Research On Australian Civics And Citizenship Education After The Melbourne Declaration

Civics and citizenship education is an important part of the Australian education, due to historical reasons. Australia has always been very seriously for the implementation of civics and citizenship education, and implements the civics and citizenship education immediately after gaining independence. Australian civics and citizenship education has made remarkable achievements and becomes the example of citizen education around the world.Australian civics and citizenship education is not only a course, but a combination of a variety of disciplines. At the same time, Australian civics and citizenship education exists in the whole school education for each student from beginning of the education to the end of the graduation from school, even into the society. Students have been taught knowledge about civics and citizenship, the purpose is to let every student become a qualified citizen. Nowadays, especially after 2008, Australian civics and citizenship education hasbecome more and more successful. The Melbourne Declaration plays a very important role in it. Under the guidance of the Melbourne Declaration, Australian federal government has made the advanced education policy and carried out the policy naitonwide, which ensures the smooth implementation of civics and citizenship education. At present, our country is in transition period, strengthen the quality of citizen hasbecome a national consensus. Thus, the development of ideological and political education could benefit a lot from Australian civics and citizenship education This thesis is divided into seven parts, the first part is introduction, includes thesignificance of this paper, background and source of topics. This chapter also summarizes the related literatures about civics and citizenship education. This chapter mainly discuses Australian scholar’s research results and related theories, which can give the readers a roughly understanding about Australian civics and citizenship education. This chapter also discusses the domestic experts in Australia civics and citizenship education comprehensively, and lays a theoretical basis for this paper.The second part of this thesis is to elaborate and define the Melbourne Declaration, the relevant concepts and theoretical basis. The Melbourne Declaration is an important milestone in the history of the Australian civics and citizenship education. It comprehensively expounded Australian needs for the future development and reform in civics and citizenship education. In this chapter, republican related theory are focused, which is also foundation and starting point of Australian citizen and citizenship education.The third chapter studies the civics and citizenship education development history in Australia. Although Australia is one of the earliest countries that implement civics and citizenship education, the civics and citizenship education was not successful and the scope is not nationwide. After the Hobart Declaration, Adelaide Declaration and Melbourne Declaration, Australian civics and citizenship education is on the right track and gradually on the stage of rapid development and mature, finally become the model of citizen education worldwide.The fourth part of the thesis is to explore Australian civics and citizenship education curriculum standard and teacher training after the Melbourne Declaration. Australian civics and citizenship education has had a major change in content. Before the Melbourne Declaration, civics and citizenship education is mainly concerned with the country’s political structure, however, after the Melbourne Declaration, the content of the civil responsibility is added and the extension of the content is expanded, many disciplines are covered. In addition, this chapter also discusses Australian civics teacher training measures. The Australian government only paid attention to train teachers’ education background before the Melbourne Declaration, however, the government paid more attention to the teachers’ ability and the teaching means after the Melbourne Declaration, as a result the civics and citizenship education can attract more students. According to a report about teaching resources, one of the Australian civics and citizenship characteristics is that the government pays more attention to social practice, let the students to participate in the community as well as the national political life, and become a qualified citizen in practice.Fifth part of the thesis is to study school teaching and democratic management of Australian civics and citizenship education after the Melbourne Declaration. School is the main mechanism and practice unit to implement the Melbourne Declaration, and it is also the key to the success of Australian civics and citizenship education. The thesis studies the principles of Australian civics and citizenship education, the relevant education methods and management methods.The sixth part of the thesis explores the Australian civics and citizenship education evaluation system after the Melbourne Declaration. First of all, the chapter studies civics and citizenship education evaluation content after the Melbourne Declaration; Secondly civics and citizenship education evaluation standards and civics and citizenship education evaluation results are discussed; at last the characteristics of the civics and citizenship education evaluation are investigated in detail.Seventh part of the thesis investigates the enlightenment and reference of civics and citizenship education in Australia. This chapter mainly discusses the enlightenment for ideological and political education objectives, educational content, teaching methods and educational resources as well as the complement of ideological and political education teaching ideas.