Citizenship
A citizen is an individual who’s a legal member of a political community and how they
behave . Citizenship is gained by meeting the legal requirements of a national, state, or local
government. A nation grants certain rights and privileges to its citizens. In return, citizens are
expected to obey their country's laws and defend it against its enemies such as the
coronation oath. Citizenship involves people working together to make positive differences to
the society in which they live locally, nationally and globally. By being a citizen, you receive
the right to vote, the right to hold government offices, receive an education, you receive the
same rights and equal opportunities. By being a good citizen you could contribute to helping
your community, help other people by volunteering in your spare time, respecting your
community or simply following the law. A good citizen takes personal responsibility to their
community,Having an understanding that you have a responsibility towards those in your
community and those to you. Taking an interest in your community and becoming involved
with the life and concerns of your neighbourhood.
When you are a legal citizen you are able to own your own passport,your own identity and
allow you the ability to travel anywhere within the world. Although it is not required to own
one, a passport is extremely important because it is a form of an individual’s identification
and it is an official document issued by a government certifying that individual's identity.
Within citizenship, there are various types of citizenship , legal citizenship if you have all the
legal requirements to claim nationality in a country and have the right to live there. To be a
legal citizen, it requires your parents to be British, you’ve lived in Britain over 10 years or
naturalisation.
Naturalisation is the legal process by which a person changes their nationality. For
centuries, foreign nationals living in the UK, and sometimes living abroad, have been able to
attain British citizenship through naturalisation. These would not normally be citizens that
have received nationality rights by birth. An individual needs to follow a legal process to
prove their rights. To be eligible for naturalisation you will normally need to be over 18 years
old, be of sound mind, be of good character, have good knowledge of the UK and have lived
permanently within the country for a qualifying period. How long that is will depend on the
rules of the country, but five or seven years is quite common, in the UK it's a minimum 5
years. Part of this application also is the life test. This test includes 24 questions for which
you get 45 minutes to complete and must have 75% correct answers. After this you will need
to attend a British ceremony where you would take an oath of allegiance to the UK.
Another British citizenship is British dependent territories citizens (BDTC)
It’s people who live in British colonies which the UK has responsibility for such as Gibraltar
and British virgin islands. Secondly, British overseas citizens (BOC) are groups of people
who have a connection with the UK because they lived in a former British colony that is now
independent. Another one is British nationals (overseas) (BNO), a class of British nationality
associated with the former colony of Hong Kong. People from Hong Kong were given the
opportunity to acquire this status as many were unhappy at the thought of losing British
nationality when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997. In addition there’s also British
protected persons (BPP), individuals who have a connection with a former British
Protectorate such as a country Britain used to protect such as Brunei. And lastly British
, subjects, individuals who were British subjects under the 1948 British Nationality Act were
allocated to keep their status. Applies to citizens of India who have strong links to the UK.
Integration
Integration is a community that comes together, all individuals are accepted and respected in
their communities, they’re not living their lives separately. This can be immigrants being
accepted into a society, as groups or individually. This helps build stronger, more inclusive
and culturally diverse communities. It’s important for integration to happen because
communities will be separated and will lead to segregation, a lack of integration has
happened before in history such as America in the 1960’s.
In the United States in the 1960s, racial segregation was a prominent problem for the
everyday life of black people. There were separate bathrooms, restaurants, drinking
fountains and churches for them. They were also forced to use different barbers, nurses and
jail cells, the segregation was evident in laws and the system. The black african Americans
had to follow the degrading laws which were called Jim Crow laws, And were laws that
outlined polarisation between black and white people, there was clear racism. An example
within that time of segregation is Rosa Parks. On December 1 1955, Rosa was seated in
the front of a bus in Montgomery instead of the back which was designated for the African
Americans. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks
to give up her seat, but she refused. Her actions lead to her being jailed for refusing to give
up her seat and losing her job. Her courageous act set in motion one of the largest social
movements ever.
Tolerance
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is a community of numerous cultures and ethnicities. All are celebrated and
given equal rights and opportunities in life. Giving representation and respect for all cultural
needs. It’s important to have multiculturalism because it encourages diversity and diffuses
negativity among different groups, it allows different backgrounds share ideas and have their
own beliefs and interests, for a society to be multiculturalism, it needs to offer opportunities
to all backgrounds, such as places for variety of religions to pray such as Judaism with
providing them a synagog. None are regarded unimportant and ignored. Communities and
organisations in all settings benefit from the different backgrounds, skills, experiences, and
new ways of thinking that come with cultural diversity.
An example of multiculturalist practice is bilingual education, which values the importance of
language to a specific cultural group. In a multiculturalist society, people recognize the
benefits of the coexistence of cultures, where traditions and languages come together to
create a community of diversity and acceptance. Living with different cultures brings a better
understanding of other cultures and helps to encourage tolerance. Tolerance is the
willingness to to accept or tolerate behaviours or opinions which you might differ on. The
importance of tolerance is when working within the public services because you need to
accept that people have a right to live as they wish. There are people who think that their
