Background to the Project
This website is the main output of a project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) under Phase 5 of the Fund for Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL). The project was led by the University of Southampton in partnership with Keele University and Liverpool John Moores University and ran between January 2005 and December 2007.
We were pleased to welcome Rt. Hon. John Denham, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, to officially launch the website at the Hansard Gallery at the University of Southampton on 5th November 2007.
In response to growing interest in the teaching of citizenship in politics departments and beyond, the project team has developed a series of web-based learning activities that aim to incorporate the notion of education about citizenship alongside education for citizenship. While most of the activities were written by the project team, others were commissioned by specialists in the field.
Learning activities have been designed to use over one or two weeks of a course at different levels. Each of the learning activities provides background guidance for tutors on how the activity might be integrated into the teaching process. The intention of the project team has not been to produce a full course on citizenship – although there are examples of tutors who have combined activities in this way - see How to use the website.
One of the guiding principles of the project has been evaluation. Earlier versions of all the activities have been trialed within the three consortium universities and a range of other universities across the UK. In some instances, the evaluation has led to a wholesale revision of activities. We hope that this iterative process has produced attractive and user-friendly materials for both tutors and students.
The project team would like to thank everyone who has helped in the development of the project, whether in writing or evaluating materials. Particular thanks to the authors, tutors and many students from our own universities and the Universities of East Anglia, Bournemouth, Bradford, Bristol, East Anglia, Gloucestershire, Hull, London Metropolitan, Nottingham and Wolverhampton.
For more detailed discussion of the rationale for the project, read our paper Teaching Citizenship in Higher Education.
If you require further information about this project or have come across broken weblinks, please get in touch.
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