Conclusions & Policy Recommendations

AuthorEuropean Union Publications Office, 2006
Pages85-102

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1 Conclusions
1. 1 Societal Developments

The first concern of the ETGACE research was to explore the changes occurring in the nature of active citizenship and governance today, and how these are articulated in different spheres ('domains') of society.1 From the outset, we sought to situate and understand developments in citizenship and learning in the context of key social transformations or our times. There are, of course, many ways of looking at these: we drew attention to globalisation and individualisation, which together can be linked to the shift from 'modern' to the 'late-' or 'post-modern'; and, given the location and focus of our study, to the related phenomenon of 'Europeanisation'. At first sight, globalisation seems to be about size and scale: the increasing inter-connectedness or integration of economic, cultural and even political systems across the globe. However, recent literature has emphasised the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon: as Robertson (1992) argues, movements, institutions and individuals are not only implicated in the process of globalisation, but frequently also in resistance to it. Globalisation, he suggests, should be seen as a 'two-fold process involving the universalization of particularism and the particularization of universalism' (p. 102).

Many of the citizens we interviewed, and the educators who joined our focus groups, were sharply aware of the increasingly global backdrop to their activities - the way Rok's professional contacts with western Europe brought home the need to prepare Slovenia for the information society is a case in point. This increasing scale was, however, only part of the reality - again, we can see this in Rok's response: to change his own country's attitudes and strategies, through forming a national professional association. Our interviewees and experts experienced not merely the need to do business with local and national government, but sometimes with the European Union; they engaged with local employers, but knew that even if these were not controlled by transnational corporations, they operated in a global economic environment; some of the voluntary organisations they joined were local, some were national or global - some, as with Alkuvoima in Finland, worked at all levels.

All sectors of society have had to respond to this increasing scale. The ambit of state activity has expanded; many corporations have a 'global presence'; social movements - including, ironically, anti-globalisation movements - operate on an international scale. But in parallel, the problems of operating on a large scale have become more pronounced, particularly in the state and business sectors. Governments have lost confidence in their ability to design policies, but even more to carry them through effectively - witness waves of decentralisation, privatisation and 'partnerships' between government and other organisations. GovernmentPage 86 now sets strategy; others carry it out (cf Griffin 1999). In business, enterprises are restructured, downsized, made more flexible and adaptable, given flatter structures, seek strategic alliances. Two main types of argument are made in favour of these trends. On the one hand lies effectiveness: that governments deliver better when they operate in partnership with voluntary organisations, for example, or that flatter business structures are less rigid and adapt better to changing conditions. On the other hand lie normative arguments - that such arrangements are more democratic, more responsive to popular opinion, address a growing democratic deficit, and so forth. It is these arguments - for example, the Spanish experts' call for 'egalitarian dialogue' and 'democratising democracy' through deliberative processes to encourage all organisations to participate in community decision-making - which are to the fore in the ETGACE evidence. Not surprisingly, we have found examples of this trend within the state domain, and in the relations between the state, the private sector, and civil society.

The tendency to decentralised and networked approaches to governance may be more efficient and democratic, but paradoxically they achieve these ends only by engaging citizens more actively. They require more involvement of people at the 'grass roots'. It was partly for this reason, no doubt, that we encountered governmental attempts at what we have termed 'remoralisation' of citizens (cf ETGACE 2000). This finding lends support to Rose's (1999a, 1999b) argument that forms of governance represent 'a twin process of autonomization plus responsibilization - opening free space for the choices of actors whilst enwrapping these autonomized actors within new forms of control' (Rose 1999b, p. xxiii). As we wrote in an earlier report, such attempts can be explained rationally: engaging the energies of the independent, free, active citizen is considerably less risky if the active citizen wishes to express that activity in responsible, reliable, non-threatening ways. A nation of entrepreneurs, enthusiastically chasing market opportunities, is one thing; a nation of energetic, free-thinking protesters, expecting more of their governments, is quite another. Mechanisms for creating, or shaping, this new moral citizen vary, but in several countries - the Netherlands and the UK, for example - an important element is the reshaping of the welfare state, embedding within it systems which reward 'enterprise' and stigmatise indolence. The active citizen is very much the citizen, for instance, who actively seeks work. (ETGACE 2000, p. 202)

New forms of decentralised governance do not only require people's involvement; they are also supposed to facilitate it. We have indeed seen (§3.4 above) citizens engaged in new forms of direct or decentralised democracy in the state domain, and in new forms of decentralised work organisation - learning organisations, teams, and so forth. We have found citizens involved in various forms of community development - projects to revitalise and reconstruct communities. Many of these projects were established or encouraged by government at various levels.

However, the active citizens we encountered were not active only in these forms of governance - they engaged with the state, and with state strategies, but they did so on their own terms. We consider this something of a corrective to the impression given by Rose (1999a, 1999b): technologies of governing are neither all-embracing nor universally successful. The state may attempt 'to govern ... through the micro-management of the self-steering practices of its citizens' (Rose 1999a, p. 193), but active citizens are autonomousPage 87 human beings, and we suggest that states' capacity to achieve this project has limits. Citizens do not become active only in the projects established or endorsed by the state. Many of the citizens we interviewed had developed their own projects, their own perspectives, and pursued these - though by no means always successfully - through complex biographical trajectories. Despite the weakening hold of the ideological allegiances which characterised the twentieth century, we were struck by citizens' pursuit of goals - across different projects and domains - which they considered consistent and 'authentic'.

