mature earlier in this than others and it is likely that the reasons for this include:

• the differing rates at which young people’s cognitive abilities develop

• different levels of exposure to political ideas at home or via the media

• varying levels of citizenship education in school

• variations in actual experiences which generate citizenship learning (whether home, school or community based).

Whatever the factors shaping the development of students’ citizenship thinking, the research evidence is that there are clear indicators of development, both in terms of how knowledge is constructed at different stages and in terms of problem solving and thinking skills. For example, the National Curriculum online website, recently displayed the work of two Y9 students each arguing that racism was wrong. Annette wrote this (amongst other things): “Racism is a nasty thing. It is when people are agains other

people’s colour. Racism is very wrong . Lots of people can get hirt by the things people say.”

Whereas Lauren wrote the following: “First there’s the fact that we live in a multi-cultural society,

where other people’s beliefs and cultures are accepted. Indian food is eaten a lot, in fact tikka marsala the nation’s favourite food. If

respect for human rights etc. This is sometimes called a ‘prior to society’ perspective because a citizen’s allegiance to his/her society will depend on levels of social justice upheld by that society. In other words, there is a principled appeal to an authority higher than society which was not characteristic of the earlier stage. At this advanced stage of thinking an individual is much more likely to identify moral principles or ideals by which they live and around which they build their identity. Extreme examples of this identification are demonstrated when people would rather die than betray their principles.

© Don Rowe. Not to be reproduced without permission.


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the £1.5b that Indian food makes a year was taken away, then this country would go bust. So the next time a racist makes a crack about somebody else’s culture just point out to them that the money that culture makes is paying for their hospitals, roads and other things.”

There are clearly different levels of citizenship understanding underpinning these two students’ thinking. Annette describes racism as something that happens (only) between people and in the whole of this piece of writing (not all of which is included here), there is no hint that she sees racism as a societal issue. Compared with this, Lauren sees racism as having more than inter-personal consequences. She draws on the concept of society as a set of inter-related parts. This enables her to develop an argument that racism could drive away members of the Indian community and, as a result, society would suffer. The research data we have been looking at suggests that this is the mark of a student thinking at least at key stage 4 level. Quite obviously, Lauren’s writing skills are more developed than Annette’s but this is not the criterion teachers should use in judging the quality of her citizenship thinking. Rowe examined the responses of over 300 mixed-ability students between the ages of 12-16 to an open-ended problem. There were striking differences between the most naïve and uninformed answers and those students who clearly were developing genuine political thinking. The problem asked students to think about whether a local council should allow an existing quarry to further expand. The quarry is situated on the edge of a town where many of the townsfolk work. However, the quarry is seriously eroding the hillside. The weakest responses from these secondary students appear to be equivalent to QCA level 3 and were from students who:

• mentioned only one concrete consideration (e.g. danger, pollution, or threats to animals’ homes);

• opted simplistically for or against the quarry, offering no counter-arguments at all;

• described people’s reactions and actions very simply (‘they would be happy/sad’);

• made no reference to political considerations, such as the need to consult the townsfolk.

Students who displayed more understanding were able to:

• discuss in terms of a small number of practical considerations for or against the problem. However, in the end they chose one or the other side as trumping all the arguments against (one could call this ‘either/or’ thinking)


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• discuss people’s reactions more fully and in inter-personal terms (e.g. the ‘quarry owners are greedy’ or ‘people will complain’). People’s needs, wants or emotions (not their thinking) are the most salient aspects mentioned at this stage

• political ideas are limited but the role of the council is understood as giving or refusing permission. However, there is as yet no reference to the kind of processes that are gone through, such as consultation or planning procedures

• If right and wrong are mentioned these are discussed in terms of the practical consequences of actions (moral principles are not evident in the answers).

We may speculate that this level represents the thinking of an average level 4 student (top of key stage 2). At the next stage of thinking (level 5) students showed more advanced problem-solving skills and were able to discuss the problem in terms of four or five different key ideas (including pollution, danger, economics, environment, democracy). These students are able to:

• identify different sides to the problem and could recognise competing or opposing claims or arguments in problems of this kind (e.g. jobs versus the environment). At this level, students begin to talk about the need to make an ‘overall’ decision by weighing up arguments on both sides and deciding which side has the better case. However, at this stage, one set of arguments always wins over the other- the decision does not balance competing interests;

• discuss the problem in terms of people and how their lives are affected by the situation in terms of what they might do or be forced to do (e.g. move away) but there is still little reference to the town or society as a whole community;

• show some awareness of the political background and that this problem has a political aspect to it, such as suggesting the council do a survey of what people wanted;

• make moral judgements on the basis of the practical consequences of actions; there is no reference to moral principles e.g. the absolute duty to respect the environment;

• discuss the matter reasonably fully but in a limited local context. No references are made to wider society or a national background to the issues such as the state of the economy, or housing needs or government policies.

Level 6 thinkers showed the ability to identify an increasing range of factors on either side of the situation but now show the ability to:


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• balance the rights of one side against those of the other (e.g. extend the quarry but re-plant the disused areas – ‘yes/but’ thinking). Thus the solution now become more open-ended and remains on-going. This is characteristically very different from the early closure to problems envisaged by students at levels 3 – 5;

• Show some ability to envisage that the situation might be interpreted in terms of its history or the passing of time (e.g. it is relevant that the quarry has been there a long time, such that people would be accustomed to it or have come to depend on it, or they knew it was there when they moved into the area.) Younger students show no sense of time in their interpretation of the problem;

• Students begin to show awareness of elements of public debate. They begin to incorporate phrases or ideas drawn from these debates into their own thinking and reasoning. (e.g. they may use phrases like ‘greenhouse effect’ or ‘environmentally friendly’);

• Economic issues are still understood in fairly simple terms – e.g. jobs and benefits the shops or businesses – possibly this refers to the needs of the shopkeepers and not the economy itself (economic understanding tends to develop late);

• Generally speaking, students still confine their answers to the level of what happens at local community level. There is still little connection between the local and the national picture or with distinctively political activities or processes.

In the sample, the most sophisticated responses, levels 7 and 8, were from students who:

• not only balanced factors against each other but were also able to weight them differently (e.g. they would say that the environment was important but it depended how much the people of the town valued the hillside). At this stage, some trivial factors might not be included in the discussion, which focuses more and more on the most important considerations – in this case the needs of the economy versus the needs of the environment;

• were able to discuss how people were affected not only in terms of how they might feel (affective empathy) but also in terms of what they might think (cognitive empathy) e.g. ‘they must have known the quarry was there when they moved there, so it would probably be alright to expand it’;

• displayed a societal level of understanding (e.g. the environment would be damaged but the town as a whole or the wider economy would benefit and this outweighs the rights of individuals to be free from the pollution). They also see this issue as one in which the national context has relevance and in which political groups, such as campaigners might take an interest;


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• began to show understanding of some political processes such as the planning procedures that would have been gone through to allow the quarry to exist in the first place (from this they might deduce there is no rare wildlife to protect);

• students increasingly understand the people’s actions often have a legal context – i.e. that laws and legal relationships shape and determine many interactions in ways which younger students are unaware of;

• students are able to identify a range of direct and indirect stakeholders in social or political problems and they show understanding that these can be linked to each other in complex ways;

• suggested solutions are no longer once-for-all or black and white, they become tentative and students demonstrate understanding that most factors are contingent on, or limited by, other factors;

• students increasingly are able to factor into their thinking that some effects subsequently have secondary or ‘knock-on’ effects:

• are increasingly able to analyse their own thinking more explicitly or talk about the different kinds of reasons that could be used.

These findings are tentative at the moment, pending further research. An attempt has been made for obvious reasons, to equate these trends to National Curriculum levels, in order to help teachers better understand how these research finding relate to the 8-level scale. Further research is planned using different kinds of citizenship problem, to see whether the trends identified in students’ thinking about the Standley Quarry problem are also traceable in thinking about other kinds of citizenship issues. For example, it is not yet clear whether different kinds of citizenship thinking (e.g. drawing on the history of a situation to help interpret it) always emerges in association with the same developments or whether students vary in this. Nonetheless, the data clearly show that a number of elements of students’ thinking develop from simple to complex levels as students progress from the primary into the secondary years. These developmental trends include shifts:

• from physical and concrete, through personal/inter-personal to societal, systemic and procedural.

