Scientific Description of the Project
| Author | European Union Publications Office, 2006 |
| Pages | 21-84 |
Scientific Description of the Project
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At its simplest, the etgace research can be seen as having incorporated four main phases. We began by reviewing key areas of literature in each country, and at the European level. Then came the two principal empirical phases, each linked to a specific method of inquiry. First, we undertook life history interviews with a sample of individual active citizens in six countries; each individual was interviewed twice, at considerable length. Next, we organised a series of focus groups of citizenship and governance education experts in each country. Separate, and substantial, research reports were submitted relating to the literature review and each of the two empirical phases (etgace 2000, 2001a, 2001b). Finally, we undertook various activities intended to analyse the research and make the findings accessible and relevant to professionals, practitioners and policy-makers. Issues of method related to the two principal empirical phases are discussed in the relevant sections below, and need not detain us here. However, it is important at this stage to draw attention to three overarching themes in our approach.
It was clear from the literature, as it became clear in our research, that key notions such as 'active citizenship' and 'governance' are highly contested. One of the advantages of conducting research across a range of European countries was, we believed, the opportunity to investigate the range of meanings and practices attached to such notions. We also believed that the contexts within which citizenship is practised, and the challenges citizens face, are changing fast. One of the challenges we faced was to capture something of the range and diversity of these practices and challenges.
In order to achieve this, we designed the project with a participatory orientation throughout, trying to establish strong links with 'policy-makers, professionals and other end-users' (etgace 1999b, p. 9). A key mechanism for achieving this were advisory panels, established in each country. These comprised about ten members each, with a range of expertise designed to provide links with a range of established, changing and new arenas of citizenship practice, as well as with key areas of policy-making and professional practice (see Table 3.1). These met periodically throughout the project. As anticipated, membership varied slightly with national conditions and individual expertise. A broadly equal gender balance was achieved in all countries; certain other features of importance were also taken into account (e.g., in Spain, a gypsy woman was included).
Except in Slovenia, the advisory panels met on at least five occasions in each country.1
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Panel members in all countries were experts, with busy agendas, and some difficulty was experienced with attendance.2
Table 3.1 Indicative Categories and Membership of Advisory Panels
| Indicative Category of Expertise | Indicative number of members |
| national & local government policy-making (education & other) | 2 |
| adult and school education; industrial and commercial training | 2 |
| media; ‘new learning professions’, e.g. management consultancy | 2 |
| not-for-profit organisations; social movements; welfare agencies; churches | 2 |
| employers; trade unions | 2 |
In our original plan, the advisory panels were seen as having 'a central role in project design' (etgace 1999b, p. 9). In practice, although important, this was to overstate their role. They proved to be invaluable in supporting both the implementation of the research, and in relation to dissemination. Advisory panel members also debated our ideas with us, and provided both support and critique. They did not, however, play a major role in shaping or designing the research. This was for pragmatic reasons: by the time panel members were appointed and met, the project design had been completed and endorsed in contractual form with the European Commission. The contract specified in some detail not only the methods to be used (including numbers of interviews, categories of interviewees, etc.), but also a schedule of 'deliverables' (reports, conferences, workshops and so forth). The scope for reshaping the project design was closely circumscribed. So although some advisory panel members made criticisms of aspects of the research design, and/or proposed other approaches, in practice such critique could be accommodated only at the margins.
The panels were, however, able to make key contributions in various areas of project implementation, and in interpretation. They helped project teams to identify 'active citizens' and 'experts' for the life history interview and focus group phases of research (working within the framework described below). In so doing, their interpretations were incorporated in operationalisations of the core project concepts and methodology. They heard and discussed reports on the project, its activities and its findings, contributing formative critique. Our interpretation of the evidence, and our perspectives, have undoubtedly been influenced by these discussions.
Apart from the advisory panels, we sought to strengthen our participatory orientation in other ways. Our interviews and focus groups provided opportunities for active citizens and experts to contribute to our perspectives. The focus groups were particularly effective in this respect. We undertook two 'network audits' in each country, designed to provide indicative 'maps' of citizenship activity and citizenship learning. We organised a number of 'dissemination' events (workshops and conferences), and these proved valuable not only in dissemination, but also in advancing our understanding and analysis. We issued a version of our findings in a 'user-friendly' guide, and we prepared a learning package for use by active citizens and citizenship educators.
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Although not in the narrow sense a project in 'comparative education', the international comparative dimension was central to the project. We studied a cross-section of six European countries (five EU member states plus the Republic of Slovenia). The countries were selected to provide an illuminating cross section of European states in terms of geographical and demographic size, economic and industrial structure, political and cultural institutions and history, and period of membership of the European Union and Communities. This was designed to permit cross-cultural analysis of citizenship and governance learning in relation to political, economic and social power.
A number of (chiefly quantitative) social and political indicators showed that the selected countries provide an appropriate range of contrast, both historical and contemporary. The list in Table 3.2 indicates the main indicators consulted. For illustrative purposes, the countries are described for each stated criterion as 'high' (h), 'medium' (m) or 'low' (l), based broadly on the EU average, where available.