Moreover, even when citizens do engage with state-sponsored initiatives, they often do so with their own agendas. Active citizens we interviewed sought to engage in areas, or using methods, which were compatible with their ideals or principles. The two principal areas of involvement were solidarity with the disadvantaged and preservation of the natural and cultural heritage; in terms of methods, we found an emphasis on teamwork and mutual trust. Of course, there are many occasions when citizens' own - authentic - agendas co-incide with the priorities of government; but they do not always do so. We know, of course, that many citizens decline to participate 'actively', especially in traditional forms such as political parties, but we also found that resistance to engagement in the harsh climate of the state domain extended to a number of citizens enthusiastically active in other areas. Conversely, we also found evidence of active citizens becoming engaged in forms of governance which did not initially attract them, because it enabled them to pursue a strong concern of commitment. In short, it is possible to engage active citizens in new forms of 'governance', but they do so to pursue agendas they consider important.

The active citizens whom we interviewed were typically active in more than one domain -and even within each domain, in more than one particular setting. In some cases, they were active in different domains at the same time; in other cases, they moved from one area of citizenship activity over a period of years. This finding, not in itself surprising, becomes significant in relation to the learning of citizenship.

1. 2 Learning Active Citizenship and Governance

In these changing conditions, how are active citizens learning about citizenship and governance?2 We attempted to make sense of this using a model which distinguished three dimensions of citizenship learning: effectivity, responsibility and identity. In Chapter 3 above (§3.3) we explained the rationale for reconceptualising these as capacity, challenge and connection respectively. However, as that discussion also emphasised, the mutual articulation of these concepts occurs in specific socio-historical contexts, and these contexts proved to be particularly influential in how the dimensions of citizenship learning were articulated.

This finding lends support to authors who have emphasised the role of social context in learning (e.g., Eraut etal. 2000; Illeris 2002; Jarvis 1987). Lave and Wenger argue that knowing is 'inherent in ... the social organization and political economy of communities of practice', which have 'histories and development cycles' (1991, p. 122). We found evidence that the learning of active citizenship is indeed shaped by socio-historical factors, at various levels. First of all, we believe national histories shape the learning of active citizenship. Although our interviewees did not form representative samples in each country - and wePage 88 cannot therefore assert this with absolute confidence - our impression is that the nationally diverse histories of citizenship shaped the nature of their active citizens' learning. Our view is in the scholarly mainstream on this point (cf recently, Preuss et al. 2003; Siim 2000). This pattern was particularly evident in contrasting the 'new' democracies of Spain and Slovenia with the 'old' democracies in, for example, Britain and the Netherlands: to simplify, active citizens in the former are concerned with building and extending democracy; in the latter, democracy tends to be taken for granted, and active citizens show more concern with the authenticity of citizenship activity. Further research is needed to explore, and establish beyond doubt, the influence of national histories on citizenship learning.

National histories matter, but they are not the only factors which shape the learning context. We distinguished four categories of context or domain: work, the state, civil society and the private domain. This typology proved of some value. It enabled us to identify clear trends which seem to be widespread within each domain, such as the trend to flatter organisation in the work domain. We found some evidence of differences between domains in what and how people learned: for example, the work and state domains tended to privilege harsher, more competitive values and attitudes; in contrast, we found a greater emphasis on teamwork and caring values in the civil society and private domains. In terms of perspectives on the social nature of learning, however, this would tend to support the view that 'the growth and transformation of identities' (Lave & Wenger 1991, p. 122) is central to learning. Our attempt to achieve broad coverage of domains did, however, mean that we did not achieve - indeed, were unable to attempt - in-depth study of specific learning contexts or 'communities of practice' (to adopt Lave's and Wenger's term).

Our research emphasised strongly the biographical embeddedness of active citizenship and how people learn it. We have suggested (§3.3 above) that in an important sense each person learns not a common citizenship, but his or her own citizenship. This can be overstated, but the trajectories we discerned in the active citizens we interviewed were individually unique -albeit that we could point to common biographical patterns overall, in particular the 'smooth' and 'jagged'. The unique character of citizenship learning and citizens' trajectories seems to contrast with traditions in developmental psychology which emphasise regularity, sequence and ordered transitions over the lifespan (cf Erikson 1950; Sugarman 2001).

Within these varying contexts, however, active citizens are active learners. We investigated their learning in terms of connection, capacity and challenge. In recent years, the role of identity in learning has been stressed - knowing 'is inherent in the growth and transformation of identities and is located in relations among practitioners' (Lave & Wenger 1991, p. 122; cf Rees et al. 2000; Wenger 1998). Our conclusions parallel these. Citizens' identities are formed and reformed - negotiated, transformed - in relationships with other citizens; it was to emphasise this point that we came to prefer the term connection. The nature of the transformations of individuals' identities - of their perceptions of themselves in relation to others - plays a key role in creating their citizenship. Active citizens appear periodically to reconstruct their identities to build a new position in a changing society; they do so, of course, on the basis of their existing resources, social and cultural. Many of our interviewees, for instance, referred to their networks of co-workers, colleagues, acquaintances, friends, family: connection can be expressed in terms of organisations and principles too, but the emphasis on other people stands out in the civil society and private domains. Thus we havePage 89 examples of identity expressed in relation to particular forms of organisation (Luisa's anti-hierarchichal views and identification with the grassroots, several in relation to trade unions (§3.3)), modes of action (Antoine's attitude to his employees), and so forth. All of these are clearly expressions of identity, articulated through a sense of connection with others.

