The Semiotics of the Concept of Citizenship in Omani Literary Publications for Children: A Case Study of Murshid Magazine

Citizenship education does not require complicated policies and strategies; rather, it needs simplified educational methods that are appropriate for the children in the society, and among these methods is the use of the mechanism of stories directed at children and tailored to them, which are filled with humor, fun, and interest. Here, we realize the importance of children’s literature, one that provides a good environment for the growth and development of behaviors that increase the values ​​and concepts of citizenship and deepen a sense of identity in the child. Through our review of Omani child literature, we find various publications directed at them such as poetry, plays, short stories, folk tales, and comics. One of these publications is the children’s literary magazine Murshid, which we chose as a sample for our study in this research. We will discuss tracking the path and process of the semiotics of citizenship and the values embedded in it. Based on these data and through the analytical method, the researchers attempt to answer the following questions: Firstly, does the magazine’s content touch the goals of citizenship education? Secondly, do the literary treatments of the magazine’s chapters highlight the concepts of citizenship? Thirdly, to what extent has this perspective been implemented throughout the magazine?
Accordingly, the researchers chose a random sample of 15 issues of Murshid magazine distributed over the five years of the magazine’s life, so that they dealt with three issues for each year, to analyze them and determine the educational dimensions of the concept of citizenship and its indicators. The results of this study indicate the reflection of elements of citizenship at different levels of cultural, historical, geographical, social, religious and artistic based on behaviors, positions and ideas that Murshid magazine has addressed in its various chapters. The results show that the realization of the dimension of cultural cognition is equal to the social dimension in the chapters of the magazine, as each of them has achieved 29% of the total other dimensions, while the dimension of conscience with 24% was in the second place. This shows the importance and the attention of the magazine to the development of conscientious attitudes, values, positive emotions, etc., among child readers. While the skill dimension came in third with 18% (which is not a small percentage), it is considered a good share compared to what other magazines provide for children in terms of skills, movement and activities under this axis. 
Preparing the child to be the leader of tomorrow requires comprehensive development in all areas, especially the political, economic, scientific and social areas. Negligence in the optimal preparation of the child in recognizing the values ​​of citizenship and identity may lead the child in an unfavorable direction in his youth, and for this reason, attention should be paid to the aspects related to the formation of their initial and basic mentality, and this is highlighted by presenting scientific materials in accordance with their psychological characteristics at this stage. Literary materials such as stories, poems, plays and magazines are among the most important guides that can help in promoting the spirit of citizenship among children, especially as they are considered a written form of knowledge and this makes their impact more continuous and rooting for the ideas they contain. It should be pointed out that the elements of citizenship and its indicators, in addition to the importance of diversity, must be realistic, simple, appropriate, and directly related to the children’s environment, and hence vary between religious, cultural, geographical, environmental, linguistic, civil, historical, and technological indicators. Their simplification will make it easier for children to understand and memorize and, as a result, it will lead to their attachment to these stories and their continuous reading (Sharifa, 2015, Issue 11: 64).
As a fertile stage, childhood requires attentive care. On the other hand, the impact of this stage – positive or negative – extends to all the following stages of development. Therefore, the present study attempted to shed lights on the semiotics of citizenship in the Omani children’s magazine Murshid, as an example, to identify its most prominent features and methods of processing and presenting these values to the child reader.