Participation and action

The following information is designed to help you develop your skills of participation and responsible action. As well as learning about and understanding citizenship issues, you need to be able to do the following:

• Use your imagination to consider other people’s experiences and be able to think about, express, explain and critically evaluate views that are not your own.
• Negotiate, decide and take part responsibly in school and community-based activities.
• Reflect upon the process of participating.

Participating and acting responsibly reflects the active part of citizenship and requires you to think about how you act in a critical way; that is, reflecting or thinking about your own opinions, how and why they might differ from other people’s, and what effect those differences might have. For example, getting involved in a school council or a community group involves thinking carefully about your role in relation to other people.