A sense of responsibility for one's fellow citizens must be at the core of active citizenship -Machiavellian political skills alone may make an effective political operator, but hardly an active citizen. Citizenship has a strong normative dimension. We wished to understand how such a sense of responsibility is developed, and suggest that the key to understanding this is the notion of challenge. We were struck by the importance of challenges in our active citizens' life-histories: we have speculated above that the range of challenges people face in their life-times is increasing. But the essence is not so much the challenge, as the citizen's response. Confronted with the misery of 'problem' young people and their families, Peter (Belgium) saw injustice. Making sense of her life and violent marriage, Marlene responded with a desire to help other women. Gilligan (1988, p. 4) argues that 'two moral predispositions [toward justice and care respectively] ... inhere in the structure of the human lifecycle', while Lister (1997) suggests that a synthesis of these is needed as the basis for a reformulated citizenship. Our evidence lends support to this view.

We suggest, moreover, that active citizens today - or some of them, at least - have established an 'authentic' sense of responsibility which then forms the basis for their engagement in a series of citizenship encounters. These people act from a relatively coherent 'grand narrative'. In some cases, this appeared to be established early in life, by a strong sense of identity and responsibility formed in the private domain, in early socialisation. Again, this suggests greater attention should be given to the private domain in discussions of how active citizenship is learned.

In all our interviews, and indeed in our focus groups too, a key finding was the importance of informal learning in the development of active citizenship. In a world of rapid social change, active citizens are typically learning not some established form of routine endeavour, but - in their learning - creating new forms of citizenship knowledge and activity. As citizenship groupings are formed and reformed, they do so less by integrating people into established 'communities of practice', than through processes whereby people themselves create or radically reshape these communities, and the knowledge they sustain. In this respect, our findings have some similarities with those of Eraut et al. (2000) in relation to learning at work: 'a high proportion of work contexts were in a process of rapid change, and the people in them ... came and went quite frequently' (p. 254). The difference may be that, in contrast to workgroups, citizenship contexts or communities are typically less subject to formal or planned structuring.

1. 3 Interventions for Citizenship & Governance Education

The ETGACE research was concerned both with existing and innovative methods of intervention to encourage learning of active citizenship and governance.3 We examined several levels; the chief method for securing evidence was through our focus groups.

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Recent years have seen a marked emphasis by governments - which goes beyond the merely rhetorical - on the importance of 'lifelong learning' in the 'learning society'. At the school level, we have seen quite widespread attempts to develop education for citizenship - both through methods which develop learner autonomy and, in some cases, through new civic curricula. Within the business sector, the growth of training and development programmes around issues of teamwork, leadership, and strengthening workers' creativity, has been marked. But in relation to adult learning, education for governance and active citizenship in civil society and the political domains remains much weaker.

In response to the demands of 'Europeanisation', the principal established methods of education which had affected the experts in our focus groups were public information and exchange programmes. European Union funding in this area had clearly generated a substantial range of activity, and educational experts at least were conscious of the opportunities which existed. Some experts recounted good experience with exchange programmes, though some scepticism was also expressed as to whether international understanding alone can be a strong activating factor.4 Similar doubts were mentioned about information programmes, and in general our experts took the view that public information programmes were marginally effective at best, and not infrequently deeply mistrusted by the public.

However, we found considerable evidence that social movements - such as the environmental and anti-globalisation movements - have been successful in problematising the issues with which they are concerned, and generating new forms of learning and knowledge about citizenship and governance. This learning has not only concerned the local and national levels, generating understanding of how local systems work, but also produced the ability to interact, and occasionally even to mobilise, at an international level. Despite a growing volume of research on social movements, which includes literature exploring the learning or cognitive dimensions of social movements (Eyerman & Jamison 1991; Holford 1995; Holst 2002), the importance of social movements as learning sites has been underestimated by governmental policy and professional practice in the field of adult education.

Apart from interventions at the European level, we found examples of a significant range of interventions designed to develop citizenship learning from the perspective of governments -i.e., on a 'top down' basis. Traditional approaches included government-sponsored public information programmes (in the state domain), educational courses for trade union representatives and members of workers' councils (work domain), and educational support for community development and the voluntary sector (civil society). We examined the relative prominence and importance of formal, non-formal and informal approaches; the evidence is that formal education plays an important background role, while non-formal approaches seem to provide a range of specific and more or less targeted supplements to the formal system. However - in keeping with our findings about learning - we concluded that informal interventions were of primary importance. Effective informal interventions generally combine support for action with support for embedded learning processes.

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We found attempts to use new information and communications technologies for informal education about citizenship and governance, together with non-formal methods to support 'active learning'.

