Citizenship education, philosophy for children and the issue of participation

Dr. Marjan Šimenc

Summary:  This article analyses the relationship between citizenship education, philosophy for children and participation. It attempts to address the question of to what extent philosophy for children can contribute to citizenship education, as well as to what extent philosophy for children can help shed some light on the characteristics of citizenship education. The article shows that philosophy for children can contribute significantly to citizenship education, particularly when it comes to critical thinking and the virtues related to deliberative democracy. However, philosophy for children as such does not include citizenship education in its entirety, and even presupposes citizenship education. Any reality-oriented citizenship education must encompass all three levels: the personal level, the level of society and the state level, as well as action at all three levels.