‘Too often, civics and citizenship education is framed about students rather than with them.’ In his latest Teacher column Professor Martin Westwell – Chief Executive of the South Australian Department for Education – shares details of the first Active Citizenship Convention, which gave prominence to student voice.

Welcome back to a brand-new year of Teacher. As usual, we’re kicking things off with our round up of the key themes and dates for 2025 – that should provide some extra inspiration and resources for your lesson planning over the next 12 months.

In today’s reader submission, Anam Javed – Master Teacher in Residence for Technologies at the Victorian Academy of Teacher and Leadership – provides an overview of design thinking, including 2 illustrative examples, and shares some misconceptions of the approach.

‘Girls were more willing than boys to participate in school-based civic activities … but do not plan to be politically active.’ New data show female students are consistently outperforming males in the area of civic knowledge, yet they have lower political ambition. Find out more in today’s article.

In this edition of Researching education: 5 further readings – the series where we take a look at some further readings available on a particular topic, including open access research papers from various online databases – we’re sharing 5 pieces of content on the topic of citizenship and political voice.

With Term 1 just around the corner in Australia, it’s a great time to start brainstorming events and themes to tie in to your lesson planning for the new school year. We’ve rounded up some of the key dates in each term to help get you started.

In a three-part series, we are delving into the Civics and Citizenship learning area of the Australian Curriculum, and some aspects of the Australian Curriculum: History to explore students’ misconceptions, and to share some lesson activities to help your planning for 2022. This final article focuses on ‘Australian history’ and ‘Civics and citizenship and history skills’.

In a three-part series, we are delving into the Civics and Citizenship learning area of the Australian Curriculum, and some aspects of the Australian Curriculum: History to explore students’ misconceptions, and to share some lesson activities to help your planning for 2022. This second article focuses on the themes of ‘Laws and citizens’ and ‘Citizenship, diversity and identity’.

School-level student data can inform your future planning, but it can also be useful to take a look at the national picture. In this three-part series, we’ll be delving into the Civics and Citizenship learning area of the Australian Curriculum, and some aspects of the Australian Curriculum: History to explore students’ misconceptions, and share some lesson activities to help your planning for 2022.

In Australia, one of the aims of civics and citizenship education is to develop understanding and appreciation of Indigenous histories and cultures. This infographic looks at students’ attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, traditions and peoples.