• from personal and informal relations to the formal, legalised and political relations.

• from individual needs and wants to collective actions of groups in society

• from a single, non-problematic viewpoint, through to multiple viewpoints in continuing tension with each other.


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• from simple, once-for-all solutions to solutions which hold opposing/competing interests in tension, in situations that can change over time.

• from a very small number of schemas (or key ideas) through to referencing a large number of schemas then to prioritising a relatively small number of key schemas.

• from a naïve, unsophisticated view of the world, dominated by the interests of the child, to understanding informed by social, legal and political perspectives.

• from affective to cognitive empathy. • from intuitive, implicit reasoning to self-aware, explicit

argumentation in which reasoning is more visible in the talk. • from simple statements or opinions and consequential reasoning

towards emergence of ideological and principled reasoning.

• from a ‘small world’ dominated by local or immediate surroundings, to the wider national and even international background to the issues in hand.

To read more on this, with examples linked tentatively to National Curriculum levels, see Appendix 1.

References Arthur, J and Wright, (2001) Teaching Citizenship in the Secondary School London, David Fulton

Black P, and Wiliam, D (1998) ‘Inside the Black Box: raising standards through classroom assessment’ London, School of Education, Kings College

Black P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., and Wiliam, D , 2003)Assessment for Learning: putting it into practice Maidenhead, England, Open University Press Connell, R. W. (1971) ‘The Child’s Construction of Politics. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press Cottingham, M. (2004) ‘Dr Black Box or How I learned to stop worrying and love assessment’ in Teaching History Vol 115, June 2004 Dunn, J., (1988) The Beginnings of Social Understanding. Oxford, Blackwell. Huddleston, T. and Kerr, D. (2005) Making Sense of Citizenship: a CPD Handbook. London, Hodder.


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Pike, M. (2007) ‘Values and visibility: the implementation and assessment of citizenship education in schools’. Educational Review 59(2) pp 215-229. Richardson, M. (2009) Assessing the Assessment of Citizenship in Research Papers in Education. 99999:1 DOI 10:1080/02761520903045566. London, Routledge Rowe, D. (2001) ‘Value Pluralism, Democracy and Education for Citizenship’ in Collins, J., Insley, K. and Soler, J. (eds.) Developing Pedagogy: researching practice. London, Paul Chapman Publishing. Rowe, D. (2005) Citizenship, Raising the Standard. Lewes, Connect Publications. Rowe, D (2005) ‘The Development Of Political Thinking In School Students: An English Perspective’ in International Journal of Citizenship and Teacher Training Vol 1(1) (The Journal of Citized).


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Appendix 1 Characteristics of Citizenship thinking – possible schematic framework based on

findings from responses to the Standley Quarry problem Don Rowe, Citizenship Foundation

This study has been made possible by a grant from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) which the author gratefully acknowledges. This forms an element of the development work on assessing progress in citizenship education undertaken by QCA in 2007/8. The data which forms the basis of the present paper is the property of QCA and may not be reproduced without permission. The opinions offered in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the view of QCA.. Introduction This study follows on from a pilot study carried out by the author and published in a paper

entitled The Development of Political Thinking in School Students: an English Perspective

(Rowe, 2005, downloadable from the citized website). Students in Years 8 and 9 were asked to

respond to a question about the possible expansion of a quarry just outside the imaginary town of

Standley. Students were asked to say as much as they could about why this could be a difficult

problem for the local council. Following the pilot study, the wording of the question and the tasks

were slightly modified and these are attached at appendix 1.

Data for the present study was collected from students in Year 9 (aged 13-14 years), Year 10

(aged 14-15 years) and Year 11 (15-16 years). The schools were selected as being schools where

citizenship was separately taught, though not necessarily by trained specialists and which

represented the full ability range. The schools serve a range of different kinds of catchment area,

such that a wide ability range of students’ thinking are represented in the responses.

What follows is an assessment of students’ answers to the Standley Quarry Problem, as set out in

the pilot study. In the early years of development, whilst children’s thinking about citizenship

ideas such as fairness, rights and responsibilities develops rapidly (e.g. Dunn, 1988), the context

is familial and based on personal relationships. There is no awareness of the social or political

domain as a separate part of life. This is therefore a pre-political stage and studies suggest that it

is around the age of 8 or 9 that children begin to be able to consider the kind of issues represented

by the Standley Quarry Problem. My analysis by levels, which are equivalent to QCA’s 8 levels,

therefore begins at Level 3. A separate problem more meaningful to Key Stage 1 students would

be necessary to complete the table with criteria for Levels 1 and 2.

Note that the levels chosen below have been used as equivalent to QCA’s levels for the purposes

of comparison with the nationally established assessment criteria. They do not necessarily arise

naturally from the data themselves. Others studies, such as Connell’s (Connell, 1971) have

identified fewer distinct stages in the development of political thinking. Levels 3 and 4 It seems likely that in the very early years (KS1) children asked to respond to this study would

not be able to. Many observers (e.g. Connell, ibid) suggest that before the age of about 9 years,

social understanding of the kind required to make sense of the Standley Quarry problem is

limited. This is not to say that there is no citizenship thinking before this age, Dunn (1988) argues

very strongly that concepts such as fairness, guilt, punishment and so on are of importance to

children at the pre-school stage but the kind of socially situated problem such as we have here is

not going to have meaning to children of this age.


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From the data garnered from 14, 15 and 16 year-olds, some of whom are well below average in

cognitive development, it seems that the earliest attempts to understand the Standley Quarry

problem are very simple with often only one schema3 being drawn on as salient to the problem.

For example:

The problem as I see it is that the council should refuse the decision, as making the quarry bigger

will have an effect on the town. The hillside is being dug up, but by bit, the council shouldn’t let

the quarry get any bigger. Hannah, School 4, Y10, Age 14y ?m

The problem as I see it is that the quarry is big enough already and that they shouldn’t make it

any bigger.

My own view is that the council should not make it any bigger because it will take up too much

room. Dean, School 4, Y10, aged 15y 7m

The problem as I see it is that the council are stuck on what to choose. I think that they expand

it, because there is more profit to be made.

My own view is that the council should expand it, so there is more profit to be made. Amy,

School 4, Y10, 14y 8m

I think it’s worth noting in passing that even at this simple level of understanding, the students

seem to make sense of what the council is and understand the problem at a basic level. There

seems to be an implicit understanding that the council has power or authority in this matter,

though two of the above answers seem to make no distinction between the council and the quarry

owners. There is only one agent in these two responses and that is the council. In all three

examples, only one reason is offered, for or against. It is striking that these reasons are legitimate

enough and are used by students answering at much higher levels but at this level the students do

not appear to be able to weigh up opposing factors simultaneously (at least not consciously) and

they have immediately jumped to a conclusion, hence the ‘my own view section’ is no different

from the statement of the problem and Hannah has not even completed this section. The thinking

here appears to be largely intuitive and I think it quite likely that if pressed as to why they chose

their particular answer they could not justify it further. Generally, the schemas used at this stage

are concrete, visible factors, though Amy is old enough to have learnt what profits are.

Given the age of our sample, we have relatively few examples of this level of answer but enough

to be able to characterise the thinking as intuitive, lacking in argumentation/persuasion, and one-

sided insofar as only one side of the problem is mentioned.

At these levels, the schemata drawn on are almost entirely concrete or physical in nature or they

focus on how people might be affected. There is an absence of reference to any social or political

world beyond the basic recognition of the ‘council’ and its power to allow the expansion. When

people are discussed it tends to be in terms of what they might need (in a rather egocentric sense),

do or want (i.e. how they might react to a situation). At a deeper level, if their emotions are

3 By schema I mean a set of associated concepts or ideas around which cognitive development takes place.

Piaget suggested that when unfamiliar information is encountered, cognitive dissonance occurs which is

resolved by ‘assimilation’ of new information into the mental structures which become more sophisticated

and complex. In the present study, analysis by schemas allows one to group ideas such as dirt or noise, as

elements of a ‘pollution’ schema. Similarly ‘accidents’ can be seen as an early form of thinking about

‘danger/safety’ which later might appear in the form of concerns around ‘health and safety’. In other words

whilst the subject of schemas remain fairly stable, the way children think about them develops with age.


