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Zeynep Demirci
Furthermore, trainings are organized to raise awareness of vandalism activities, as far
as other activities are concerned. Sensitivity projects have been created within the
framework of youth action measures (harms of alcohol and cigarette use, keeping the
environment clean, healthy eating, protecting public goods, etc.) (Bodeving, 2009:
53).
From the mid-1990s there have been four important developments in citizenship edu-
cation (Bozec, 2016: 11). Firstly, education for citizenship, which had previously been
in the national framework, gained a European dimension. Secondly, citizenship edu-
cation is not based only on old regulations and practices, but also the content has ex-
panded further and has gained information on different political and social problems.
Thirdly, the pedagogical methods used in education have changed and formations
which enable students to discuss ideas in problem groups in discussion groups have
been formed. Fourthly, since the beginning of the 2000s, the emphasis has been pla-
ced on increasing the collective moral participation and awareness of responsibility
of students in and out of school (Bozec, 2016: 12). With the new ethical and civic
education program (EMC) created in 2015, the concept of “citizenship career” was
introduced and in this process it was aimed to provide a continuous and progressive
education for the individual from elementary school to high school (ethical consci-
ousness, sensitivity, understanding of laws and rules, etc.). Responsibility and enga-
gement constitute one of the main topics of civic education in the new ethical and
social education programs adopted in 2015. At high school level, engagement is held
weekly, and sessions are organized in classrooms so that individual responsibilities
for the life in the school can be discovered by students in all high schools.
Despite the implementations, in 2016, the “Documentation française” put forward the
obstacles to the effectiveness of civic education. At the head of these obstacles, the
studies on the subject generally remain at the theoretical level and the empirical stu-
dies are inadequate (Bozec, 2016: 5). At the practical level, there are some obstacles
to the formation of citizenship in schools. The first of these is the difference between
the representations of adults and students’ expectations. Students, describe a citi-
zen like a person whose ideas are taken directly. Another problem is that there is no
egalitarian perspective. In the education for citizenship given in the school, it is aimed
to benefit the social groups and minorities who are in a more unfavorable position
and the upper classes have not been the primary target groups in these education
programs. Apart from that, the education given in republican schools has sometimes
been criticized for its capacity to create a public and coherent culture. The expression