Teaching philanthropic citizenship

What’s the Idea? Philanthropic citizenship, is a dimension of citizenship behaviour, associated with intentions and actions that produce public benefit for example helping, mutual aid, volunteering, social action, charitable giving, advocacy and activism. Philanthropic citizenship education moves beyond ideas of ‘charity’, instead embracing a ‘social justice mentality’, where children are encouraged to critically explore and engage the wider issues which sit behind charitable, for example homelessness or food poverty. What does this mean? Schools often go to great lengths to encourage, support and engage children of all ages in charities and charitable giving. This is important as it helps create a strong enthusiasm for giving and supporting others. However, less common is a deeper, more critical engagement in the reasons for this fundraising activity and the cause issues that sit behind this giving (Body et al., 2020). This surface-level giving, led and decided on by adu