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discussed (how they think or feel about the issue) it is in terms of being made happy or sad by a

situation - complex attitudes or emotions are not referred to.

At the simplest level, when factors within situations are discussed, such as jobs or the effects of

the quarry expansion, then such effects are simple and straightforward. There is often a lack of

nuance or qualification in the description and, at the lowest level, effects are often described as

unavoidable or certain (“there will be big mud slides down the hill… and people will slip on it”

[my emphasis]). Effects seem also to be considered in isolation, and are not understood as

interacting with other effects. The simplicity of the thinking also may extend to seeing things or

events are either all good or all bad. In the following example, two or three schemas are drawn on

but the quarry only generates bad consequences and the thinking is one-sided.

The problem as I see it is that the people around whereabouts the quarry is going to be extended

is the noise that will be going on roundabout the work space. Also, the dangers of the sides

eroding when the work is underway.

My own view is that the council should not build on the quarry because of the natural habitat and

the trees which we need to live, which we need to do exams like these. Fiona, school 3 Y11 16y

2m

I would not want to claim on evidence from this kind of data (which arises from unscaffolded or

unprompted responses), that the weakest students could not possibly identify any good things

about the quarry, if directly asked, but it rather looks as if, when trying to solve a controversial

issues, they do not yet find it easy to examine factors on both sides of the issue at the same time.

Another feature of the thinking at these levels is the extent of the intuitive thinking, as in the

example below.

“…the quarry takes up most of the hillside already, it doesn’t need to get any bigger. Who wants

to see a big quarry on a nice hillside?” Chloe, school 2 Y11, 16y 1m

Here a reason is given for opposing the expansion (the reason, paraphrased is perhaps ‘in the

absence of a compelling reason otherwise, expansion should be opposed’. But none of this

underlying thinking is there in the argument and it is quite possible that the respondent would not

be able to elaborate further. She is predisposed to oppose the quarry, she clearly thinks it to be an

eyesore and she is unaware of any stronger reason which might override that kind of opposition.

And the opposition on aesthetic grounds is not a ‘wrong’ one, it represents a simple personalised

interpretation of what at a later stage more sophisticated students will see as the basis of policies

to protect the natural beauty of the landscape where practical and justifiable.

Thinking at this level is often logically poor and lacking a sense of the real world i.e. how the

problem would actually be discussed, including the use of factors or reasons which would not be

considered important enough to be relevant to an adult (like the problem of the slippy mud).

In terms of how institutions are discussed, they too are thought of as behaving largely as people

do. Lee, above, displays something of the egocentric view of the world which is characteristic of

younger children. He seems to have no sense of the social or political world which has brought

the council into being. It is just ‘there’ and like a person with a dilemma, he thinks they council

should just get on and decide what it wants out of the situation. Perhaps he is implying that it

would be a sign of weakness to have to ask somebody else what to do – this is a very long way

from seeing consultation as evidence gathering and making decisions as one stakeholder in a

relationship with other stakeholders.


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Summary Level 3 � Students can identify citizenship problems in terms of a very few simple and largely concrete

factors/schemas, such as rocks, danger, wildlife � Students see controversial issues as affecting things or people in practical, or physical Sees

issues as either positive or negative, good or bad but not simultaneously generating good and bad outcomes (i.e. not morally complex)

� Factors identified as relevant are understood in straightforward ways, not complicated by interaction with other factors

� Thinking is intuitive. Simple reasons for judgements can be given but these are stated assertively and lack justification or argumentation.

� Factors utilised may be lacking in relevance or inappropriate. � Social institutions e.g. the council may be recognised, but are imagined to behave like people,

not complex institutions. (c.f. how at a young age children equate national government with the Prime Minister)

� There is an absence of reference to a distinctively political domain.

Level 4

At this slightly more advanced stage, children recognise a problem but do this still in very simple

outline terms and are able to identity simple opposites inherent in it. Problems are now seen as

morally complex, generating both good and bad effects. The schemata (or key ideas/concerns)

that may be drawn on at this stage are very simple and overwhelmingly concrete in nature:

The problem as I see it is if they have a quarry already they don’t need to make it bigger

because it makes a big hole and there will be big mud slides down the hill. The good points are

they will make more money and will be able to make more houses and bigger roads and bigger

houses for people to live in.

My own view is that the council should not make the quarry bigger because there will be a

lot of mud and people will slip on it and there could be lots of accidents and it will make a lot

of noise and disturb a lot of people. Chantelle, school 1 Y9 14y 3m

The problem as I see it is that if we continue digging stones and minerals that we will arrive at

some point where we won’t have any more quarries but if we don’t do it where else are we going

to get the minerals, etc. from?

My own view is that the council should not allow the people to keep digging and find other

ways to extract stones, minerals, etc. Valeria, School 1, Y11 16y 0m

Though students can draw on a small number of schemas to identify factors on either side of the

problem, they tend to opt for one side or the other without being able to make a judgement on the

overall balance of advantage versus disadvantage. (I’ve called this ‘simple balancing’ or

‘either/or’ thinking.) Some of the answers suggest that at this ‘simple balancing’ stage, children

think that the problem, once solved, is over and done with, whereas it is noticeable that older

students factor into their thinking the fact that social and political solutions take time to work

through or that tensions (such as those between economic and environmental factors) will

continue to be issues. Thus the understanding of the problem gradually evolves from answering

which side will win to how to maintain a fair equilibrium between the opposing interests.

Answers at this level are still naïve, or unsophisticated often lacking real-world knowledge.

Students discuss problems by extrapolating from what they know to the unknown. So although


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citizenship problems can be thought about, there is a non-complex, non political understanding of

the issues – a lack of awareness that society operates in different ways from people and small

familial units.

[… ] The council should say ‘yes’ but ask where are they going to put the mud when they have

made it bigger? Or, you should say ‘no’ because the hillside is being eaten away.

My own view is that the council should make their own decision on this problem rather than

asking everybody else – they should decide themselves. Lee, School 2 age 16y Om

The problem as I see it is that the council wants to make a bigger quarry to make more money

but the residents don’t want it, because it will ruin their town. My own view is that the council should not extend the quarry because the residents won’t be

too happy. Charlotte school 3 Y11 age 15y 10m Even when institutions are referred to, there is no sense that they actually work in ways which are

non-personal (such as institutional procedures). Institutions are described as behaving like people:

My own view is that the council should let it happen and not to worry about it – there’s no

problem, as people have had it and worked with if for years, as stated. Jobe, school 4, Y10 15y

1m

Summary Level 4

� Students can identify a small number of factors (often 2 or 3)on either side of a relevant situation but these are imagined as straightforward unmitigated by other factors.

� Students suggest solutions to recognisable citizenship problems but tend to come down on one side or the other.

� Suggested solutions are presented as non-problematic and as complete or final. � The key ideas (schemas) identified as relevant are either concrete (e.g. environment or danger)

or ‘personalised’ i.e. in terms of the people involved. � References to people in answers are overwhelmingly in terms of how situations affect them,

their needs, or the way people behave, or their simple emotional states – being happy or sad (affective empathy).

� Thinking is often logically weak and is largely intuitive (i.e. the reasoning is not obvious or visible).

� Factors utilised may be lacking in relevance or inappropriate. � Factors/schemas drawn on are often more salient to a younger child than an adult (such as the

problem of the slippy mud) � There is still an absence of a distinctively political domain in the thinking.

Levels 5 and 6

Level 5

These levels are marked by students’ rapidly increasing knowledge of the social world and how it

works in reality. Thus they are often able to analyse problems like the present one in terms of

several different schemas, which can be seen as morally complex, i.e. able to generate both good

and bad consequences at the same time.


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The problem as I see it is that making the quarry bigger will destroy the environment and

animals’ habitats. It will create noise and air pollution and make the hillside look bad, it won’t be

a good place for tourists. But it would also create more jobs and more material for the town and

more money but this will come at a cost because the bigger quarry will permanently scar the

land.