Table 3.2 Comparative Indicators of Countries Studied
| Feature | B | E | NL | FIN | UK | SI | Notes |
| Date of accession to EU (or predecessors) | 1958 | 1986 | 1958 | 1995 | 1973 | - | |
| Length of continuous democratic govt | H | M | H | H | H | L | L: less than 10 yrs; M: 10-30 yrs; H: >30 yrs |
| Population | M | H | M | L | H | L | L: H: >35 millions |
| Population density | H | M | H | L | H | M | L: H: > 200 per km2 |
| GDP per capita | H | L | H | M | M | L | L: H:>€18,000 |
| Industry as per cent of total employment | M | M | L | L | M | H | L: 40% |
| Main religious affiliations | P/C | C | P/C | P | P/C | C | P: Protestant; C: Catholic |
The countries studied thus provided data about a range of political, social and cultural contexts, with distinct - though in some cases inter-related - histories, traditions and institutions. In the event, this diversity was to prove important and illuminating.
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At the outset of the project we undertook a review of the literature. This had a dual purpose. It was intended to provide a broad contextualisation for the research. However, more specifically, it also addressed two of our research questions:
* How are practices and concepts of "active citizenship" and "governance" being reshaped in the current context of social transformation, such as "Europeanisation", globalisation and individualisation? (The first question.)
* What approaches to education for active citizenship and governance have been advocated in literature at various levels of governance? What have been the prime modes of intervention (formal, non-formal, informal), and what have been their effect on different individuals and sectors in society? How far have these addressed citizenship and governance as gendered notions? (The sixth question.)3
Underpinning our research, or providing a backdrop to it, lies the notion of globalisation. For our purposes, globalisation - a much debated term - refers to internationalisation of society, in which all kinds of human relations transcend national borders: not only traded goods and services, but also information, ideas, cultural relationships - the worldwide diffusion of cultural products, lifestyles and consumption patterns. Central features of many discussions of globalisation include the dynamic of internationalisation, which takes a particular form in the European context, the weakening of the nation-state, and the future of democracy (Goldman 1998, cf Delanty 2000). Globalisation challenges contemporary citizenship, blurring the boundaries, both material and psychological, which defined citizenship in modernity (Faulks 2000). A key issue is how globalisation affects social relations and institutions. Castells (1996, p. 470) argues that a central mechanism in social, economic and political dynamic of globalisation is the 'network', comprising a 'set of interconnected nodes'.
Such global networks challenge nation-state based social and economic policies. They provide conditions for new forms of global social relations. The primacy of information increases the purely cultural dimension of social interaction. These networks - our social environments - become our 'natural' habitat, offering new challenges and opportunities which we have (to learn) to deal with as citizens.
An important qualification to early discussions has been the appreciation that globalisation is not just the inexorable advance of worldwide forces, but reaction to these by local and particular actors. Robertson (1992) refers to the 'universalization of particularism and the particularization of universalism' (p. 102). Whether, following Robertson, we regard 'gestures of opposition, ... anti-global gestures [as] encapsulated in the discourse of globalization' (p. 10), or as conceptually distinct, the importance of the global-local dialectic is unavoidable. In our research, we came upon many examples of such 'gestures'.
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Many discussions link globalisation to other radical shifts in social relationships, seeing these as constituting together a transition to 'late-' or 'post-modernity'. For our purposes, several transformations are of note: from one national, social body to a whole range of small sites with their own 'stories'; from an industrial to a post-industrial or informational mode of production; and from a classical welfare state to political power based on participation and diversity (cf e.g. Dekeyser 2001; Usher, Bryant, and Johnston 1997). Postmodernity also implies a loss of general frameworks: of 'meta-narratives' about progress and emancipation linked to ideology and technology, for example (Lyotard 1984). In postmodern conditions, in the global network society, concepts of individualisation and risk have particular salience (Turner 1993). Individualisation can have several different meanings. Some see it as a social development in which people increasingly act out of self-interest. For others, it is a process of emancipation, allowing individuals to express much more their own unique emotions and values. In broad terms, we follow Beck (1992) who defines individualisation as a sociological process comprising three elements. There is a liberating dimension, which refers to a process of disembedding, of removal from historically-prescribed social forms and commitments, from traditional contexts of dominance and support. Second, there is a dimension of disenchantment, involving the loss of traditional security in relation to practical knowledge, faith and guiding norms; this tends to erode stability. Third, there is a dimension of re-integration, in which individualisation becomes a re-embedding, producing new forms of social commitment.
Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992) have suggested that the period we are entering, high modernity or risk society, is characterised not only by globalisation but by de-traditionalisation and amplification of risk. In relation to citizenship, Faulks (2000) mentions such risks as migration, international crime, nuclear power, environmental problems, and ecological damage. Growing global risk has huge implications for the role of nation-state, governance and citizenship: such concepts as global citizenship and global civil society are relevant, and will be discussed below.
The institutions of the European Union provide, of course, a regional framework in which globalisation is manifested; but they also represent an attempt to 'manage' globalisation, individualisation and risk. This has implications in the economic frame (e.g., the Euro and the constraints it places on national economic policies), as well as politically - European Citizenship, expansion to the east and south, questions of European identity, tensions between eu institutions and member states. (Bellamy & Warleigh 2001; Holmes and Murray 1999; Preuss et al. 2003; Schuster & Solomos 2002).
