More than any other public institution, schools are assigned the task of producing ‘good citizens’, ensuring that when children grow up and leave school, and perhaps even before, they are prepared (even if not necessarily inclined) to practise the civic virtues most valued in their respective societies. Illustratively, Macedo (2000) observes that nothing less than the ‘core purpose of public schooling is to promote civic ideals’ (p. 122). Among these civic ideals or aims is to inculcate basic knowledge and understanding about state institutions and the purposes of government. This liberal model of civic education, which continues to prevail across contemporary North / South American and European school systems, but also elsewhere in South and East Asia, Australia and parts of the Middle East, mirrors to a large degree Marshall’s (1950) model, wherein social citizenship, the highest form of citizenship, rests on political participation and access for all to the enjoyment of civil rights