My own view is that the council should not make the quarry bigger because of the bad problems

that I have stated. Tom Y11 school 2 16y 1m

This answers discusses the problem in terms of six different schemata (environment, pollution,

tourists, jobs, material, aesthetics) and the same cause is seen to have both up- and downsides. At

this stage the simple balancing of pros against cons seems to result in a straightforward triumph

of one over the other according to which outweighs the other. Schemas themselves are discussed

in more detail and are often understood to be multi-faceted. For example, pollution is an issue

often referred to in discussing this problem. The simplest answers tend to identify one aspect but

now respondents may suggest there are several aspects to pollution (noise, air, visual).

Students at this stage seem to display growing awareness of the interests of the stakeholders.

Whereas L3 and L4 answers tended to be light on references to multiple stakeholders, now we see

increasing focus on who they are and how their needs are to be satisfied, or their claims rebutted.

Charlotte’s answer below is still quite a simple, and rather naïve answer but she is concerned

about the legitimate claims of the townspeople to a view. Like the above answer she is also able

to show that the extraction of the stones have both negative and positive impacts on the local

people. This answer is still rather a naïve one, because there is no sense yet that the public may

not fully understand the issues and that the council needs to draw on expert advice. So, the level

of knowledge drawn on has come from everyday life and still does not have a specifically

political origin.

The problem as I see it is the hillside is gradually being eaten away. So eventually there will be

no hill. I think that the council should have a survey and ask the public whether they want to

carry on digging stone out of the hill or stop, although taking stones out of the hillside saves

money because they don’t have to buy the stones.

My own view is that the council should do a survey asking the public what they think they

should do. It’s not just up to the council to decide, otherwise, it’s not fair on the public, if they

don’t do a survey. I think the council should stop them from digging out the stones because the

hill is a natural thing and shouldn’t be destroyed. Charlotte, school 1 Y9 14 y 6m [five

schemas]

At some point around this level, students become able to make simple balancing judgements –

they seem to be able to weigh the pros and the cons (though almost as if they are all worth the

same ‘weight’) and come down on one side or the other. To put this another way, the factors

mentioned are not seen as having more significance than any other factors.

The problem as I see it is that the council need to consider what else that the quarry could be

developed into, like a wildlife reserve. Also, there will probably be a lot of complaints and people

writing in. There will probably be more disadvantages than benefits, like the disadvantages of

the noise, and space it will take up, whereas something more needed like a hospital could be built

or, as I said before, a wildlife reserve. I think it should also be considered that it is already a

‘big quarry’.

My own view is that the council should not allow them to dig further because I do not think the

advantage of more stone/minerals exceed the disadvantages. Also it is stated that it is a big


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quarry, I feel no need for it to be bigger. Ciara, School 1, Y9, 13y 7m [five or six schemas

drawn on]

Also, by this stage, students have come to realise that things are not so certain as they once

thought and their predictions become more hesitant (words like could, might, occur more

frequently as a sign that thinking is become more complex and realistic). There is a growing

sense of reality about discussions at this stage – though a considerable lack of understanding or

naivete is still evident in the answers. In the example above, whilst it’s true that the council

should consider alternative uses of the land, it’s not at all likely that an existing quarry would be

denied an extension because the relevant local authorities decide they would prefer a hospital

there.

Levels 5

• Schemas become more elaborated and may have several elements to them e.g. several forms of pollution could be described. Typically answers may draw on 6 or more different schemas.

• The naïve, uninformed view that was strong at L4, reduces as greater social realism develops but. Understanding is not yet mature or ‘adult’.

• Elements of the egocentricity of the child still remain, restricting the ability to fully appreciate the positions of all the players e.g. “I feel no need for the hill to be bigger”.

• Problem solving at this level is based on weighing up both sides of an issue and then opting, non-problematically for one side or the other (simple balancing or ‘either/or’ thinking).

• Schemas are overwhelmingly discussed at either a concrete or personal level.

• Economic understanding still weak – tends to be restricted to ‘making money’ and ‘jobs’.

• This horizon of significance is still predominantly limited to the local community

• There is still very limited reference to the distinctively political domain.

Level 6

Toward the end of these two stages, students commonly develop the ability to make

compromising solutions. These are able to hold competing demands in tension and this

represents to my mind the beginning of a genuinely political process. So, whilst the above student

says that instead of a quarry there could be a wildlife reserve, even more sophisticated responses

seems to contain the idea that quarrying might continue on this site and then the owners should be

asked to restore the area for wildlife. This more sophisticated solution has more of a process

about it than the either/or of the above answer. This level of thinking conceives of solutions being

put in place over a period of time. It may well be that the simple once-for-all solution is

characteristic of L5 but the more nuanced, continuing balancing of interests is a characteristic

mark of a more developed L6 citizenship thinking. Here is one example:

The problem as I see it is if it gets bigger there is more of a possibility that the hillside will

collapse, causing devastation to the town. So the problem lies, do they risk it or not?

The reason I believe this is a hard decision is because, if they expand the size of the quarry it

increases the amount of job opportunities available. But, on the other hand, it also increases the

level of risk because the hillside is degrading.

The council also have to consider whether or not this will cause havoc to the public so that

they do not feel a need to complain. Also, pollution and the environment has to be considered

also because it needs to be environmentally friendly.


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The human rights act, this will mean minimum noise, low risk of danger and anything else that

could disturb day-to-day life.

My own view is that the council should expand the quarry by half the original amount at first.

From here a decision can be made whether or not to expand any more from the results of this. If

there is no need to expand any more, then the level of risk is not as high, meaning both parties

are happy. But if there is a need to expand more but the council can still not decide, it could be

expanded little by little to not disturb the hillside. Jordan, school 3, Y11, 15y 7m [six

schemas]

The students’ understanding of the role or function of the council is also growing in complexity.

The above answers show that respondents think the council should consider a range of factors

which are still not distinctively political in the narrow sense i.e. all of the salient issues, such as

jobs, degradation of the hill or environmental pollution could be discussed without any reference

to politics or the role of the law or government. The striking exception to this is the introduction

of the Human Rights Act into the equation by Charlotte. This is the first mention of any kind of

legislative framework which affects this problem. Jordan, however, does not yet properly

understood how the Act works (so there is still a level of naivete in the answer) but we might see

this recognition of the existence of a legal framework as a transition between this stage and the

next, where the law and political policies and processes become increasingly referenced.

We have also not yet seen in any answers, a recognition by students that the council could see this

as a (party) political problem and one in which they might need to please the electorate so as to

maximise votes next time there is an election. This is another example of the lack of political

referencing in Levels 3 – 6. Over, the whole spread, we do see, I suggest, a development in how

the democratic aspect of this situation is understood. So far, we have come across suggestions

that the council should ask people what they think, or conduct surveys or that they should try to

avoid ‘complaints’. All of these suggestions relate to the relationship between the council and the

people (a perspective lacking in L3 and L4) but we are not yet in the fully developed political

realm, nor have we come across terms such as ‘public opinion’ which is an aggregated form of

many individuals’ opinions. Students still seem to be thinking in terms of individual people and

not, the local society as a whole.

It seems to be a characteristic of L5 and L6 thinking that whilst more elaborated schemas are

developing, and children come to be able to identify multiple factors to a situation and understand

the notion of competing interests, these interests are nevertheless still limited to relatively limited

horizons. The quarry problem is discussed in terms of direct local factors but with little reference

the national background. The council operates in a local context, and is understood by many to be

responsive to or for the needs of local people, but again, students are not seeing the council as

part of wider society or responsible for implementing government policies or responding to

national trends.

The term ‘horizon of significance’ is useful in describing the fact that, depending on one’s point

of view and clarity of vision, horizons can be near and limited or far away and encompassing

many things. Developmentally, as cognitive abilities develop and as experience (direct and

indirect) brings individuals into contact with new information, horizons widen whilst, at the same

time, those things already within vision come to be seen in greater detail. Each student will have a

number of personal interests or issues which result in a proclivity to answer the question in terms

of preferred schemas. Young people interested in environmental conservation or climate change

are seen to make links between this issue and the quarry expansion, sometimes at the expense of

more obvious relevant factors. This is normal and shows that everyone’s imagined world is

different from everyone else’s.


