Individualism, whiteness and depoliticisation: reframing neoliberal citizenship education in England as social, inclusive and political using a Butlerian lens

This chapter draws on the work of Judith Butler to reframe citizenship education in England and to reimagine the concept of ‘citizenship’ from the premise of social interdependency. It develops a critique of the citizenship studies curriculum for secondary schools in England, framed by neoliberal norms of individualism, whiteness, and lack of political debate. To reframe citizenship education, ‘citizenship’ needs to be redefined as a more inclusive category encompassing new ways of responding to challenges that arise across national borders, including deepening poverty and inequality, migration, wars, environmental degradation, pandemics and other disasters. Social interdependency means that these challenges affect all of us, highlighting our shared vulnerability and our global obligations. Within a reframed citizenship education, a recognition of these shared obligations would go hand in hand with expressions of inclusive political agency which calls into question the neoliberal imaginary to enable new forms of civic and political life to unfold.