Being a Democratic Citizen

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Citizens within a democratic nation have a responsibility to be actively involved within their government and truly understand the rights and demands placed upon them. The political democratic community is working ideally when its citizens are participating with informed decisions. It is a machine that functions properly when it's citizens understand their rights and responsibilities within their society. Citizens need to also be aware of the problems and truths within politics. Democracy is not perfect and this is the reality when working with its citizens in helping them understanding their place in the political game. The society within a democratic nation works by understanding the rights of everyone involved as well as the allocation of resources within their community, state and nation.
However, the civic responsibilities of the people within the nation are not just in regards to the nation they support but also globally. This is a component of citizenship education that is missing within today's teaching, but is building as nations are becoming more interdependent on one another and are becoming more interconnected. Mansilla & Gardner (2007) discussed in-depth the topic of “global consciousness” where students would build the ability to see themselves and the world around them, being “conscious” of global activity and able to “orient their actions accordingly”. (p. 6) This concept is useful within the practice of global education in schools because it helps students understand the world around them and their place within it, rather than just learning about the world and still being objectionable to everything that is on the “outside”. Students need to see themselves as active agents in the world and the deepening effect o...

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...y for its citizen's constitutional rights and statute of being created by the people, for the people.

Works Cited

Brunold-Conesa, C. (2010). International education: The international baccalaureate, montessori and global citizenship. Journal of Research in International Education, 9(3), 259-272. Retrieved November 17, 2013, from http://jri.sagepub.com/content/9/3/259.refs.html
Mansilla, V. B., & Gardner, H. (2007). From teaching globalization to nurturing global consciousness. Learning in the global era international perspectives on globalization and education (pp. 47-66). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sperandino, J., Grudzinski-Hall, M., & Stewart-Gambino, H. (2010). Developing an undergraduate global citizenship program: Challenges of definition and assessment . International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 12(1), 12-22.

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