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What is also beginning to enter students’ answers around this time are actual references to adult

political discourse. In the above answer, the phrase ‘environmentally friendly’ occurs – a topical

jargon term widely used when discussing political or environmental issues – it is shorthand, it

cues many references to a particular discourse when used appropriately as it is here. This kind of

language-based reference is very likely to be more evident in students’ who come from homes

where such talk is common or they are more exposed to serious media (like R4 Today

programme). In due course, they will also encounter such language at school but one could

hypothesise that discourse style they identify with will influence how students spontaneously

discuss issues. The above student has also heard the Human Rights Act discussed and has

inferred, not altogether accurately, that its protective capacity will mean that it can be invoked to

protect people from all manner of things. This is another good example of an idea or concept

under construction. The student has made a certain amount of sense of what she has heard about

the HRA but has not yet fully understood what it is or how it works.

To demonstrate this, consider the total lack of directly political references in the example below,

which looks quite elaborately argued. The student below is quite articulate, she knows that

citizenship issues are contested between different interests, parties or views, but essentially she

still discusses the Quarry problem in concrete, personal terms and non-expert, non-technical

language.

The problem as I see it is that it is a difficult decision. The councillors should think about the

environment and the greenhouse effect before making a decision, because if it gets bigger it

will take away the land and plants/trees, therefore, adding to pollution. If it gets bigger, there

will be more building material for the new houses being built in the area, therefore, maybe less

tourists. There could also be a decrease in tourists because the land is being dug up and there

is nothing to see or visit. Also, the diggers and equipment used to dig the quarry are adding to

the pollution levels.

My own view is that the council should not increase the size of the quarry because of the

pollution levels rising rapidly and the environment will suffer for this. I strongly disagree with

making the quarry bigger because of the greenhouse effect. I am sure the rest of the school

agrees with me that making the quarry bigger is a bad idea. Keeping the quarry the same size

will benefit the tourism to the town as well.

Zeta, School 1, Y9, 14y 3m [RA grade 9.5 15.5.yrs

This example draws on 5 schemas (environment, erosion, pollution, material, housing, tourists).

There is the beginning of technical, expert language here (‘greenhouse effect’) but it is not in

itself the technical language of citizenship, i.e. it is non-political. The analysis offered does not

presuppose a societal structure in any significant way. The effects of the quarrying are direct and

concrete on things like the land, CO2 levels, on tourists, on building materials supplies. At the

same time, this is still an unsophisticated unelaborated analysis. There is a simple claim that

restricting the quarry will benefit tourism to the town – which seems rather unlikely in practical

terms. The simplistic certainty with which the solution is offered may be read as a sign that this

answer is closer to level 5 than 6 but one very interesting feature of this answer is that it reveals

the emergence of a personal ideology (‘I strongly disagree’) which is more a feature of higher

level thinking. From the un-self-conscious answer of level 4 we now have the voice of someone

who personally feels very strongly about this issue and automatically places herself within a

particular public discourse, this one being on the environment. In the sentence “I am sure the rest

of the school agrees with me…” we have the voice of the campaigner. So, the one-sided nature of

the solution here is not that she is not capable of factors in both sides or holding completing

claims in tension, but because she has weighed up all the elements and placed such importance on


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the environmental claims that these trump every other argument. In this particular regard, I think

Zeta is operating beyond L6.

In the discussion of problems, whilst an increasing number of factors are seen as relevant, there is

still a lack of nuanced analysis by which I mean, things are thought to fairly straightforward, even

if contested. More sophisticated answers will hedge suggestions around with all kinds of

qualifications or exceptions to make the statements more credible or accurate (see Thomas’s

answer below at L8+).

Level 6

• Schemas are discussed increasingly at personalised, rather than concrete levels. Interests of stakeholders begin to take precedence and problems are increasingly discussed in terms of how people address them.

• At this level, competing interests come to be seen as capable of being held in tension. A good example is in suggesting that the quarry could go ahead but that the owners should restore it to its former state, or go ahead but only a little bit to limit the damage. For the first time, such solutions are seen to be on-going, continuing in time and not ‘one-off’ answers to the problem in hand.

• By now, students often show that they think about the problem as situated in time – they either project back to draw inferences about how a situation may have developed or can project forward to imagine how solutions may play out over time.

• Students begin to show awareness of elements of public debate. They begin to incorporate phrases or ideas drawn from these debates into their own thinking and reasoning. There are the early signs that they see themselves as sharing in the nation’s conversations (e.g. ‘greenhouse effect’, ‘environmentally friendly’).

• Economic issues (and this quarry problem has a lot to do with economics) are still understood in simple terms – people need jobs and possibly at the upper end of the level, more jobs will benefit the shops in the town – possibly this refers to the needs of the shopkeepers and not the economy itself. (Economic understanding tends to develop late. Up to this stage, no references have been found to the underlying economic issues involved in the quarry expansion.)

• Generally speaking, students still confine their answers to the level of what happens at local community level. There is still little connection with the national picture or with political life or activity. The quarry problem is still not seen as a political problem as a politician would see it.

Levels 7 and 8

The next stages see increasing elaboration of schemas and the horizon of significance noticeably

widens to set the problem against a background of social or societal issues or structures. Until

now, the players identified have been discussed as acting in isolation from wider societal

concerns. For example, housing and roads have been referenced frequently as relevant matters but

these are for people to use, and are not seen as benefiting society as a whole.

The answer below is slightly, though not dramatically wider in its horizons than the ones we have

considered at level 6. What perhaps marks it out from previous answers is the references to wider

systemic issues such as employment rates (as opposed to people’s jobs) and the reference to the

processes of consultation and research needed to make an informed decision hints at a level of

expert process needed in support of such an important public matter.


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The problem as I see it is the decision that has got to be made - the councillors must take into

account all the facts that will be affected by the quarry.

• Are there lots of houses nearby?

• Noise and pollution on environment

• Traffic increase due to lorries, diggers, etc.

• Who will benefit from the quarry, will it be the local area?

• Will it help with unemployment rates

• By digging, what countryside will be taken away, e.g. trees, roads?

The councillors must ask the local people how they feel about the quarry. They should look at

how other quarries have affected their surroundings, whether in a good, or bad way.

My own view is that the council should not make a decision until they are 100% sure about the

effects that it may have. I do think that the quarry will have a negative effect on traffic, there will

definitely be an increase on lorries and cars as people will need to travel to the quarry every day.

I think that they should look at surveys they have sent to the local people. Are they keen to extend

the quarry or do they have major issues? If people do not agree with the quarry and they go

ahead with it, there may be lots of complaints.

If there are lots of houses nearby then the noise and pollution will definitely affect them. If the

quarry is going to help employment in the area, then this will definitely be a positive factor.

Also, if the materials are being used locally people may be more swayed to agreeing with the

quarry. Alice, School 3 Y11 15y 9m [RA grade 7.3 = 13 yrs]

This answer also seems to introduce a certain distance into the reasoning. At this stage,

respondents are increasingly able to discuss what kind of reasoning they are engaging in. Here

Alice immediately introduces her discussion by setting out some of what she believes are key

factors facing the council.

This answer is also notable for the introduction of another new element, that of factoring in how

people might think or be persuaded to think about the issue. Previously, answers have tended to

suggest that people might be happy or unhappy about the outcome or that they might complain,

but in this answer Alice is suggesting that a particular aspect of the issue, namely local benefits to

those immediately affected negatively by the Quarry, may be a factor in swaying their opinion.

She is beginning to get into speculating about the state of people’s minds or even suggesting a

factor that could influence how the politics of the situation might be played. Having said that, it is

hard to find any directly political references still in this answer. There still seems to be no

reference to the political nature of this issue, for example, in terms of councillors’ chances of re-

election,. I think such a factor would definitely be mentioned by a politically literate adult and not

only that, some would rate it as one of the defining issues.

At this level, it’s worth looking at the number and nature of the schemas employed. This answer

draws on around 6 key groups of ideas (housing, pollution, traffic, erosion, unemployment rates

(a more systemic understanding of the jobs issue, I suggest), democracy - the need for

consultation, the corpus of experience gained by other councils. Whilst there are still concrete

schemas seen as relevant, much of the emphasis in now on the higher order schemas, and on the

kinds of technical processes that the decision must go through. This, to my mind is a more

advanced level than the personalised schemas which mark the limits of the level 5 and 6 answers.


