I lived in Poland up to the end of high school. We did have citizenship education, but nobody took it seriously - that was the class we used to play games under the table or do homework for other classes. It was pretty boring, too. I'm not sure how true that really is, but it seems to me that in Poland there still isn't much concept of citizenship, because "our" goverments have been our enemies for so long. Most people I know, my age at least, don't regard the law as something very important (it's practically good to follow it sometimes, because bad things may happen if you get caught, but it often seems to have no particular ethical value). I think part of the reason (or maybe it's the effect...) for that is that we have lots of laws that aren't enforced - high school kids get drunk on a regular basis, bus ticket-checkers take bribes, etc. Here in the US I haven't developed much sense of citizenship yet (makes sense, given how I'm not a citizen <g>), but I might given time - I intend to stay, and I like a lot of things about the country. One thing that seems to me strange in terms of citizenship is how the voting system is set up so that in most states voting is pointless, since everyone knows what most people in the state will vote for anyway. The two-party system is sort of strange too. We don't have to take any citizenship education at Caltech (most people do take law or at least economics, but I'm trying to stick to psychology).
Weronika On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 08:57:53PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I am taking part in some classes and salons on the philosopher-citizen as a decision > maker and it came up that citizenship is a concept in flux: that it has different > meanings in other states or countries and that it was taught so very differently in > the past. > > I would love to hear from all of you, particularly those in different states and > countries (I'm in California) about what citizenship means to you and what > citizenship education you received in school at all or various levels. (It would > then help to know ages.) For instance, I have heard but don't know if it is true or > how it would be enforced, that it is illegal to not vote in Australia. > > Thanks, Sue Ellen > > To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: > unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