Generally, we were struck by the contrast between the heavy investment by corporations in the training and development of their staff, not least in relation to issues such as teamworking skills and corporate mission, and the much more limited support for learning of governance in the state and civil society domains. In this area, our experts commented critically on the tendency to provide funding on a short-term, project-specific basis, and increasingly with tightly-specified objectives and targets. This tends to limit the extent to which communities can be genuine 'partners', to limit how far education can evolve organically in pursuit of needs identified by learners, and to generate understandings of the relationship between citizen and government (or funding body) in which power clearly resides with the latter, and the autonomy of the former is severely constrained. This problem tends to have its greatest impact on citizens with relatively poor prior educational qualifications. We have argued in an earlier report (ETGACE 2001b), particularly in the context of Belgium and Finland (though we believe it has more general application), that it is difficult to predict accurately the precise impact of informal interventions in the area of citizenship and governance, and this puts a premium on a process - rather than product - orientation. This replicates long-standing tensions in community education (cf, e.g., Holford 1988; Whitehead 1997). We suggest there is too little sustained analysis of interventions related to the learning, especially in informal contexts, of citizenship and governance.

Overall, however, we conclude that the field continues to struggle with the creation of effective ways to support informal and independent learning processes for active citizens. While literature on informal learning in relation to work is extensive and growing (cf Eraut et al. 2000; Lundvall & Borras 1999; Marsick & Watkins 1990; Senge 1990; Watkins & Marsick 1993; Wenger 1998; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder 2002), the literature in relation to informal citizenship learning remains meagre in comparison; the focus group discussions pointed to a similar conclusion.

1. 4 Differentiation, Inclusion & Exclusion

The ETGACE research sought to investigate how learning differed in relation to two categories: across two age cohorts, and as between men and women.5 In part, our interest in these stemmed from common concerns about differentiation; in part, each related to distinct theoretical issues.

Our concern with two age cohorts originated not from concerns about age as such, but with an hypothesis about the nature of contemporary society, and the impact of late twentieth century changes on active citizenship and its learning. These originated in debates about the transition from modernity to late- or post-modernity, but were given greater clarity by Inglehart's discussion of materialist and post-materialist values (Ingelhart 1977, 1990). The intention was to uncover whether the nature of learning by active citizens had changed as between those who went through their primary and secondary socialisation before about 1965, and those who become adult from the late 1970s onward. Putnam's argument, thatPage 92 there has been a marked change in the civic activity of Americans over the twentieth century (Putnam 1995, 2000) is also relevant. He argues that members of the 'long civic generation' (born 1910-1940) are 'substantially more engaged in community affairs and more trusting' than those born later - specifically, he compared this generation with 'generation X' born between 1965 and 1980 (Putnam 2000, p. 254).

Turning to the etgace research, some methodological factors limited our capacity to provide wholly convincing evidence on these points. In particular, our decision to interview active citizens, albeit some of them not 'traditional' active citizens, meant that by definition they were active, and that they were capable of remaining active, or becoming active, in the conditions of the late twentieth century. Put simply, if there were citizens active in the 'modern', 'materialist', 'civic' generation who were unable to adjust to early twenty-first century 'post-materialist' or 'post-modern' conditions, we would not have selected them. Those we interviewed had found avenues for active citizenship. We can, therefore, state that some people have been able to make the transition, and we can say something about them, but we can say nothing of those - if they exist - who could, or did, not.

Our conclusions in this area are, therefore, relatively tentative. We were impressed by the capacity of the active citizens interviewed to make adjustments in their citizenship over time, and to make transitions between citizenship contexts - and between commitments - over their lifetimes. Our older cohort had made adjustments. In short, we were struck less by the differences between generations of active citizens than by the similarities. We interpret this in terms of the need to learn and relearn.

From the literature and the experiences of our women interviewees, we can see that the concept of active citizenship is subjectively defined at any particular time according to political or normative values. Women and men - and different ethnic and other groups - learn to play certain roles which may or may not be understood formally, in public documents and the like, as active citizenship. Their rights and responsibilities will be learned, at least in part, according to how they are positioned in society. The social structures of society will either facilitate or hinder their access to political decision making. Some progress towards equality is being made, but there is still some way to go.

In order to move towards the pluralistic, inclusive notion of citizenship suggested above (§3.2), citizens need to understand how the very systems of which they are part contribute to hegemonic practices or enable new possibilities for agency. The concept of being a woman (interfaced with race and class) has the potential to displace women's potential public role in society because their perceived gender status is made more visible than their personal qualities. Women's relationships to men are defined by their gender and family positions. In order for women to be on a 'level playing field', policy must address how women are socially constructed and how their visibility is given a shared power relationship with men. Learning to be an active citizen depends, in part, then, on how people learn to be regarded in society. From there they will learn which skills are valued, and which are not. It is up to us, as members of society, to publicly value the interconnectedness of work, family, the state and civil society in creating tomorrow's active citizens.

Whilst it may be true that most societies position women as a whole in ways that give them less power and status than men, the picture is more complex than this. The life history interviews revealed that disability, race, social class, skin colour, sexuality are all givenPage 93 different levels of social value. These values intersect with experiences of being male or female and with personal life histories. Any educational intervention that specifically addresses gender alone, therefore may be in danger of minimising, or making invisible, other important areas of discrimination, or of stereotyping women and men. Whilst these cautionary reminders must always be borne in mind we are specifically looking at how 'gender' plays a part in perpetuating imbalances between men and women in both opportunity and activity.

