Promoting citizenship education in the mathematics curriculum: The Malawi secondary school experience

Abstract

Background: Malawi recognises the importance of citizenship education (CE) as evidenced by its stated goals of education. In secondary schools, CE is offered explicitly in an elective subject called Social Studies. Consequently, some students do not study it. Mathematics is a compulsory subject; therefore, integrating CE would benefit all learners.

Aim: Investigating the extent to which the Malawi secondary school mathematics curriculum promotes CE.

Setting: Urban classroom with two experienced mathematics teachers.

Methods: The first phase involved document analysis of the intended curriculum’s ability to promote CE. The second phase focussed on analysing mathematics lessons and how they extent they promoted CE.

Results: The findings show that the curriculum promotes CE to a large extent, but this varies in the specific curriculum materials and the mathematics topics. The teaching also varies; learner-centred lessons offered more opportunities for CE than teacher-centred lessons.

Conclusion: We argue that providing for CE in mathematics should go beyond listing in the school curriculum. There should be more clear guidance on how to integrate it into mathematics teaching.

Contribution: Our study contributes in at least two ways: (1) Adds to literature on mathematics and CE drawn from Malawi context, which differs from contexts in most literature. (2) Adds to methodology by introducing a rating for CE in curriculum materials and analysis of lessons for CE through the lens of learner-centred continuum.