CHAPTER ONE

Understanding Civics
Literal meaning; literally, the word civics comes from the Latin word “Civis” which means citizen
and another Latin word “Civita” which means city-states.
Citizens are legal members of a politically organized community called, state. City-states refer
to the ancient Greek cities.
Some Accepted Definitions
It is important to note that there is no single ready-made definition and the literature continues
to debate on the various attempts to define civic education. However, there are some
definitions that tend to own a wider acceptance.
 Civics is a branch of social science that deals with the rights and duties of citizens.
 It is a study which deals with the reciprocal roles and privileges that state and citizen
have with respect to the economic, cultural, social, developmental and environmental
domains of the society.
Additionally, (refer to the UNDP definition in the module)
It is clear from the above definitions that the central point with in the study lies with rights and
duties.
 What are rights and duties of citizens?

The Nature of Civic Education

Civic Education by its nature is highly inter-disciplinary meaning that it crosses departmental
boundaries. It borrows theories, perspectives and methodologies from various disciplines. The
nature of Civic education can be divided into two i.e pragmatic and theoretical
It is pragmatic in the sense that it deals with certain actual functionary and institutional
settings. E.g it studies government organs. It also tries to address actual societal issues and tries
to be real problem solving. On the other hand, civic education is highly theoretical in the sense
that it establishes its own theories or borrows theories from neighboring social science fields.
These include;
History( to draw background picture, to do cause and effect analysis and to study and note
continuum, perpetuity and change)
Law (to study and use constitutional provisions, rules, declarations, directives or orders)
Philosophy( civic principles and theories are philosophical in nature and derived by classical and
modern philosophers)

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Psychology( to study how behavior of individuals and society get molded)
Political Science( to study political systems institutions and political concepts. Comparative
politics, political theory, public administration, international relations are subjects of political
science that are relative to civic education)
Others include sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, literature etc…

Evolution of Civics
The evolution of civic education can be seen in two ways;
1. Within the international scene;
Civic education was started in the 5th century BC by the Greek and Romans.
Ancient period; Greek and Romans conducted dialogues about citizenship and civic education.
 How was citizenship defined by then?
Medieval period/ middle ages; civic education was given along religious education and its
nature became religious than that of reason.
Big historical movements in Europe and America contributed to the making of the present day
nature of the course. These movements include great cultural and intellectual revival
movements such as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Reformation and big world
revolutions such as the English, French and the American revolution / the American war of
independence. Because of these movements;
 civics was no longer limited to religious teachings
 intellectuals replaced the clergy for civic education and dialogues
 reasoning became the center of thinking and deliberation
 new democratic principles started to take a strong hold esp. after the American
independence. Some of them are equality, liberty, freedom.
 Citizenship was extended to new sections of the society such as the property less, slaves
and women.

2. Within the national Scene;

In Ethiopia, civic education was introduced as moral education during Emperor Haile Sellasie. By
then it was largely about the glory of the emperor, his divine, absolute, unquestionable and
hereditary power. Later, during the military regime, it was re-introduced as political education
and it preached the Marxist-Leninist theory.

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Purposes or Significance of Civic Education
1. Source of knowledge; like any other disciplines, civic education delivers data,
information and also teaches reasoning or the ability to analyze and sensibly use these.
2. Teaches rights and duties; teaches a certain number of rights and duties. It teaches the
intricate relationship that rights and duties have. (refer to the module). It also teaches
political culture.(refer to the module for definition and types of political culture)
3. Inter-culturalism; it uses cross-cultural approach when it teaches positive cultural
attributes. It encourages positive and strong cultural relations and exchange.
4. Inclusiveness; civic education is highly against marginalization and enforces inclusion of
thoughts, cultures and groups.
5. Peace-building; civic education prevents conflicts by teaching harmony, tolerance and
living-together. Whenever conflicts happen, it also teaches traditional and modern
conflict resolution mechanisms.

Sources of Civic Education

Sources of civic education refer to the various techniques which serve the study as an input.
They can be broadly divided in to two
1. Theoretical Sources; these are sources that come from various field of studies which
civic education goes into. E.g anthropology, history, psychology etc….
2. Documentary Sources; these are sources of civic education which are original by their
nature. Documentary sources are further sub divided into two.
 National Documentary Sources; documents or records designed nationally and
operational nationally. E.g constitution, rules, regulations or films and
photographs.
 International Documentary Sources; documents or records designed
internationally and operational internationally. These include international
documents such as
 UDHR(1948)
 Convention of the Elimination of Discrimination against Women(1979)
 Convention on the Rights of the Child(1989)
Civic education also draws from other less formal sources called Societal Sources. Family,
church and schools can be examples of societal sources.

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Components of Civic Education/ Competences of Civic Citizens
Components of civic education are the major broad gears for the subject and once acquired by
citizens, they are proficiencies of citizens. They are divided into three.
A) Civic Knowledge; includes information and reason.
B) Civic Disposition; includes acceptable attitudes (list out ten dispositions)
C) Civic Skill; skillful use of information and necessary disposition

Discuss the following;

 Discuss the sources of civic education.
 What does it mean that civics is inter-disciplinary in nature?
 Discuss the evolution of civic education nationally?
 Discuss the components of civic education.