36

In the response below, we can see that the respondent understands the situation in much more of a

societal setting. He immediately infers that there will be environmental groups involved and

campaigners making claims (not necessarily always true or reliable) about the damage the quarry

expansion will do. The problem is broadly introduced as one in which the interests of the

environment are posed against the interests of people (town expansion, growing prosperity). If the

quarry closes down, it is suggested that there will be an economic downturn and area would

become ‘poor and rough’ – a lot of social knowledge is encapsulated in this phrase. Having said

this, there is still a level of naivete in this answer. The town is seen as entirely dependent on the

quarry, which is not realistic. The suggested solution is one of complex balancing of the interests

– the quarry should go ahead but with some mitigation. In this case the respondent suggests the

company should give money to the environmental charities in compensation for the

environmental damage. So, at L7 we may be looking at the ability to discuss the problem against

a societal background and in terms of the political actions of some of the stakeholders. But there

is still a sense that understanding of how political processes like this really work is under

development, it is not fully complete. Developing understanding is also indicated in the

suggestion that the company should pay a percentage of its profit – a realistic and workable

mechanism, except that it is not likely that the beneficiaries would be charities. Nonetheless, Will

populates the problem not only with physical issues but with a community which would prosper

if the quarry thrives and there are active social groups and campaigns going on around this issue.

This is clearly a systemic interpretation of the problem, albeit not altogether fleshed out. Whilst

there are agents interacting, the discussion is still relatively light on procedures or processes.

The problem as I see it is that there are two sides to this problem. There is the environmental

side and the human side. Both have pros and cons if the quarry continues. The environmental

side and the hill, as it may be a good feature and could help or house much wildlife or have

some endangered animals there; as it turns out though (or so say the campaigners) the pros

are the fact that when the quarry is finished a lake could be built as a habitat for many

animals and would bring in tourists.

If the quarry continues, the …cons are that they may lose an important place, otherwise

they are minimal. However, on the pros side, there are many which outnumber the cons

(…there would be more jobs for the people of Standley, which would get more people there

and more houses would be built and other local businesses would be more profitable).

If there is a no go ahead, the quarry will have to shut down and the town will stop

functioning and will become poor and rough but there will be a hill to enjoy walks on for those

whose lives were crushed by the quarry closure.

My own view is that the council should let the quarry expand because that will increase the

town’s revenue and life. But the company should have to pay a percentage of its profit to

environmental charities to offset it. Will, school 1, Y9, 14y 3m [RA grade 9.6 = 15.6

years]

The problem as I see it is that making the quarry larger could have either a good or bad

impact on the local community in the area; there could be a large amount of unemployed

people, so this could mean more job offers for these people. What also needs to be considered

before the councillors decide is whether there is any housing estates/schools/other businesses

that are located nearby. If this is such the case, then this could have a bad impact on them, as

it could cause more noise, more traffic, they may not like their hillside being destroyed, more

pollution and also there could be a risk of danger, especially for the children that go to

schools nearby. Although an extension on this quarry might cause more


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buildings/houses/roads to be built, leading to an expansion on a possible nearby town. This

could attract tourists and can be useful for other businesses who are situated in the area.

Before deciding, it is important that the quarry business is considered. They need to be in a

good financial decision so that they can cover the costs of the expansion and also pay for

wages of new employees that they decide to take on. The councillor also has to look at the

risks to health and safety if this quarry is expanded.

My own view is that the council should not extend this quarry because of the effects it has

on the environment and, more importantly, the health and safety risks on the people

living/working nearby. The expansion of the business could cause harmful

substances/chemicals to go into the air, which can cause breathing problems. Furthermore, if

I was living in the local community I would not want this quarry to be extended as, firstly, I

think it would be an eyesore and also it would cause too much noise and traffic leading to

pollution. Natasha, School 3, Y11, 16y 4m. [reading age grade 11 = 17 years] Natasha’s answer is characterised by a more in depth understanding of the economic results of

expansion. She discusses the effects of more roads in terms of town expansion, not more traffic or

danger. She is also able to go back one step and suggest what needs to be in place before the

quarry is expanded in terms of investment needed by the company. There are processes involved

here, which I think are missing from earlier level answers. Also, she begins to use well known

phrases such as ‘cover the costs’ and ‘health and safety’ which I believe seem to be much more

typical of L7 and above answers. Danger has been mentioned by even the most unsophisticated

respondent. But now at this level, it is discussed as ‘health and safety’ which references not just

dangers but safety procedures and safeguards which have been put in place. Nonetheless,

Natasha’s understanding still seems naïve. She seems to suggest that the key consideration would

be whether the quarry would be an eyesore or not and on the amount of pollution generated,

though she is able to suggest this is a personal viewpoint.

This ability to understand that when problems of this kind are addressed in real life, there are

processes to go through, procedures in place which to an extent dictate the way the problem will

be tackled seems a characteristic that has not been present until this stage and it lends a

considerable amount of additional maturity to the answers. So this systemic thinking, one that

understands the problem set against a background not only of how people will behave or what

they will need, but of how society actually works. This particular answer draws on 10 schemas in

discussing the problem. We have seen that lower level answers tend to use fewer schemas but this

is on average and we have found L6 answers drawing on 8 schemas [check this at some point i.e.

what is the highest number per level you found in the sample]. At some point we would be able to

say with some confidence that any student who could reference, say, 8 schemas was definitely

working above L4, maybe even L5 but it’s conceivable that a student would make a deliberate

decision to prioritise one or two key schemas and discuss the problem principally in terms of

these ones, which they see as the key ones to the problem.

This ability to identify some schemas or factors as more important than others is another

characteristic of this level of thinking that we have rarely seen in earlier answers. In speaking of

her own opposition to the scheme, Natasha mentions the environmental risks ‘but more

importantly, [my emphasis] the health and safety risks’ on the locals. I do not think this is

explicitly mentioned at earlier stages where students listed of a large number of relevant factors

but did this in very outline terms and as if they all carried equal weight. It is the case in the real

world that a small number of issues emerge as key ones. The naïve answers of L4 and L5 often

identified factors that were not at all likely to be the crucial ones in reality, but they were salient

to the child’s view of the issues. Sometimes they are more than peripheral (e.g. slippy mud) they


38

are completely irrelevant ( example?) so this ability to weight factors, to give some more

importance in the context of a particular set of circumstances, is clearly a factor that distinguishes

a higher level from a lower level answer.

Here is another L7 or more probably, L8 answer which displays similar levels of sophistication:

The problem as I see it is that not everybody is going to be happy, whatever the decision is.

They have to take a lot of things into account before coming to a conclusion, such as:

unemployment rates, noise pollution, etc. They’ll probably know what they think is best from

the start, so they should probably just crack on with it. However, the issues do need to be

considered in full. If the unemployment rates are high, then this is a very good reason to allow

the extension, as a bigger quarry will mean more jobs. Also, they need to consider exactly

how close to the town the quarry is, as they need to prepare for the extra noise pollution if the

extension goes ahead. Traffic may also be a problem as, if the quarry is larger and more

active, there will then be a greater flow of traffic, probably HGVs. It cannot be assumed that

there is already a surplus in place, or that the traffic will come through the town, but this is

something the council must consider.

My own view is that the council should let the extension take place, on the condition that

the quarry owners donate some money towards the local community and sign a contract that

binds them to pay a small percentage of their yearly profit towards the council. This will mean

that if the extension does cause problems the money will be in place for them to be fixed and if

it does not then the money can be spent on other useful things. Mike, School 3, Y11, 15y

10m [RA grade 11 = 17 yrs]

In this answer, Mike draws on a similar number of schemas as lower level answers (6) but we get

the sense that he is aware of many more but only mentioning the key ones. He says the council

will have to take many things into account, such as unemployment and pollution. In the next

sentence he suggests that were unemployment rates to be high locally, then that would influence

the thinking and give that factor more importance. This kind of explicit weighting of factors is not

significantly seen at L6 or below. So, it is possible, that at a higher level, the number of schemas

discussed or drawn on could be fewer than some L6 answers but this is not because are not within

the horizons of significance but because they have been discarded as not sufficiently relevant. We

have seen less sophisticated respondents unable to discriminate in this way. They mention every

factor they can think of and then often suggest that the decision should go with the side that has

the greater number of factors in its favour.