Educational intervention can be formal, informal or non-formal. It can be deliberate or accidental. The relationships that occur within such interventions can have subtle influences on the way citizenship is perceived and acted out by the individuals involved. Individuals all bring their personal life histories into a learning situation, and their life histories influence what kind of learning scenarios and what kind of subsequent identities are formed. There is also some doubt as to whether 'gender-neutral' activities, such as basic skills, are really so. Do illustrations in learning materials portray stereotypical roles, for instance? Does language inadvertently make certain sectors of the population invisible or offer a hierarchy of social values to certain types of skill that are often gender specific? Another more subtle form of gendered value at work is to allocate only to certain employee roles the opportunity of learning new skills, taking leadership training courses, learning decision making processes, and so forth.

For the etgace research it was also important to see who had access to European networks and to what extent women or minorities were getting an equal or fair share of the positive features of globalisation (such as information technology, wider international social, political and professional networks, and knowledge of global contexts). The implications of successful intervention strategies should influence which features of women's or minority groups' citizenship activity are recognised and followed through at national, parliamentary or European level. This means finding a way of integrating global activity with local citizenship initiatives and looking beyond educational interventions so that media messages value and give voice to marginalised sectors of society. The gendered nature of citizenship and governance, therefore, operates on several layers. The expert symposia (focus groups) could only provide tentative indications about many of the above issues regarding gender.

In summary the following observations can be made about possible ways forward for a more gender equitable approach to learning active citizenship:

* Formal education needs to engender a critical dimension, enabling people to challenge and question normative assumptions about who are active citizens, and how they learned to be so. Higher education, for instance, can be a way of empowering people to think differently about what they may have learned elsewhere.

* Solidarity as a dimension of action and participation can strengthen marginalised individuals to challenge issues of discrimination.

* There are many societal structures and norms which mask the complexity not only of the definition of citizenship, but also of how it prevents social groups from being recognised as active citizens and having a voice in governance and policy making. Addressing those structures requires an openness to change and questioning of people's own legitimised worldviews and belief systems.

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Active citizens are those who are 'willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life', and have 'the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting' (Crick 2000, pp. 2-3). Research on active citizenship demonstrates a close connection between being an active citizen and a high level of education. Moreover, apart from formal education, citizenship requires lifelong learning of skills either in the political domain or in other domains such as work (Verba etal. 1995). Active citizenship is therefore a contradictory concept. It fits easily with the competencies of a new 'creative class' in society (Florida 2002) which uses governance options to influence policy, but at the same time excludes the new majority of citizens for whom these challenges are 'over their heads'.

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2 Further Research

We have identified a number of areas where the need for further research is apparent.

(a) New Governance Practices

A key contextual feature of our research, and central to its rationale, was the new trend toward 'governance'. We investigated this at the level of its interactions with active citizens, but we noticed a need to describe and map governance practices at the institutional level. What is the nature of the new emerging networks in which governments, agencies, business and community organisations, and social movements interact? In what new ways are community organisations having to connect with government, professional and corporate 'partners'? How can we describe these partnerships, and what are their internal dynamics? At several points in our research we have sensed that the distribution of power within such networks may have an impact on the nature of the citizenship skills and attitudes which those engaged in the networks learn. (An example is the question of temporary or project-specific funding regimes.) This is an issue which requires further, in-depth, investigation, through detailed studies of the internal dynamics of governance networks and their interaction with learners.

(b) History and Political Economy of Learning Contexts

We have suggested, following Lave and Wenger (1991), that the contexts in which people learn citizenship have their own histories and political economies, and that these will have a strong impact on the nature of individual citizens' learning. We have explored the histories of individuals' learning, and we have seen - from an individual perspective - some of the ways in which context shapes learning of citizenship. What is required, however, is in-depth investigation of the nature of learning environments from a collective or organisational perspective. This might involve comparative ethnographic studies of the institutional environments of citizenship learning, within different domains, how they evolve, and how they shape, and are shaped by, the citizens who participate in them. For example, we can see a need for investigation - as citizenship learning environments - of specific corporations, workplaces, social movements, voluntary organisations, and so forth. There is also a need for deeper understanding of the impact of national histories and cultures on citizenship learning.

(c) Comparative Role of Different Factors in Citizenship Learning

Through life history research, we have been able to indicate a number of critical factors in citizenship learning. These include the role of family, school education, work and skills of various kinds, and transitions during the life course in patterns of responsibility and identity. Our research has, however, been qualitative in nature. We have not been able to expose -other than in an indicative way - the relative significance of the various factors, nor have we been able to measure how the importance of the various factors varies across cultures and national boundaries. We suggest that a more quantitatively based investigation, based on larger data sets, and involving the construction and comparison of causal models, would be helpful to this end. The work of Verba, Schlozman and Brady (1995), and of Putnam (2000),Page 96 in the USA, though directed to somewhat different ends, and drawing on rather different theoretical traditions, is impressive, and illustrates the value of such approaches.

(d) Evaluation of Technologies of Citizenship Learning

In our investigation of the effectiveness of educational interventions for citizenship and governance learning, we were able to provide illuminating examples of 'good practice'. However, neither the literature not our focus groups delivered much by way of systematic evaluation of their effectiveness. Despite many decades of recurrent initiatives in education for citizenship, and in related areas such as community development, we have noted that practitioners continue to be uncertain about the relative appropriateness and effectiveness of various intervention techniques. If planners are to be able to fine-tune their support for citizenship and governance learning, there is an urgent need for evaluation of the different technologies of citizenship learning. This should take into account the range of potential locations for such learning, and a range of distinct intervention methodologies. It should seek to employ rigorous evaluation methods across the various domains, and is likely to involve networks of researchers and practitioners.