What is citizenship? Why does it matter? The literature on citizenship, already substantial, has grown markedly in recent years. Diverse understandings and perspectives have emerged across a range of disciplines (Kazepov et al. 1997) from constitutional law to sociology, as well as historically (Crick 2000) and geographically. With so contested a concept, the quest for an '"essential" or universally true meaning' is bound to be vain (Crick 2000, p. 1), and a general caveat is worth making. Citizenship is both a descriptive and a normative concept: it can describe who is a citizen, what citizens do, and so forth; it can also define, or seek toPage 27 define, what they should do. Much of the literature involves some conflation of the two. Two further points deserve slightly more elaboration.
First, lurking behind many if not all uses of 'citizenship' is the assumption that it refers to membership of a community, and to the nature of the relationship between the members of this community and those who govern them: a 'particular bond' between the people and the state (Poggi 1990, p. 28). It was in this context that Marshall developed his classic sociological account of citizenship. Marshall distinguished three elements of citizenship: the civil element, comprising the rights required for individual freedom; the political element, 'the right to participate in the exercise of political power' through membership of a political body, or through electing them. The third element, the social, comprised 'the whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the society' (Marshall 1950, p. 11).
Second, citizenship can also be seen as 'a set of practices (cultural, symbolic and economic)' (Isin & Wood 1999, p. 4) - as inherent in the activity of citizens, in what they do. On this approach, it is closely linked to notions such as role and identity. Citizenship practices occur, and gain their meaning, within group or collective contexts; together, they establish or define an individual's membership of some kind of community.
In an important sense, therefore, citizenship is constructed actively by people - and it is this dimension we wish to emphasise. However, we do not see active citizenship simply as descriptive of what people do. Active citizenship is not any form of activity. It has an ethical dimension. We argue that active citizenship involves the act of taking responsibility for others, typically beyond what is strictly required - for example, by legal or contractual duty.4
The assertion of a primary location for citizenship practices - the political realm in the nation state - is no doubt an inevitable and natural claim from the state's point of view, but historically now appears a 'special case'. With the social, economic and cultural pressures of late modernity, more diverse practices, groupings and identities have become salient: Turner (1990) has drawn attention to the increasing fragmentation or plurality of citizenship . We have tried to operationalise our view that citizenship should be thought of in terms of communities of gender, lifestyle, consumption, occupation, and so forth.
The starting point for our consideration of governance was the increasing use of the term in European and national contexts. In a European context, the term came into greater use during the 1990s, and referred in particular to the attempt to reshape the institutions of the European Union to address problems of growing distance between the European project - as represented in the major institutions of the EU, such as the Commission and the European Parliament - and the citizens of the various EU member states. We find this in the work of the European Commission's Forward Planning Unit during the late 1990s (Lebessis & Paterson 1997).
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New modes of governance were seen as having 'potential' for providing alternative forms of 'accountability' and 'representation'. This line of thinking was taken up by Romano Prodi:
Europe needs a new division of labour - a new, more democratic form of partnership - between civil society and the other actors involved in governance. ... It means EU institutions, national governments, regional and local authorities and civil society interacting in new ways: consulting one another on a whole range of issues; shaping, implementing and monitoring policy together. It means citizens having a greater say at all levels.
But if civil society is to play an effective part in European governance, we have to ensure that European policy initiatives are debated in Europe-wide fora. The media must be involved, obviously, but also trade unions, business associations, churches and all the various non-governmental groupings which make up civil society. (Prodi 2000)
This line of thinking was taken forward into the White Paper on European Governance (CEC 2001):
Today, political leaders throughout Europe are facing a real paradox. On the one hand , Europeans want them to find solutions to the major problems confronting our societies. On the other hand, people increasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them. ... Democratic institutions and the representatives of the people, at both national and European levels, can and must try to connect Europe with its citizens. This is the starting condition for more effective and relevant policies. ... The White Paper proposes opening up the policy-making process to get more people and organisations involved in shaping and delivering European policy. (CEC 2001, Executive Summary)
'Government' and 'governance', therefore, have come to refer to different views of the relationship between the state and its citizens. From a 'government' perspective, the relations are seen in formal, constitutional terms, while 'governance' implies more complex and dynamic relationships. In contrast to the narrower term government, governance covers the whole range of institutions and relationships involved in the process of governing. It links the government with its environment (Pierre and Peters, 2000). Ansell (2000, p. 14) characterises the new forms of governance as a 'networked-polity'. While these concerns took on a specific form in the EU context, many national governments have faced parallel problems about 'democratic deficit'.
The etgace research investigated governance processes in four different domains.5 Each can be seen as a system, a loose network of interconnections, which fulfils particular functions for the state. In each of these, particular concerns arise - which can be articulated through key theoretical contributions. In the state domain, for example, neo-republicans worry that declining interest in politics, exemplified in declining electoral turn-out and political party membership, presages a collapse of politics and democracy (Van Gunsteren, 1992). They advocate strategies to raise citizens' interest in representative democracy as well as strategies to introduce new forms of direct democracy, such as public consultations and collaboration with social movements. In the work domain, neo-liberals define citizenship in terms of individuals' duty to participate in the labour market. They worry about declining motivationPage 29 to work, and address policy and organisational measures to make citizens face up to a fundamental duty.
The need for a strong civil society, long taken for granted, has recently been seen as essential to democracy (Walzer 1983). Voluntarism and philanthropy are seen as indispensable partners of the welfare state. Here and in the private domain, communitarians (Etzioni, 1997) fear in particular the collapse of the local community and the family as socialising institutions, and urge citizens to take up their duties to care for others. Another source of growing interest in the private domain has been the feminist movement and its emphasis on the unequal, or just different, roles of men and women.
