Promoting "active citizenships"?: the critical vision of NOGs over citizenship education as an educational priority across the europe

International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 32 as an Educational Priority across Europe Ana Bela Ribeiro, Mariana Rodrigues, Andreia Caetano, Sofia Pais & Isabel Menezes* University of Porto Abstract In the last decades, Citizenship Education (CE) has been at the forefront of both educational pol by different democratic traditions (Eisenstadt, 2000; Heater, 1999) but, obviously, CE also involves organisations beyond the walls of schools. This paper confronts educational policies with the views of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in 20 European countries. Results suggest that the vision of CE as a priority in educational policy documents is questioned by NGOs that consider schools are too focused on formal democracy and overemphasize respect for rules, values and responsibilities, rather than promoting critical, informed and active citizens. Especially in countries with an authoritarian past, NGOs consider that models of conformism and submission are still dominant, and emphasize the role of CE in promoting a strong civil society. Keywords: citizenship education, educational policies, non-governmental organisations *Ana Bela Ribeiro is a PhD student in Education Sciences supported by FCT, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/78829/2011). Mariana Rodrigues is a research assistant in the project Participatory citizenship education in transitional societies financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. Andreia Caetano is a research assistant in the project Participatory citizenship education in transitional societies financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. Sofia C. Pais has a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Porto. Isabel Menezes is an Associate Professor with Habilitation in Education Sciences at the University of Porto, where she coordinates the project EduCiPart. To whom correspondence about this paper should be sent at [email protected] Acknowledgements: The research presented here was financed by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT) under the project EduCiPart (PTDC/CPE-CED/102952/2008), that supports both Andreia Caetano and Mariana Rodrigues. Ana Bela Ribeiro is also supported by the FCT with a doctoral scholarship (SFRH/BD/78829/2011). International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 33 Introduction Democracy is sustained both by civic and political participation and acceptance of diversity (Sullivan & Transue, 1999), but young people are frequently being accused of lack of commitment, interest and participation in their communities (Theiss-More & Hibbing, 2005; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 2002; Putnam, 2000; Russel, 2004; Menezes, 2011; Fahmy, 2006; Amadeo, Torney-Purta, Lehman, Husfeldt, & Nikolova, 2002), while many authors defend that youth civic and political participation is a good predictor of political knowledge, interest and engagement in adulthood (e.g., Azevedo & Menezes, 2008; Osterle, Johnson, & Mortimer, 2004). Flanagan and Sherrod (1998) argue that political participation is the basis of a democratic society, making it impossible to sustain if citizens are not free to participate in the governance system as Verba et al. (2002) would say, voice and equality are central in democratic participation, that involves a variety of behaviours beyond voting in - nd in countries taking steps towards democracy, there is a recognition that democracy is essentially fragile Therefore, it is not surprising that the promotion of active citizenship has entered the public and academic discourses and that Citizenship Education (CE) was affirmed as a central role of school. In Europe, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall that Huntington (1992) has considered the third (and last) wave of democratization in Europe , CE has emerged as a priority for school curricula across Europe, with many formats, strategies and denominations. The need for a formal education in this domain was certainly reinforced by the process of democratic transition that many European countries were experiencing, together with signs of growing intolerance and xenophobia both in transition countries (with the Balkan wars being the most impressive and dramatic sign) and in well-established democracies (with the rise of extreme-right parties in countries such as Holland or France, where, in 2002, Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential elections). Simultaneously, the significance of CE was underlined by international studies such as the IEA Civic Education Study (Torney-Purta, Lehman, Oswald, & Schultz, 2001) or the Council of Europe project on Education for Democratic Citizenship ( , 2005). However, this apparent consensus is not without contest. In fact, even the concept of citizenship was disputed as problematic and exclusionary (e.g., Beiner, 1995; Benhabib, 1999), while defining that what a citizen is varies immensely not only across history (e.g., Heater, 1999), but also across democratic traditions (e.g., Eisenstadt, 2000; Janoski, 1998), ranging from passive (existence) to active (participation) rights (e.g., Ross, 2008), and varying in the intensity and contexts where these rights are exercised from minimalist versions that expect citizens to vote and pay taxes to maximalist perspectives that view citizenship as a right to be exerted in diverse and multiple daily settings. For instance, Kallioniemi, Zaleskiene, Lalor, and Misiejuk (2010) understand active citizenship as nd/or political life, characterized by mutual respect and non- ] participation and involvement in decision-making processes that go further to recognize both latent and manifest forms of civic and political participation, from engagement to activism, including life-style and identity anti-political discourses. From