Citizenship

What is meant by citizenship?

Citizenship is an area of ongoing and public debate, with people holding a range of views about what it means to be a citizen.

In the narrow sense, citizenship means being a member of a political community or state, usually because of where you live, where you were born or family ties. It involves having certain rights, responsibilities and duties – legal, social and moral.

In a broader sense, citizenship means being a responsible and active citizen – showing an interest in issues that concern the community or state and acting with others to achieve agreed aims. In this context, people can act like a citizen and make their voice heard even if they don’t have legal status as a citizen.

At North Glasgow College we encourage our learners to take social and moral responsibility, to behave with self-confidence in a socially and morally responsible way and beyond the classroom or workshop, both to those in authority and towards each other.

We would like our learners to consider community involvement – learning about becoming involved in the life and concerns of communities, including learning through community involvement and service to the community.

We would like our learners to become interested in political issues – learning about, and how to take part in and influence, public life through knowledge, skills and values. To address some of these areas learners should consider their involvement with our Learner Association, becoming a class representative and being a learner member of the course teams.