Recent literature has explored the notion of 'social capital': 'connections among individuals -social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them' (Putnam 2000, p. 19). Drawing on the work of Bourdieu (1997) and Coleman (1997), Putnam has argued that social capital is critical to the effectiveness of civil society and democracy (Putnam et al. 1993), and that declining levels of civic participation in the USA in recent decades have damaged social capital (Putnam 2000). Social capital has been linked to participation in learning, and other features of social life (Field and Spence 2000; Field & Schuller 2000; Schuller & Burns 1999; Baron, Field & Schuller 2001). The key feature for our purposes is its emphasis on the symbiotic relationship between networks and trust in society, social participation, forms of citizenship activity, and participation in governance.
The Study Group Report Accomplishing Europe through Education and Training argued that education plays an important part in the promotion of active citizenship. ... Citizenship education does already exist in most member states: but under different names and for different purposes, for different amounts of time and for different ages and pupil groups - and the European dimension of citizenship is very underdeveloped, which is not surprising, given that European citizenship is an ambiguous, contradictory conceptual space. (CEC 1997, p. 54)
The 'learning society' approach (e.g., CEC 1995) has highlighted the role of informal and non-formal learning contexts. Following the work of Marsick and Watkins (1990), the importance of 'informal and incidental' learning for vocational capability has been explored, and underpins the outcomes-based or competency approach to assessing learning. However, little attention has been paid to informal and incidental learning of attitudes, values and skills relevant to citizenship, governance and forms of social regulation. 'Democratic, socially integrated and active citizens are not born, but are created (reproduced) in a socialisation process. ... [D]emocracy has to be learned and needs to be maintained' (Veldhuis 1997, p. 8). Yet the tendency is still to see citizenship education in formal terms.
The premise of the etgace research was that the attitudes, skills and behavioural patterns which equip people to participate actively as citizens, and to conduct tasks of governance and social and economic regulation, are not learned simply - nor even primarily - through formal or targeted educational provision. Rather, they are constructed - learned incidentally - in socio-institutional and cultural processes.
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In order to provide analytical purchase on interventions to provide or encourage learning, we adopted Coombs' distinction between formal, non-formal and informal education (Coombs 1985; Coombs & Ahmad 1974).6 While formal and non-formal education refer to processes and institutions normally termed 'education', Coombs uses the term 'informal education' to refer to:
The life-long process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills, attitudes and insights from daily experience and exposure to the environment - at home, at work, at play; from the example and attitudes of family and friends; from travel, reading newspapers and books; or by listening to the radio or viewing films or television. Generally, informal education is unorganized, unsystematic and even unintentional at times, yet it accounts for the great bulk of any person's total lifetime learning - including that of a highly 'schooled' person. (Coombs and Ahmad 1974, p. 8)
The term 'informal education' is therefore similar to more recent terms such as 'incidental learning'. Insofar as it is the product of interventions by governments or organisations, these are typically interventions designed principally for non-educational purposes.7
Following Illeris (2002, pp. 13-21) we define learning here generally as all processes that lead to relatively lasting changes of capacity whether it be of a motor, cognitive, emotional, motivational, attitudinal or social character. Illeris focuses particularly on three dimensions of learning:
Firstly all learning has a content of skill or meaning. The acquisition of this content is primarily a cognitive process .... Secondly, all learning is simultaneously an emotional process ... a process involving psychological energy, transmitted by feelings, emotions, attitudes and motivations .... Thirdly, learning is also a social process taking place in the interaction between the individual and its surroundings, and thus in the final analysis a process dependent on historical and societal conditions. (Illeris, 2002, p. 18)
Although all three dimensions are relevant in the etgace research, we tend to focus on the third, social, dimension of learning. We follow particularly the theoretical model that Hurrelmann (1988) formulated for social learning, which describes the individual as 'a productive processor of reality':
The interactions between person and social environment are conceived as reciprocal relations. Approaches advocating a purely social determination ofPage 31 personality development are regarded as being just as obsolete as those that propose an organic and psychological maturation determined by natural laws. Instead, children, adolescents, and adults are regarded as productively processing and managing external and internal reality and actively establishing and shaping relations with the societal and material environment. The concepts of education and development are applied to the entire life span and represent the lifelong process of the individual's interaction with his or her living conditions. (Hurrelmann 1988, pp. vii-viii)
Social learning in relation to citizenship is taken in this project to have three aspects: effectivity or effectiveness, responsibility and identity (see §§2 above and 3.3 below).
In recent years, a substantial body of literature has emphasised the situated, contextual nature of learning. We find this most strongly in notions such as the learning society, the learning economy and the learning organisation. Although there are various approaches, the commonalities are marked. In one of the most influential works, Lave and Wenger (1991) emphasise the role of the learner as 'practitioner' whose 'situated learning activity' occurs within a 'community of practice'. Knowledge (or 'knowing') is located in the relations between practitioners (learners), and in the 'social organisation and political economy of communities of practice' (Lave and Wenger 1991, p. 122). Whether consciously or accidentally, those who constitute a community of practice are organised in relations of power: these structure access, framing of issues, understandings of what is and what is not legitimate knowledge and appropriate behaviour, and so forth. This point can be cast in the language of social theorists such as Bourdieu or Foucault (Bourdieu 1991; Bourdieu & Passeron 1977; Foucault 1972; cf Gore 1993; Usher, Bryant, & Johnston 1997): the important issue is that the social organisation of the communities within which people learn shape how and what they learn. This consideration has been of central importance in our thinking about issues of power and exclusion in citizenship learning; and in particular in our investigation of the 'gender dimension' within our empirical work.
