Climbing the Ladder? Community Perspectives on Learning to Be a Good Citizen in Uganda

Abstract This chapter examines the ways in which members of a rural community in Western Uganda perceive and conceptualize diverse ways of learning to be a good citizen. It analyzes data generated by means of a tool called the ‘ladder of citizenship’, which facilitated explication of local ideas concerning good citizenship, and reflections on how one can ‘climb the ladder’, thus learning to be a better citizen. The chapter draws on, first, the concept of cultural citizenship, which understands citizenship as a continuous learning process that takes place through interaction in informal settings, and second, the notion of folk pedagogies that refers to people’s own conceptualizations of learning. The chapter establishes how the idea of good citizenship revolves mainly around one’s role in the local community. It further identifies five categories of participants’ ideas of learning citizenship, including heredity (obuzalirwaana), religion (ediini), copying and observation (kukopa), challenges (ebizibu) and education and training (kusomesebwa).