(e) Informal Learning

A central message of the etgace project has been the importance of informal learning - or, to use the stricter term we have preferred in this report, informal education - for citizenship. However, it is truism that institutional arrangements for supporting informal learning are poorly developed, and we would add that they are poorly understood. If policy-makers are to intervene effectively to encourage informal learning, they need to be able to deploy techniques which are not limited to the repertoire of strategies associated with formal and non-formal education. There is apparent good practice to adopt, but research needs not only to explore the effectiveness of techniques, but also experiment with the development of new techniques, or with the extension of techniques which have provenance in one area into new areas. For example, in the workplace arrangements for counselling and mentoring employees are now quite widespread; less so in the political domain, or civil society. Such experiments should be reported and evaluated.

(f) Responsibility and Identity in the Formation of Active Citizens

We have sought to separate out three dimensions of learning in relation to active citizenship: effectivity or effectiveness, responsibility and identity. It became clear to us that while active citizenship requires the first, it comes equally to naught in the absence of the others. Citizenship is irredeemably about the ethical nature of our relations with others. We can speak of transferable skills in relation to effectiveness, and research in other areas can therefore be helpful - many work-related skills are relevant, for instance. Knowledge of citizenship learning in relation to responsibility or identity is much more hazy. We have suggested that these might usefully be reconfigured in terms of challenge and connection, but in doing so we are pointing to the importance of further research in this area.

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3 Policy Implications
3. 1 General Observations

We have pointed to two overlapping but theoretically distinct approaches to understanding 'citizenship': as derived from a person's relationship to the state; and as a description or expression of people's activity in their wider communities. Active citizenship, we have argued, refers chiefly to the latter. It emphasises the active, creative, dimensions of citizenship. However, we have also argued that active citizenship is irredeemably about expressing citizens' responsibility to others: it is more than mere activity - it has an essentially ethical character.

Active citizenship may be manifested in participation in formal political activity in democratic institutions - political parties, elected bodies, and so forth. However, there are many other ways in which people engage in active citizenship in their communities. Examining activity across four domains - in politics as traditionally conceived, at work, in civil society, and in the private domain - we have pointed to the wide range of contexts in which people are active citizens.

Though we argue that the distinction between two approaches to citizenship (see above) is important - not least because it implies that citizenship has an existence beyond what is legally or officially sanctioned, and is constantly being reshaped by citizens themselves -they are overlapping categories. Many of the practices which we describe as active citizenship are also likely to be officially described and sanctioned as legitimate forms of citizenship, and relate to the rights and responsibilities prescribed for citizens of the state.

We have shown that active citizenship is learned, through a variety of processes and in a range of contexts, and that informal processes, rather than formal or non-formal education, are of pre-eminent importance. In other words, forms of active citizenship - whether of officially-encouraged forms or otherwise - are not principally developed in ways which can be closely prescribed or planned. Learning takes place organically, largely in settings which exist willy-nilly. Some of the settings are, of course, the product of state action, or otherwise officially sanctioned; some are independently created by citizens themselves, or by institutions or organisations relatively independent of the state. Some are both.

The research has also demonstrated that citizenship learning spreads: what people learn in one setting, or through one type of activity, is often transferable in some way to other settings. The importance of this is that people's learning in settings created autonomously by active citizens (that is, not directly sanctioned by the state as part of a citizen's rights and duties) is also important in relation to their learning of formally-endorsed forms of citizenship. But we insist that learning of active citizenship is not simply a matter of transferable skills or competencies: it is also, and indeed more importantly, a matter of learning responsibility and identity. These are transferable, but not in an ethically neutral way. In other words, active citizens' learning constrains and shapes not only the technical skills they can deploy, but also such questions as what they think are important issues to be tackled, how this should be done, and the people to whom they relate - as allies or adversaries - in doing so.

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The emergence in recent years of new attempts by states to make their activities more legitimate and responsive to citizens' needs and demands, particularly through introducing new forms of 'governance', is particularly salient here. The forms of participation encouraged by these forms of governance are intended to 'fit' more closely with patterns of activity which are, so to say, native to today's citizens. To the extent they do so, we believe citizens will be able to transfer their learning more readily into the practices involved with these new forms of governance. (The converse view is also possible: that new forms of governance will channel citizenship activity and learning - an argument implicit in Rose (1999a, 1999b).)

The clear implication of this is that national and local governments, and the European Union, should create vehicles for citizens' participation which recognise and value the concerns and practices of active citizens. To the extent they do so, they are likely to lead to wider and more sustained popular participation. If they fail to do so, active citizens' learning will be discounted, and their alienation from state-sponsored forms of governance is likely to grow.

3. 2 State Domain

(a) Formal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found that, in some countries, there are courses in formal education which attempt to transfer knowledge about the political domain. We believe this is probably worth doing, but we found no evidence that it has a significant impact. We recommend, with respect to active citizenship skills, that European governments and educational institutions should examine experience in the USA of service learning in both high schools and higher education, and of courses in citizenship (cf, e.g., Kenny 2002).