Finally, in the title of the project, we referred to 'education and training'. The meaning of these two terms has, of course, been long debated - at its simplest, training has been linked merely to the transfer or development of skills and knowledge, while education has been seen as a deeper, more ethical, concept - affecting values, identity, meaning (Peters 1966; Peters 1967). We rapidly came to the conclusion that the learning of citizenship is unavoidably ethical: even 'training' courses relevant to citizenship and governance have ethical implications. Mainly for this reason - though partly also because it allowed us to set aside the complexities of different national understandings of the education/training dichotomy - we dispensed with any attempt to use the term 'training' to describe a distinct category.
Our research has focussed not on citizens and citizenship per se, but on 'active citizens' and 'active citizenship'. Attaching adjectives to citizenship - 'good', 'responsible', 'active' -has a long history, and our use of 'active citizenship' in part reflects recent EU concerns, but it has a wider provenance. Crick argues that active citizens are 'willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life', have 'the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting', take part 'in volunteering and public service', and have the individual confidence to find 'new forms' of activity (Crick 2000, pp. 2-3). There are rightist and leftist interpretations. To the right, an citizen becomes active by engaging in voluntary community work, making charitable donations, and so forth: activity is biased toward the responsibilities of a citizen. On the left, the active citizen is involved in constructing and regenerating civil society: there is an emphasis on the citizen's exercise of rights. It should be mentioned, however, that advocates of the 'third way', including many from the centre-left, tend to take a 'communitarian' position, and to emphasise responsibilities as well as rights. (Deem et al. 1995, Evans 1998, Heater 1990, Heywood 2000)
The notion that people play an active part in their own learning is well-established within the literature of adult education (e.g., Freire 1972, 1996; Jarvis 1987; Taylor 1993). People's active engagement is not only an advantage in enabling them to learn more effectively (Knowles 1980), but also means they play a part in constituting the knowledge which they learn (Lave & Wenger 1991).
The sixth ETGACE research question asked, inter alia, 'What approaches to education and training for active citizenship and governance have been advocated in the literature at various levels of governance?' Detailed evidence on this question was provided in an earlier report (ETGACE 2000); we have space only for a brief summary here.
Within the formal systems of education, several countries have seen a desire in recent years to strengthen learner autonomy. School students should 'think for themselves'; the emphasis should be on generic, 'transferable' reasoning and analytical skills, rather than on the accumulation of specific forms of knowledge. Thus Rinne et al. (1999) suggest that the model citizen in official Finnish educational discourse is an active and ethical learner, capable of continuing and varying self-evaluation. In Spain, Cortina (1995) argues that the most effective antidote to tyranny is active 'personalism', responsible participation, and solidarity, while Sánchez Ferrer (1996) suggests citizens must, inter alia, be capable of making political judgements and participating politically. In Belgium, educational aims for pupils aged 14-18 emphasises that schools should pursue 'political formation, citizenship, tolerance, solidarity, self-reliance, autonomy and responsibility' (Vanderpoorten 2000, p. 30). This is, of course, always influenced by other debates. For example, in Britain it moves in parallel - and some tension - with concerns to increase the degree of central direction of the curriculum, with a strong reaction against 'student-centred' learning methods, and with an emphasis on making schools more accountable to their 'stakeholders' (principally, parents and business). In Slovenia, the changing role of the Catholic Church in education overlays and influences the debate (Kerevan 1997; Stres 1999). The way in which learner autonomy is reflected in practice is, therefore, always shaped by the nature of other national concerns. A developing concern with formal teaching about civics or citizenship is also noticeable in several countries.
Beyond the formal system, the picture is far more patchy. We found reports of a good measure of non-formal education related to citizenship. In the Netherlands, for instance, Klandermans and Seydel (1996) discussed public information on topics such as the environment, health and crime, while Heyman explored how far such provision is educational (van Gent & Katus 1995). Public information programmes are a feature in all countries. Community development and community education are also quite widespread, often associated with voluntary and social movements of various kinds - trade unions, churches, and various NGOs. In Belgium, for instance, the role of the socio-cultural sector in activePage 33 citizenship and governance education is explicitly endorsed, and current issues - exclusion, poverty, migration, etc. - are being explored (Anciaux 2000, pp. 68-74). Some of the organisations had long traditions of work in this area, so that - more than in formal education - the nature of national provision of non-formal citizenship education is relatively strongly shaped by non-governmental influences.
Understandings of the role of informal citizenship education appear to be quite diverse. We found work as diverse as broadcasting and the media, the activities of social movements, the influence of trade unions, and the role of such organisations as schools councils and parent-teacher associations. The overall picture was of increasing concern with citizenship education, but relatively diverse interpretations of what might be understood by this term.