Also, in this answer we get an increasing reference to the way key stakeholders are likely to think

about the problem. I don’t think we have seen this to any great extent below L7. In this answer,

Mike, is aware that certain assumptions could be made about the problem (e.g. that additional

traffic will go through the town, but the council must decide whether or not this will be the case,

because it will affect greatly the cost of dealing with expansion and nuisance levels for the locals.

Again, we have moved on from the bold simplistic assertiveness of ‘there will be more traffic’ of

some of the lower levels. Again, Mike, speculates elsewhere in this answer about the state of

mind of the councillors: ‘They’ll probably know what they think is best from the start, so they

should probably just crack on with it’. Whereas earlier levels focused on people’s actions or

needs or feelings, I suggest it is a new feature of this more abstract approach that people’s

thinking about an issue is recognised as a factor. I’ve called this cognitive empathy. However,

Mike’s suggestion that the council should probably just crack on with it, without going through a

proper consultation process, is politically naïve.


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Mike answer displays complex balancing, which we have seen since L6. Level 6 solutions

displaying this ability focused on physical ways to balance the benefits against the disbenefits,

such as restoring or re-planting the quarry. But here, Mike suggests a procedural level of

balancing not available at the lower level. He suggests that there should be a donation from the

quarry owners to the local community and ‘a binding contract’ which makes them donate a sum

annually to the local council. In technical language this is called planning gain, and although this

technical term may not be known to Mike yet, he has already mastered the concept from his

growing understanding of the way social and legal processes or systems work. We have seen that

younger or less sophisticated reasoners might reference aspects of the law, but not something as

procedural, long-term as a contract, is perhaps unlikely.

One thing we have not yet seen is any mention in any of these answers to moral principals. We

might expect some of the students to suggest that in principle, any environmental destruction

would be wrong, but always the environment has been discussed in terms of practical

consequences, such as visual eyesore, pollution, health hazards and so on. I think principled

discussion is a post-L8 characteristic, which I found in the first pilot study but haven’t really

found here yet, except occasionally implicitly but not explicitly.

Levels 7 and 8

• Students begin to be able to demonstrate the ability to reflect on the nature of the debate or spell out elements of their argument. In other words, the argumentation or the reasoning becomes more visible, respondents show that they are taking part in public discourse.

• At this level the horizon of significance extends futher and students see the problem as embedded in social structures and processes.

• Whereas affective empathy was displayed by less mature thinkers, at this level, students begin explicitly to discuss the relevance of how people think about the issue (cognitive empathy)

• Procedures and processes become more obvious in the discussion and as students demonstrate understanding that issues are not solved instantly, they continue over periods of time and solutions involve laying down continuing guidelines, such as legal contracts.

• Increasingly the politico-legal environment is drawn on in discussing problems. We have not seen this before in any significant way. Relations move beyond the personal and come to be seen as set within formal legal relations.

• It becomes much more obvious at this level that students are now able to weight factors in highly significant ways. They may be aware of many possibly relevant schemas but disregard many as not important enough to feature in their discussions. Hence fewer schemas might be discussed than at level 6 where there is a tendency to list as many as possible without distinguishing the more relevant ones.

• Elements of realistic, recognisable political aspects of political life begin to appear in the discussions and students begin to utilise words or phrases which reference political talk e.g. “ the money will be in place” or “health and safety” has come to replace the simple notion of ‘danger’ or ‘accidents’ that we saw featuring at L4. This kind of jargon or technical, expert language was largely absent from lower level answers.

• Schemas are increasingly discussed at the societal, structural level or in more formal or legalised contexts.

Having noted how the societal background to the Standley Quarry problem is becoming more

salient, it is still quite noticeable that in these answers, there is not a great link made between the

happenings in the local area and the national policies or governmental structures and procedures.

It looks as if this is a significant development that takes place beyond Level 8. It may well be that


40

a different problem (perhaps a problem facing a government rather than a local council) would

refer to government policy at a lower level but I suspect that there would still be relatively weak

links between government policy and legislation and the lives of ordinary people.

Level 8 plus

One characteristic of higher level reasoning is that respondents become increasingly able to talk

about the reasoning or the discourse they are using. In the following example, Ben immediately

characterises the problem under discussion and prioritises (or weights) the most important of the

arguments as clustering around the question of ‘jobs versus the environment’.

The problem as I see it is the council is being tied by the question jobs versus environment. If

they made the quarry bigger it would create more jobs, making the local area more wealthy and,

with more cash, they can spend more at local shops, making the general local economy richer.

The local people might also get discounts for whatever the quarry is digging out of the ground.

Though it would create more CO2 emissions and would increase the general pollution rate in the

local area. There would be more noise pollution, because of all the lorries coming to and from

the quarry. If the local people had more money, then they could possibly buy bigger, less efficient

cars, causing a lot more general pollution. Also, the land would be ruined forever, unless the

quarry company signed a contract to refurbish the land so it was back to its normal state before

they started digging.

My own view is that the council should let the quarry expand. If the quarry expanded then it

would create money abroad, as the noise pollution, loss of habitats and CO2 emissions are

already there. Expanding the quarry would only create more jobs and noise pollution and maybe

more cars, but making more jobs does overall beat arguments put forward by environmental

agencies. The sorts of arguments they put forward would be like, the EU wants the UN to reduce

CO2 emissions. You could say, producing more jobs could give more money to prevent global

warming, it might also increase research into environmentally-friendly appliances, or cars. There

would be more chances for a better education and then more chances to find a solution to

pollution. Ben, School 2, Y11 16 y 5m [RA grade 10.6 = 16.6 years]

Most of the schemas used in this answer (5 schemas: pollution, the economy (including export

income), environmental issues (destruction, global warming but also environmental groups),

research, education. Ben alludes to a‘law of unintended consequences’ in his answer (though he

does not use such a term) which seems rather sophisticated, when he says that the expanding the

quarry might further exacerbate the pollution problem because of the increase in the number of

large, inefficient cars that could result.

One higher level element of Ben’s answer, is his reference to the nature of the problem as an

argument between the quarry owners and ‘the environmental agencies’. And he specifically

suggests that arguments in favour of more jobs ‘beat arguments put forward’ by these agencies.

This is all part of a noticeable trend for students to distance themselves from their own and

others’ thinking to think about the thinking involved (metathinking).

One of the most striking elements of Ben’s answer, however, is his ability to set the local issues

in the wider national and even international context. This is unusual in the sample and although

Ben has not quite got the detail right, he is aware of the impact of policies emanating from

international bodies like the EU and the UN as a relevant factor which could influence the debate

about the quarry.


41

Another answer which references the national and international context is that of Connor (school

2).

The problem as I see it is that this quarry is above a town, in the hillside. The hillside has

already been dug away and the extension of such a vast removal of raw materials will only

increase the chances of a potentially hazardous landslide. If there was no town below, or it there

were no people about, then the expansion, I think, could be feasible. I think that this is the main

problem that councillors need to decide about. Although the other issues that should be assessed

are that of visual pollution (a quarry is an eye-sore in the middle of the countryside) and noise

pollution. Council does need to assess the number and size of the heavy machinery which would

be used and make an informed decision as to whether or not it would be too noisy.

Dependent upon the levels of unemployment in Standley and the surrounding areas, there is

the almost certain possibility that new job prospects would arise, offering employment for those

unable to find work, possibly. The more people in work would mean the less people on benefits

and more money for the Government and councils. Also, some of the materials extracted from the

quarry will be exported, which spells out more money for the Government, the economy of Great

Britain will be helped too. Therefore, these are all aspects that the council need to consider; as

in all situations, there are pros and cons and this is no exception.