Many higher education students in Europe are involved in international exchange programmes. We found evidence that such programmes had been influential. We recommend to the European Union and to national governments that much more could be undertaken in this area, including extending the practice learning element in European exchange programmes (such as Socrates, Erasmus, Lingua).

Attitudes and Values. We found that, within formal education, extra-curricular activities and opportunities to participate in school decision-making are important in developing attitudes of active citizenship. This parallels findings in the USA, that a child's involvement in school government, and in school clubs and extra-curricular activities, are much stronger predictors of civic participation and political activity in later life than how far the school encouraged political debate or permitted complaints (Verba etal. 1995, pp. 422-426). (But 'athletic participation [at school] is negatively related to subsequent political involvement' (Verba, Schlozman & Brady 1995, p. 426.) Extra-curricular participation adds to knowledge, but we suggest it is the learning of attitudes and values which make it especially important. We recommend that educational institutions within the formal sector, particularly schools, should be encouraged, and adequately resourced, to strengthen their range of extra-curricular activities. We also recommend that the legal framework within which educational institutions operate should provide opportunities for students to partake meaningfully in their governance.

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We found evidence in the literature, reported in an earlier report (etgace 2000, esp. p. 204), that there has been a shift in secondary education toward active learning or 'creative' methods - group work, individual assignments, and so forth. This seems to sit well with the conclusions from our focus groups (ETGACE 2001b, p. 212) that adult education generally stimulates active learning. This tendency seems a positive one. We recommend that consideration be given to strengthening the active learning element in school, and higher education, curricula.

(b) Non-formal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found evidence that the provision of public information by the European Union is often not very effective (e.g., in Finland, Slovenia and the Netherlands), and that it is sometimes even mistrusted (e.g., in Slovenia, where there is a long tradition of state manipulation of information). We recommend that the EU, and its member states, particularly those in the former Soviet bloc, should review their approaches to public information. We also recommend that the EU should collaborate more closely with ngos to make better use of active learning methods in its information strategies. We are aware of good practice in health education and Netherlands agricultural extension. (Röling, Kuiper & Janmaat 1994; see also etgace 2000, ch. 5)

Attitudes and Values. We found that traditional fora for public debate, linked to traditional parties and institutions with an ideological background, are losing legitimacy and effectiveness. There is a need for new, more open, formats for public debate organised by independent institutions. We recommend further experimentation with new and innovative methods of open political debate. One example is experimentation in the use of the internet for public debate.

(c) Informal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found that, in the political domain, active citizens must commit themselves to long political careers, typically starting in small committees, and moving slowly to elected positions at local, and perhaps national, level. They must develop sophisticated knowledge and skills in order to succeed. We recommend consideration be given to introducing mentorship schemes for talented people at all levels within political parties and related groups. However, we acknowledge that there may be serious issues and tensions relating to patronage, and regard must be given both to these and to issues of equity and social exclusion.

Attitudes and Values. We found that political parties can seem to have a highly competitive culture. Several of our active citizens, having to be active in political parties, shied away because of this. We recommend that parties should consider how they can strengthen their internal cultures to motivate, stimulate and support new and inexperienced members, and for members who relocate from one locality to another. The growing literature on motivating volunteers, and the organisation of voluntary organisation, is instructive (e.g., Ellis 1996; Elsdon, Reynolds & Stewart 1995; Fischer & Cole 1993). The experience of mentorship schemes in others sectors may be helpful.

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3. 3 Work Domain

(a) Formal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found that formal education was very often the key to a career as an active citizen. This worked through three main mechanisms. Highly-educated parents tend to provide a strong political and civic socialisation for their children. Good education provides better opportunities in the labour market; higher level jobs provide a resource base (financial and time) which permits active citizenship outside the workplace. Those who hold high-level jobs also tend to develop transferable skills relevant to active citizenship. This finding parallels that of Verba etal. (1995, ch. 15). We believe that strong formal educational systems are important contributors to active citizenship. The work domain therefore functions as a key mechanism reinforcing the impact of schooling. We recommend that governments should continue to strengthen formal education systems, and work to the elimination of inequalities in educational opportunity.

Attitudes and Values. We should have expected that schools would now be offering stronger preparation for the labour market, developing entrepreneurial attitudes, and so forth. We did not find evidence for this.6 In the life histories of active citizens, some active citizens trained members of disadvantaged groups to develop these attitudes. We are aware of attempts within formal education to develop employment-related attitudes and values in higher education, including competencies typically developed through extra-curricular activities (cf Dunne, Bennett & Carré 2000). As part of a balanced curriculum, we would encourage such further developments along these lines.

(b) Non-formal Education

Knowledge and Skills. Many of our interviewees reported relevant work-related training opportunities, such as trade union and management education. These provided a range of negotiation, computing and related skills, knowledge of financial procedures, and so forth. We see this as a positive development. We recommendthat enhanced support should be available to support such training opportunities. We would encourage governments and employers to provide adequate funds and time for citizenship-related workplace education, and we would encourage governments and employers to strengthen provision of work- and non-work-related paid educational leave.

Attitudes and Values. In the literature, we found many references to learning in relation to 'spirituality' (yoga, 'neuro-linguistic programming' (NLP), etc.); in our empirical research, however - to our surprise - we found no such examples. Does this imply that 'active citizens' differ in significant ways from those people interested in 'spirituality'? Dutch research suggests that some citizens care about society, but these are different from those who focus on either their family or their personal advancement (Hortulanus, Liem & Sprinkhuizen 1993, pp. 90-92, 210-212).