The ETGACE research started with the hypothesis that concepts of citizenship and governance are gendered - that the way men and women learn what is valued in terms of active citizenship and participation in decision-making determines their identity as citizens, their perceived entitlements as members of a given society and their perceived role within society. In this respect, the research aimed to interpret gender issues broadly, to explore diversity rather than impose an essentialist dichotomy between men and women. The focus of our approach specifically relates to the marginalisation of women - so often relegated to the private sphere, their voices unheard - with recommendations for how that marginality can be addressed for a future European notion of active citizenship.
The following brief overview of recent literature on gender, citizenship and governance argues for a pluralistic, ethical dimension to learning active citizenship - one that requires new values, and expectations so people will learn how to value women and other marginalised groups differently.
(a) A Gender-sensitive Active Citizenship Agenda
The notion of 'citizen' is both a status within European law and an ideology of social practice (Lutz 1997, p.93). The feminist critique claims that the concepts of'citizenship' and 'active citizenship' have been presented as universalist - yet distinctly male and predicated on an idealist notion of the white, European, middle class, able bodied man. But the meaning and status of female citizens in European nation states varies (Siim, 2000; Hobson 2000).
The most commonly cited way in which women are excluded from the public world of citizenship is through the duty of motherhood - specifically, the procreation of tomorrow's citizens. The private world of motherhood itself is not regarded as a (public) citizenship activity. From this private/public divide emerges a range of discourses that are associated with valued masculine characteristics (reason, disinterest, impartiality, independence) and less-valued, female characteristics (emotion, interest, partiality, dependence) - the more personal values required for caring and motherhood. Difference has 'merely private significance' (James 1992, p. 51). More recent attempts to incorporate women within citizenship mean women are often targeted in public policy as a unitary whole - yet these measures of inclusion often benefit only the affluent (McRobbie 2000).
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Alongside this Sawer (1996) points to an association across Europe of state 'public' care with the 'feminine'. 'Care' is seen as weak and not stimulating individuality. The new ethical purpose of the state is construed as protecting personal freedom through reducing its care role. This protects the 'haves' from the 'have-nots,' and assumes dependence and reliance on the state are incompatible with citizen autonomy. This notion of self reliance, she argues, conceals the interdependence of the family, and by implication the relationship between family activity and citizenship rights and responsibilities.
(b) Recognising Women-friendly Active Citizenship?
There appear to be two issues at stake here: a need to empower women to act with equal status across society, and a need to recognise women-focussed activities as having equal status with citizen roles more commonly associated with men (or the non-marginalised). Siim's (2000) four models of feminist positions on new citizenship provide a framework for analysing prospects for change. We focus on her last two positions: the pluralist participatory model and the postmodern challenge.
The pluralistic participatory model aims to democratise both family and public spheres whilst accepting differences between private and public politics. Lister (1997) suggests that much of women's political activity is prominent locally rather than nationally. She argues that neighbourhood action should be seen as active citizenship, and that political activity in pursuit of women's issues should be located in formal democratic structures. Moreover women and minorities should not simply be seen as responsible for women's or minority issues. A pluralist notion - of equal citizenship rights and responsibilities but also highlighting issues of marginalisation - is an ideal, but how this will be achieved within present power imbalances remains unclear.
The postmodern challenge is for a strategic construction of difference. This enables us more directly to embrace activities that challenge existing power relations. Yuval Davis (1997) suggests that including the private (family) sphere in the state and civil domains will influence systems of welfare, power and political organisation. Flax (1992) argues that even the discourse of 'equality' needs to change - for example, that the term 'justice' (p. 194) is more appropriate, signifying the need to question and analyse relationships and behaviour which have created power imbalances. Fundamental behavioural change is needed.
Prokhovnik (1998) proposes a re-definition of the public/private distinction, to recognise citizenship practice in the private realm and a diversity of citizenship practices. In this respect she differs from Lister but claims feminist citizenship needs to take account of what citizenship means to differently situated women (p. 96). In doing so, she also claims space for opening up new definitions of masculinities and citizenship, encouraging men to deconstruct their own gendered practices.
(c) Governance
From a gender perspective the issue of who governs citizens and what mechanisms of governance are in place has a direct impact on women in terms of representation, voice and methodology - and what kinds of space women are given in which to act as individual or collective citizens. Terms such as 'dialogue' and 'partnership' are irrelevant for marginalised groups if institutional systems and practices do not create opportunities for their voices to bePage 35 heard. The gendered nature of institutional management, and women's struggles have to work within or change them, or to create alternative modes of organisation, are articulated by writers such as Meyer and Prugle (1999) and Bown (1999).
(d) Future Citizenship Education
Davies (2000, p. 281) points out that the school system itself rarely provides its pupils (male or female) with an opportunity to experience democracy. Even more rarely does it encourage a gender critique of governance. A new emphasis for learning about citizenship is proposed. Snick & De Munter (1999) call this an ethical social practice, acknowledging power differentials. An ethical education for citizenship would allow the voices of different groups to be heard, encouraging a pedagogical approach which explores a wide range of perspectives. While it can be argued that education systems claim to do this already, the indications are that this is within a liberal, rather than postmodern, framework.
We wish here only to indicate the broad traditions and perspectives which surround the methodological choices we made. We begin with some broad views on qualitative research; we then turn to the specific choices we made in relation to our life history and focus group methods.
