Analyzing Citizenship: Personal Reflection, Types, and Ideal Traits

This essay delves into the concept of citizenship, exploring different types such as personally responsible, participatory, and justice-oriented citizens. It begins with a personal reflection, identifying the author's citizenship type as participatory, based on their involvement in organizing programs and demonstrating leadership qualities. The essay then examines the characteristics of an ideal citizen, as conceived by Westheimer, highlighting the importance of combining traits from all three types of citizenship. The discussion covers the thoughts, behaviors, actions, and values of a good citizen, emphasizing the responsibility to contribute to societal betterment. The essay concludes by underscoring the significance of personal responsibility coupled with a community-oriented mindset in fostering true societal development, ultimately portraying the ideal citizen as one who undertakes civic duties for the welfare of the community.

WHAT KIND OF CITIZEN AM I?
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Table of Contents
What kind of citizen am I? Personal Reflection.................................................................3
Characteristics of Ideal Citizen..........................................................................................4
References.........................................................................................................................7
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What kind of citizen am I? Personal Reflection
Citizenship education may be construed to be one of the crucial aspects of the studies
of social sciences as the same helps to identify the nature and characteristics of
different types of citizen in a country. The study explores three basic types of citizens
namely “Personally Responsible Citizen”, “Participatory Citizen” and “Justice Oriented
Citizen”, the nature of each of which are briefly mentioned in the subsequent sections of
the paper. In short, the first type of citizen is law-abiding, contributing to society by way
of charity; whereas, the second type of citizen is kind of leaders who initiate community
development programs. Lastly, there is a citizen who is justice-oriented which leads
them to think about the root cause of any social issue and then act upon it accordingly
to solve the issue (Westheimer and Kahne, 2008).
As far as personal reflection is concerned, I may be considered to be the second type of
citizen who is motivating, focused to organise the programs and participative in nature.
Since in my academic days in college/university, I had been involved in organising
various programs and seminars on behalf of the organisation, I can construe myself to
be participatory by nature. Also, at the start of my career, when I joined corporate, I had
been given assignments for which I was supposed to coordinate with my colleagues
and conduct meeting which needed leadership skills. Therefore, it may be concluded
that I possess the attributes of participative citizenship in which I may exhibit leadership
traits, organise and conduct programs by strategising the same.
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Characteristics of Ideal Citizen
The theory of “Good or Ideal Citizen” as conceived by Westheimer suggests that the
combination of all three types of citizenship traits, as mentioned above, jointly
constitutes the characteristics of a good or ideal citizen (Westheimer and Kahne, 2008).
However, Westheimer opines that personally-responsible citizen does not contribute
much towards the societal development holistically as they remain occupied with their
personal horizon and therefore do not add value to the community on a larger scale
(Thorson, 2012).
Since the features of the ideal citizen consist of traits of all three types of citizenship, the
section below shows such features in brief:
Thoughts
 Justice-oriented
 Exploratory
 Inquisitive
 Logical bent of mind and
 Participative
Traits
 Leadership ability
 Different thinking
 Organising ability
 Solution provider and
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 Analytical
Behaviours
 Approachable
 More proactive
 Less reactive
 Cordial and
 Target oriented
Actions
 Assume the leadership role
 Explore the root cause of issues
 Organise and conduct programs
 Solve social problems and
 Establish a pattern to counter injustice
Values
 Morally inclined
 Socially responsible
 Sensible towards justice
 Principally strict and
 Emotionally attached towards community
Based on the discussion, it may be concluded that a good citizen is a person who takes
the responsibility to change the society for betterment. Personal responsibility should be
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well supported by the community-oriented mindsets in order to be a real contributor to
the development of society. Finally, it may be concluded that the good citizens are
those persons who tend to perceive the State as a benevolent institution and therefore
undertake civic responsibilities in order to develop the community not by way of
assuming political power but through the act of welfare, and sustainable charity (Mills,
2012).
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References
Mills, S. (2012). ‘An instruction in good citizenship’: scouting and the historical
geographies of citizenship education. Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, 38(1), pp.120-134.
Thorson, K. (2012). What Does It Mean to Be a Good Citizen? Citizenship Vocabularies
as Resources for Action. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 644(1), pp.70-85.
Westheimer, J. and Kahne, J. (2008). What kind of citizen? Political choices and
educational goals. Encounters in Theory and History of Education, 4.
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