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(c) Informal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We have found that trade union and similar activity contributes to the development of knowledge and skills related to active citizenship. Unions provide not only the motive to learn, but also mechanisms (union newspapers, handbooks, etc.) which support informal learning. We expected to find evidence that changing structures at the workplace -requiring greater autonomy and responsibility - had led people to develop citizenship-related knowledge and skills. However, there were rather few cases of this in our sample. We suggest, therefore, that everyday learning may be stronger in settings where there are informal structures and motivations to support learning (trade unions, workers' councils, and perhaps some teams). Although this would be a less optimistic view than taken in some of the business-oriented literature (e.g., Senge 1990, Wenger, McDermott & Snyder 2002), there is support for it in the literature on union education (Schuller & Roberston 1983). We recommend, therefore, that support be given to strengthening the organisation of trade unions and related institutions within the workplace, and to educational support related to this.

Attitudes and Values. We also found strong evidence that trade union activity supports learning of attitudes and values related to active citizenship. We also found some evidence that managerial approaches which embrace or foster a 'learning organisation' have the effect of developing community and creative attitudes. It is possible, of course, to view such developments as a new form of oppression or control - rather than genuine empowerment (cf Rose 1999a, esp. ch. 4; 1999b, esp. ch. 10). However, we believe that a bigger problem may lie not in the articulation of forms of responsible autonomy as technologies of control, but in the exclusion of people from this. Many of our interviewees did not find work a domain in which they had developed attitudes or values related to citizenship, and we believe this constitutes a real danger of exclusion. We have noticed, in relation to this, the finding that between 1986 and 1997 there was no increase in the 'autonomy enjoyed by the average British worker' - if anything they were 'more constrained' - and that 'the much-heralded post-Fordist worker, with supposedly greater flexibility in the workplace, does not appear to be exercising any greater autonomy through that flexibility' (Ashton, Felsted & Green 2000, p. 208). We recommend, therefore, that support be given to strengthening the organisation of trade unions and related institutions within the workplace.

3. 4 Civil Society Domain

(a) Formal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found that formal education is strongly associated with knowledge and skills in the civil society domain, but probably less than in the political and work domains.7 Civil society activities provide opportunities for people with poorer educational attainment to begin to build an active citizenship 'career'. We found, for example, several examples of active citizens for whom breaking into civil society activity became a route back into formal education. This was especially, but not only, true for women.

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People who were able to advance to higher education through civil society activities seemed to possess exceptional energy. Higher education opportunities were often closed, in practice if not in theory, to citizens who wished to study further in later life. For instance, student loans in the Netherlands are closed to students over 30 years of age. We recommend that education systems should provide much enhanced frameworks for progression into higher education for less well-educated men and women in mid-career. This could include, inter alia, universities' strengthening their links with civil society organisations.

Attitudes and Values. Despite a good deal of literature, we did not find strong evidence in our research that formal education plays a large role in developing attitudes and values relating to active citizenship in civil society. We suggest that the applicability of the US experience of 'service learning' should be critically examined (cf §4.3.2(a) above).

(b) Non-formal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found evidence of demand for skills training in the civil society domain, and some evidence of systems for this. Several youth work organisations (e.g., 4h, scouting) provided training in leadership. In the health and ageing-related sectors, where volunteers were quite widespread, training often seemed to be good. We also had reports of training for volunteers on various other programmes and projects. However, even in best cases, provision of training for volunteers in the civil society domain was nothing like as strong as we found in the work domain. Financial constraints may be a significant factor in this. We recommend that non-formal education in the civil society domain should be adequately resourced.

Attitudes and Values. We found that discussion groups and study circles are important in generating values of co-operation and mobilisation. We found examples in women's, environmental, and third world movements. But our evidence for this comes more from discussion with educators and organisers of these groups than through individuals' life stories. We recommend that non-formal education in the civil society domain should be adequately resourced, and should establish facilitative and supportive links with civil society organisations, while respecting the autonomy of the organisations themselves.

(c) Informal Education

Knowledge and Skills. We found, outside established civil society organisations, examples of active citizens who were successful in initiating and developing new organisations, with little support. In the process, they developed skills and knowledge which they were able to use to help other people, such as through teaching or advising other volunteers. We recommend that funding should be available to support the early development of civil society organisations, and that mechanisms should be strengthened to enable sharing of good practice between volunteers and other civil society experts.

There was some evidence that information technology can be used effectively to support informal learning in the civil society sector.

Attitudes and Values. We found the early development of civic attitudes, for example through early education and the church, is very significant. Financial support for the church, where this is constitutionally acceptable, can play an important part in strengthening civil society.

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[1] Our first and second research questions refer.

[2] This section refers to the third and fifth research question.

[3] Our sixth, seventh and eighth research questions refer.

[4] In some cases, international understanding did seem to have led to activation, but this seemed to relate to exchanges with the 'third world'.

[5] Our fourth research question refers.

[6] This may be because our sample was based on two cohorts. We planned to have no respondents under the age of 25, and even within the younger cohort the interviewees were spread widely across the 25-40 year-old range.

[7] In our data, interviewees in the political domain tended to be highly educated; those in the civil society domain rather less well. This may, of course, be accident of the sample.

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