Half-hearted promises or wrapping ourselves in the flag: two approaches to the pedagogy of citizenship.

Compulsory citizenship tests and ceremonies are some of the ways in which new British citizens must prove their commitment to their adopted nationality. Existing citizens, on the other hand, have to make no such outward show of commitment; neither do they have to prove any level of knowledge about the UK in order to claim their citizenship. These differing relationships to citizenship create different relationships to ideas of nation, nationality and belonging. This paper will examine two approaches to performances of citizenship. The first one was encountered in a citizenship ceremony in Manchester registry office and demonstrates a largely epistemological approach to citizenship. The second one was in a teaching situation with British undergraduate drama students, where a more ontological approach to citizenship was observed. Examining these two models of the pedagogy of citizenship through the lens of performance allows for a more subtle and complex understanding of current discourses of citizenship and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]