this point of view, the crisis of participation means, simultaneously, collapse and expansion (Menezes, 2011) as it exposes the decline of conventional forms of participation (such as partisanship in political parties or unions) and the emergence of unconventional forms of civic and political participation (such as demonstrations, sit-ins, e- International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 34 forms of civic and political participation can be characterized, in tune with our post-modern societies, as more fluid and self-expressive (Ferreira, Azevedo, & Menezes, in press), they surely defy a deficit model of young people as citizens in the making (Marshall, 1950) and challenge us to recognize youth daily life civic and political agency. This is in line with Biesta and Lawy (2006) argument that, even more important than teaching citizenship, is that young people actually learn about democracy. Biesta and Lawy consider that young people are frequently unaware of their role and position in society and citizenship in the formal curriculum has served to mask a deeper and more profound problem practic - various NGOs are actively involved in this process, not only as providers of citizenship experiences for young people, but also as interfaces between schools and communities and, finally, as actors within the school context by developing materials that teachers can use or organizing teacher training in specific areas (Kallioniemi, Zaleskiene, Lalor & Misiejuk, 2010; Park, 2007). Obviously, across Europe NGOs have a variety of roles, even if Kallioniemi et al. (2010, p. 9) highlight some important commonalties: first, NGOs share an collect citizens together to act upon issues of social concern and are (usually) countries NGOs have made special material for schools [and] because of their activities NGOs have lots of opportunities to show examples of a living Active Citize (Kallioniemi et al., 2010, p. 12). This makes of NGOs not only contributors for the citizenship education curricula, but also contexts for citizenship education, throughout their everyday activity. Hence, for many years, NGOs have been key actors in the field of CE: for instance, in Holland, since the sixties, NGOs were actively pressing the Ministry of Education towards the inclusion of specific cross-curricular themes and were very active in the development of curricular materials (CIDREE, 1994). With the institution of the European Union this role was reinforced, not only because the EU actively supported the creation of European networks of NGOs but also endorsed a vision of NGOs as essential partners of the Warleigh, 2002) and therefore consultation and involvement with/of NGOs became central in Europe. This paper departs from this reality to consider how CE is conceived by educational policies and how NGOs evaluate existing policies and practices of CE across 20 European countries. More specifically, we want to address the following research questions: How is CE operationalized in educational policies across Europe? What visions of citizenship are expressed in CE topics and contents? Moreover, what kind of citizens are schools and civil society organizations, such as NGOs, advocating for? How do NGOs view their roles as CE providers? How do they perceive current CE practices in schools and how do they envisage their engagement with schools regarding the promotion of CE activities? International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 35 Method Given the diversity of Europe, especially in terms of the institution of democratic regimes and political historical past, we felt it would be important to include a diverse sample of European countries to consider not only their emphasis on CE in educational policies but also the perception of existing NGOs regarding the policies and practices in the field of CE. Table 1 describes the participating countries and the number of NGOs involved. Table 1 Participating European Countries: Current Political System, Time of EU Integration And Number of NGOs Involved Country Current political system EU integration Number of NGOs 1. Austria (AT) Federal Republic 1995 5 2. Belgium (BE) Constitutional Monarchy 1957 3 3. Bulgaria (BG) Republic 2007 5 4. Czech Republic (CZ) Republic 2004 5 5. England (ENG) Constitutional Monarchy 1973 8 6. Estonia (EE) Republic 2004 4 7. Finland (FI) Republic 1995 3 8. France (FR) Republic 1957 4 9. Ireland (IE) Republic 1973 4 10. Italy (IT) Republic 1957 3 11. Luxembourg (LU) Constitutional Monarchy 1957 2 12. Poland (PL) Republic 2004 3 13. Portugal (PT) Republic 1986 12 14. Malta (MT) Republic 2004 2 International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 36 15. Netherlands (NL) Constitutional Monarchy 1957 4 16. Romania (RO) Republic 2007 4 17. Slovakia (SK) Republic 2004 2 18. Slovenia (SI) Republic 2004 3 19. Spain (ES) Constitutional Monarchy 1986 5 20. Sweden (SE) Constitutional Monarchy 1995 2 It is important to underlie that we have included countries that are representative of red from 18281945, i.e., until after the Second World War (e.g. Italy); the second wave that happened during the seventies (e.g., Portugal and Spain); and the third wave in the nineties, after the fall of the Berlin Wall (e.g. Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Poland). The case of the UK is the world. Within this historical and political framework, all of the countries in our sample are members of the European Union, including both founders of the former European Economic Community (e.g., Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy) and the more recent members (e.g., Bulgaria and Romania). Moreover, there are significant variations in indicators of the quality of democracy such as trust in political institutions, levels of civic and political engagement and participation, degree of media control and freedom of speech or female representation (Diamond & Morlino, 2004; Lijphart, 1999; Morlino, 2004). Our research involved a policy analysis of principles, intentions and key-concepts of CE and a survey of NGOs broadly working within the CE field. Policy Analysis The policy analysis entails a comprehensive analysis of principles, intentions and key-concepts of CE which are present in national policy documents (e.g., laws and regulations). This information was complemented using a multi-level approach with a range of other resources (e.g., articles, databases, and European surveys), thus combining direct and secondary sources. We aimed to understand what kind of CE educational policies are advocating for, by performing thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 79), a qualitative pattern The statements allowed us to reach a total of 56 different categories that reveal concerns towards CE in educational policy (e.g., number of hours, curricular strategy), as well as its definition (e.g., goals and contents). Survey of NGOs -mail survey took place between August 2010 and February 2011. Contacts were drawn from existing databases of European NGOs broadly working within the CE field e.g. Networking European Citizenship Education, Democracy and Human Rights in Europe, European Network of Political Foundations, and International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 37 Euro Partners Development. An invitation letter in five different European languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Ukrainian) was e-mailed to a sample of 424 NGOs from 41 European countries. Approximately 30% of the European NGOs that were involved in the study answered the e-mail survey; if we exclude from the initial sample the 27 NGOs that refused to respond (because they were currently not involved in the topic, among other reasons) the response rate was 32% a value that is quite positive if we consider the tendency for the decline in email surveys response rates (Sheehan, 2001). As mentioned above, this paper presents the results for a subset of this sample that consists of 83 NGOs from 20 European countries, as shown in Table 1. Once the NGO accepted to participate in the study, an e-mail survey was sent to them. The e-mail survey consisted of the following six open-ended questions including a descr policies; the barriers regarding its implementation; positive experiences; the evaluation of the work done in the field of CE in and out-of-school; and the significance of a promoting critical citizens both regarding the authoritarian past (if existed) and existing democratic institutions. research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the we will address roles, activities and target groups of NGOs; perspectives of the NGOs on it dominant vision in CE; and evaluation of CE, highlighting the barriers to implementation and positive experiences in national and international CE. Because the questions were open-ended, it was possible to obtain a rich and extensive database on the visions of European NGOs regarding CE. Data was organized by grouping together similar views, while retaining the specificity of the opinions. The NGO was used as unity of analysis. Results Policy Analysis CE is referred as an educational priority in the curricula of all 20 countries, but there are important variations. For instance, the number of hours per week assigned to CE varies from non-defined (e.g., Bulgaria and Italy), 1 hour/class per week (e.g., Estonia, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden), 2 hours/classes per week (e.g., Austria, Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Spain), 3 hours/classes per week (e.g. Romania and Finland) or 4 hours/classes per week (e.g., Poland and Check Republic); decentralized education policies in both Finland and England implies that schools can autonomously decide the number of hours they allocate to CE. The designation also varies with Civics appearing as the most frequent (e.g., Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden) and CE being explicitly mentioned in England, Belgium, Check Republic, Portugal and the Netherlands. Moreover, as CE is linked to a variety of compulsory and optional subjects, it can adopt more than forty different types of designations; and Luxembourg). Finally, CE can be implemented as a cross-curricular theme, as the object of a specific subject in the curricula or as an optional or compulsory subject (or other type of curricular space); the option for a cross-curricular strategy is the most frequently adopted at both primary and lower secondary education. International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 38 The vision of CE in educational policy documents is very diverse and includes in ual inland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain) that involves politics Austria, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Czech Republic, England, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia and Slovenia) (Figure 1). Figure 1. Higher level of referenced categories in 20 countries Less frequently, but mentioned in various countries, are associations between CE and Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Malta, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia). Similarly there are re (e.g. - c, France, Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Sweden and Slovakia) (Figure 2). International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 39 Figure 2. Intermediated level of referenced categories in 20 countries Besides these commonalties, less frequently CE appears associated with a large Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Italy), national (e.g. Austria, Estonia, Slovenia) and European identity (e.g. Sloveni (Figure 3). International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 40 Figure 3. Lower level of referenced categories in 20 countries International Journal of Progressive Education, Volume 8 Number 3, 2012 47 Osterle, S., Johnson, M. K., & Mortimer, J. T. (2004). 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