(a) Traditions in Qualitative Research
We see three main epistemological traditions in qualitative research. The radical hermeneutic position, a philosophical tradition, develops insights about how people make sense of, or give meaning to, the world with the help of dialogue and discourse (Dilthey 1976). Habermas (1976, 1984) and Ricoeur (1979), strengthen Dilthey's distinction by noting that in the human sciences the subject of investigation and the investigator are interlinked in a communicative way. Empirical research is ultimately a discourse on the meaning of action.
Beyond hermeneutics we find, secondly, a tradition that agrees on objectivity as an ultimate goal, but stresses that in practice our best hope is inter-subjectivity. There are different views of methodological inter-subjectivity (Smaling 1992). Consensus is a common one, recognisable in methodological ideas such as inter-subjective verifiability, conformability, testability, repeatability, reliability, or reproducibility; inter-observer agreement and reliability. Others include inter-subjectivity by regimentation and by explicitness: these focus on the research process. Regimentation refers to the regulation needed to ensure replicability, controllability, correctability and criticisability. This is closely related to the second traditional requirement, to be as explicit as possible about research design, specific procedures used, and interpretation strategy.
A third tradition in qualitative research rejects a strict division between quantitative and qualitative research, and maintains that -for both - the general concept of objectivity can be partitioned into two components: validity and reliability (Kirk & Miller 1987). Maxwell (1992) distinguishes five types of validity relevant to qualitative research. While validity refers primarily to the accounts, reliability refers primarily to the data and the method. How do we know replication will generate the same results? In qualitative in-depth research, the challenge is to optimise the likelihood that all relevant data will show up again when thePage 36 investigation is repeated. The method should therefore be designed to deliver the greatest variety of data. The key is therefore not limiting data - as in quantitative research - but striving for completeness.
The etgace research team followed a pragmatic approach to these epistemological questions. In developing our research approach, we used definitions of validity and reliability within the realistic, third tradition. Nevertheless we also found it helpful occasionally to apply methodological standards developed in the second tradition. But in reporting our data we acknowledge that life history and focus group research is ultimately, as the hermeneutic tradition underlines, a discourse on the meaning of action. Therefore we used techniques that stimulated our respondents to give feedback on the transcripts of the life history interviews and the focus group discussions
(b) Biographical Research
To gain insight into people's learning processes for active citizenship, we adopted a life history (or biographical) research methodology, for several reasons. Biographical research focuses on the ways in which individuals give meaning to and account for their actions in the social world over time (Alheit 1997). In recent years biographical research has become a major theme in social science generally (Chamberlayne et al. 2000) and in research on adult learning in particular (Alheit, 1996; Antikainen et al. 1996; Dominicé 2000; West 1995, 1996). In our research, active citizens were considered experts who could give us insight into their learning processes. The biographical research method relates to our view that learning should be seen as contextualised. In developing their accounts or narratives, interviewees not only provide evidence about the world, but become active agents in the process of knowledge construction. In this way, a biographical approach can represent new connections between the individual on the one hand and the collective and the political on the other (Alheit 1999; Bron 2001).
(c) Focus Group Research
Morgan (1997) defines focus groups as a research technique that collects data through group interaction on a topic determined by the researcher - 'focus' refers to the topic the researcher has in mind. He or she focuses the group's discussion through specific questions to be addressed by the group. The etgace focus groups were expert panels. Expert panels are valuable sources of information because they are capable both of reporting and interpreting data (Vaughn, Schumm, and Sinagub 1996). Focus groups generally deliver a lot of information in a short time; this is particularly true for expert panels with their well-informed participants. They also deliver multiple interpretations. This is true also for expert panels, particularly if participants come from different fields (ETGACE experts came from state, work and civil society domains) and levels (e.g., officials and practitioners). The etgace focus groups also linked research with dissemination - participants were invited to participate in a workshop towards the end of the project, and to discuss ways to disseminate the results. Of course focus groups have weaknesses too. It is difficult, as we shall see below, to achieve a balanced group, particularly because many experts decline invitations or prove ultimately unable to attend. Moreover the group discussion can be biased by a tendency among participants to agree - to avoid deep or controversial discussion of issues that divide the group (Chioncel et. al. 2003).
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(a) Sample
Section 3.3 is concerned with what we discovered about the learning of active citizenship and governance from the ETGACE biographical (or 'life history') research. Our sample was purposive, selected in the light of our theoretical position and the objectives of the project. The aim was to secure patterned diversity. The primary criterion for selection of the sample related to our starting definition of active citizenship. We were looking for '"agents of change" - people who, in their own social environment, can be considered active as citizens' (etgace 1999a, p. 25). They were agents who had some kind of broader social commitment and explicitly pursued objectives which contributed to organising social, community or economic affairs in a democratic way. We decided not to include citizens, however active, whose agenda was explicitly undemocratic, or rejected the democratic premises of present day politics.
With this caveat, we sought diversity in our respondents. A sampling framework was therefore developed, as outlined below. A total of 96 learners was selected, 16 in each country8, following specifications agreed upon by all partners and set out in a methodology paper.
Table 3.3 Selection of Life History Interviewees
| Age: | Domain | Female Active Citizens: | Male Active Citizens: | ||
| 'Traditional' | 'New' | 'Traditional' | 'New' | ||
| 25-40 | State Work Civil Society | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 55-70 | State Work Civil Society | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Totals | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |
We hoped to find not only 'classical' or 'traditional' practices of active citizenship, but also 'new' or 'innovative' ones. In practice we found - as we expected - that these categories were by no means mutually exclusive. Some people moved from 'traditional' to 'new' practices, and vice versa. We sought to stay alert to innovative approaches by opening up space for alternative experiences and meanings in the conduct of the interviews.