My own view is that the council should not allow the expansion of the quarry. This is because

of the danger of a landslide more than anything else. If the council were to permit the expansion

of the quarry (which, may I add, already claims to be ‘big’) and a landslide occurred, then

lawsuits would be filed and damage claims would be made. This would end up being financially

damaging for both the quarry-owners and the Government for allowing the expansion. The

British countryside will also be scarred, even more so than it is already. In this situation, I

believe that the cons heavily outweigh the pros. Connor, School 2, Y11, 15y 11m . [RA Grade

10.1 = 16.1 years]

For all Connor’s focus on the national background, including revenue to the government, impact

on benefit levels, the economy of Great Britain, there is nonetheless a prioritising of some of the

more physical elements of the problem that was so much to the fore of some of the less developed

answers. Clearly Connor understands that Standley Quarry is part of a system which is multi-

layered, yet there is still an element of the restricted perspective here when he suggests that the

main considerations will be landslides and the consequent law-suits. Nonetheless the legal

environment is an element that only a few students reference and only at this level. It seems to be

very much bound up with thinking about policies which are much more salient at this level and

the shift from human relationships being informal and personal to being set within civic and legal

structures that are so important in regulating relations between strangers.

He also displays some meta-thinking, here, I think, when he talks about the fact that ‘in all

situations there are pros and cons and this is no exception’. It displays a developing grasp of the

nature of public discourse and his ability to relate his thinking about this problem to other similar

examples.

The problem, as I see it, is a conflict of interest between the issues of employment in the area and

the impact on the environment. It should be considered that an aspect of health and safety should

be considered, whether digging further into the hillside will make it unstable and a possibility of

collapsing, causing major structural, financial and health problems for the town, employment

and environment. One of the main issues is that of employment and the economy for the town. It


42

should be considered that, should the quarry be banned from expanding, it could close and cause

major financial hardship for the local community, if another industry cannot replace quarrying.4

The other main point is the environment. If the quarry continues to expand it could destroy

the habitat of many rare animals and plants and also stop any income the town may have had

from such things as tourism and nature tourists, who would stop visiting because of an increase

in pollution from extra industry, or a lack of natural facilities.

My own view is that the council should first hold open debates between the different groups

involved, itself, the quarry owners, the townspeople, any residents affected and any landowners

whose land would be somehow affected. Following this, the council should apply to the Ministry

responsible for the environment and ask them to send surveyors and economists to see if allowing

expansion is viable economically, environmentally and structurally. If this all goes ahead, the

council should then plan a referendum, as expansion would affect all members of the town and so

should be considered and consulted on by all members of the town and affected areas. Assuming

the results go well and it is allowed, the quarry should be allowed a limited expansion under the

supervision of Government specialists. If it is not allowed, then perhaps a reformed application

for expansion, perhaps of a smaller area, or a different one, should be considered; however, the

decision should ultimately rest with the people of the town, not just the council members and

quarry owners, as it affects such a big area and is such a big influence on people’s lives.

Thomas, School 1, Y11 16y 3m [RA grade 15 = 21 years].

This is the longest response in the whole of the sample to date and uses by far the most dense

language, so it packs much more meaning per line. An analysis of the level of language he is

using suggests he is producing text at a reading age of 21 years – according to the Flesch-Kincaid

scale). This is way beyond any other respondent. Having said that the number of schemas drawn

on (about 7) is well below the number referenced by some respondents, because he is able to

select and prioritise the most salient to this situation.

Thomas gives us here possibly the most sophisticated response in the whole of the sample. We

sense immediately that he is able to characterise the nature of the problem (meta-thinking) as a

‘conflict of interests’ (correct use of technical, political term) between two major groups of

factors representing the economic good of the area and the interests of environmental protection

and conservation. Like so many other respondents, he mentions the possibility of the land

becoming unstable, but the consequences of this are not physical injury (as at L4 and possibly

above), but ‘major structural, financial and health problems for the town, employment and

environment. Thomas writes structurally or systemically throughout this discussion. There is very

little use of concrete or personal level discussion. For example, Economically, there is no

reference to ‘jobs’, he talks of financial and employment hardships for the town (not individuals)

and most of his answer focus on the political processes and systems through which this problem

might be resolved. This is because he is aware of the political and legal reality of the talks that

will ensue. Nonetheless, he is very clear that ultimately, the impact of these procedures will be

felt in people’s lives. At this level for the first time, I sense that respondents have a world view

which is fully elaborated, where physical processes are intertwined with social, legal and political

ones in a seamless way.

What is particularly noticeable in this answer, is the emphasis on the players, the stakeholders as

agents and less on the consequences or outcomes as the decisive factors. Thomas’s ability to

identify a wide range of stakeholders is striking. For almost all of the respondents at all levels, the

4 This would be an example of the increasing use of qualifications or limiters in the discussions of the most

advanced reasoners. The simple straightforward assertions or prediction have given way to statements put

forward as possibilities but always dependent on changing circumstances.


43

council and the people of the town have been the major focus for concern. As the answers became

more sophisticated, they began to discuss the concerns or responsibilities of the quarry owners

more but in nothing like this detail. It looks as if students at the lower level are more able to

discuss the more physical, visible features of the topic and more likely to discuss the decision in

terms of consequences and outcomes rather than in terms of the more invisible, less tangible

interests of the parties and the success of the processes. Thomas is aware not only that

townspeople have interests because of the physical or economic effect but that landowners also

may well be involved. Furthermore, the national background is in evidence here as in no other

answer – Thomas is aware that the ministry for the environment will possibly have a role to play

and that they will need a degree of expert knowledge (not many by many respondents) on which

to base the decision.

Solutions discussed have several aspects to them – there is a more sophisticated understanding of

the systems/processes. We have noted that lower level reasoners suggested one-off solutions and

that ‘complex balancers’ (L6 and up) were able to hold competing factors in continuing tension.

But in this answer, Thomas is able to see that in the first instance a solution may not be reached

and he understands these processes take time and may need a struggle to compromise. He is able

to suggest what could be a fall-back solution if the first attempt at agreement is not agreed by the

parties. He suggests there could be a process whereby a revised application is re-submitted which

takes on board some objections, having been modified and rendered less ambitious and more

acceptable.

Politically, Thomas’s answer suggests his understanding of democratic processes is well

developed. He first of all advocates ‘open debates’ between the groups not individuals and then,

later, a referendum, because all the townspeople are affected by the decision. He does refer to

people in his answer but often they are not the main focus of his attention, which is ‘interests’ of

groups involved and the procedures laid down to resolve the dispute. Government officials and

other experts are just part of the system here. Until now the main focus of attention has been

within the local area (originally it was almost confined within the quarry itself) but now we have

shifted to a national context – the local problem has to be solved in the light of government policy

and advice.

Beyond Level 8

• Levels of political understanding are displayed typical of many adults. It is not only the general role of government that is factored in but students understand how government would act.

• Issues are discussed in nuanced terms, possibilities are discussed tentatively with qualifications, in the knowledge that circumstances are unpredictable (compare the apparent certainty of the ‘black-and-white’ reasoning of L4). Even the qualifications now have qualifiers attached to them.

• All elements of the problem (stakeholders, issues, possible consequences, possible solutions) are discussed in multi-faceted ways.

• Students are able to think in ways which can link the physical realm with the personal, the socio-political and the legal in inter-dependent ways.

• Schemas are predominantly discussed at structural, procedural levels.

Main trends

• From physical and concrete through personal/inter-personal to societal and systemic.

• From personal and informal to the formal, legalised relations of civil society.

• From a single, non-problematic viewpoint, through to multiple viewpoints in continuing tension

with each other.


44

• From a very small number of schemas through to referencing a large number then to prioritising a

relatively small number of really relevant schemas.

• From a naïve, unsophisticated view of the world, dominated by the interests of the child, to

informed, adult level understandings.

• From affective to cognitive empathy.

• From intuitive reasoning to self-aware argumentation in which reasoning is more visible in the

talk.

• From simple, once-for-all solutions to solutions which hold. opposing/competing interests in

tension in situations that can change over time.

• From a ‘small world’ dominated by local or immediate surroundings, to the wider national and

international world.

References

Connell, R.W. (1971) The Child’s Construction of Politics. Melbourne, Melbourne University

Press.

Dunn, J. (1988) The Beginnings of Social Understanding. Oxford, Blackwell,

Rowe, D, (2005). ‘The Development of Political Thinking in School Students: an English

Perspective’ in International Journal of Citizenship and Teacher Education Vol 1:1. Published by

Citized online www.citized.info.

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