Educating for democratic citizenship: An analysis of the role of teachers in implementing civic education policy in Madagascar

In democratizing states around the world, civic education programs have long formed a critical component of government and donor strategy to support the development of civil society and strengthen citizens' democratic competencies, encompassing the knowledge, attitudes and skills required for them to become informed and actively engaged participants in the economic and social development of their country. Such programs, however, have had limited success. Despite research that has identified critical components of successful democratic civic education programs, including the use of learner-centered methods and experiential civic learning opportunities rooted in real-world contexts, these programs continue to produce weak results. This study targets an underexamined link in the policy-to-practice chain: the teachers themselves. By applying a qualitative, grounded theory approach to analyze interview and observation data collected from public primary schools, teacher training institutes and other key sites in Madagascar where best practices in civic education have recently been adopted, this research presents original insight into the ways in which teachers conceptualize and execute their role as civic educator in a democratizing state. The impact of training and the diverse obstacles emerging from political and economic underdevelopment are examined and analyzed. Emerging from this analysis, a new approach to conceptualizing civic education programs is proposed in which a direct (“front-door”) and an indirect (“back-door”) approach to the development of democracy through civic education are assigned equal credence as legitimate, situationally-appropriate alternatives to utilize in the effort to strengthen political institutions, civil society and citizen participation in developing democracies around the world