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The interviewees were active in one or more of the four domains - the three specified in Table 3.3, which were formally used in the sampling framework applied by the advisory panels, plus the private domain. Citizenship is not reducible to role, but - by way of illustration - our respondents included trade union representatives and team leaders (work domain), environmental activists, lay members of religious organisations, and club secretaries (civil society domain), and social workers, welfare rights officers and local political party activists (state domain).
The equal representation of men and women learners in each country was designed to permit investigation of the hypothesis that notions of active citizenship are gendered. Some modes of activity and collaboration - we hypothesised, those practised preponderantly by women -may simply not be treated as 'citizenship'. So in our analysis we tried to be sensitive to alternative conceptions and practices of active citizenship, and to forms of citizenship activity which might occur in the private domain. Did people's biographical experiences suggest differences in the way men and women learn to become active citizens, or in how they enacted their citizenship roles?
Two age cohorts were selected (aged 25-40 and 55-70 years respectively)9 in order not only to explore whether there were differences in the citizenship practice by age, but also specifically whether there was an important difference between those who underwent their primary and secondary socialisation before 1965, and a 'post-modern' or 'late-modern' generation who became adult between the late 1970s and the early 1990s.
(b) Interviews
Although we refer to 'biographical' or 'life history' research, our interest was in elements of life related to active citizenship, rather than to biographies as a whole.
Each respondent was interviewed twice. Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. These transcripts of the respondent's life stories formed the basis for our analyses. The first interview was relatively unstructured and explorative and was approached inductively. Respondents were asked to reflect on their own lives as active citizens. We paid particular attention to critical moments, incidents, confrontations, influential people and phases in a person's life that appeared to have influenced their learning related to becoming and being an active citizen. Such critical elements in each life history were registered as key moments of the individual's learning process. Transitions in life histories were also explored by asking about changes in the personal, social and societal contexts, which preceded, and might have triggered, their learning. We also asked about possible changes in people's patterns of activity, and about how their perceptions of their context changed in the process of learning. In analysing the first interview, we formulated hypotheses about underlying learning processes, which were investigated in the second interview. The second interview was more structured, guided by the analysis of the first interview. The interviewers sought deeper understanding, going deeply into the various critical elements identified from the first interview, clarifying the ideas - stemming from the first analysis - about the respondents' learning processes and their transitions in social identity, responsibility and effectivity.
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(c) Analysis
Analysis of the first interview resulted in a profile of the respondent. In this profile, preliminary answers to major research questions were formulated. It consists of four elements:
* A learning context profile: personal biographical context and broader societal context elements.
* In the content profile we looked for notions, terms or axes to characterise the respondent, in his or her own words. This led us to different meanings of active citizenship and helped us to set aside our prejudices and presuppositions.
* In the dimensions profile we described the main phases of the respondent's life story in terms of effectivity, responsibility and social identity. The different phases were marked by turning points or transitional moments, when the respondents (re)constructed new meaningful connections or new schemes of meaning.
* In the learning process profile we went deeper into these transitional moments, because they are at the heart of the respondent's learning process.
The starting point for the etgace study was, of course, that the attitudes, skills and behavioural patterns which equip adults to participate actively as citizens, and to conduct tasks of governance and social and economic regulation, are not learned simply - nor even primarily - through formal or targeted educational provision. They are constructed - learned incidentally - in socio-institutional and cultural processes. (etgace 1999b, p. 3)
It was therefore important for us to investigate the contexts in which this learning might take place, and our second research question focussed attention on this:
* What connections exist between 'active citizenship' and non-active citizenship in the political ('state') domain, and related notions of active and non-active participation in other domains ('work' and 'civil society')?
(a) Formal Politics: The State Domain
'Traditional' political structures continue to be important sites for active citizenship. (Examples are given in Table 3.4.) In the Netherlands, for example, Merel was 'active at the top level of her political party, dealing mainly with women's issues', while Antoine was a local party activist and municipal councillor, interested 'in revitalising neighbourhoods through decentralised urban planning and support for social-cultural initiatives'. But political activity is not confined to traditional mechanisms, such as political parties. Two young men from Britain, Victor and Adrian, were both politically active. But while Victor joined the Young Conservatives at 18, became a local councillor at 26, and aimed to be a Member of Parliament by his early 30s, Adrian's commitments were to a group to defend social benefits and research labour relations, workers' conditions and welfare, and to a group reading and discussing political texts (like Das Kapital) and publishing political magazines.
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Table 3.4 Active Citizenship in the State Domain
| Category | Examples of Interviewees' Activities |
| Party political commitments | Being a member of a political party, helping with electoral campaign arrangements, standing as a candidate for elections and for positions of trust, contributing to the establishment of a new party. |
| Political pressure and interest groups | Resisting attacks on benefits, fighting for the rights of minorities, publishing booklets. |
| Participation in political decision making at the local level | Borough or town councillor, serving in a committee, participating in regional projects, working as a mayor or a deputy mayor. |
| Participation in political decision making on the national or international level | Being a member of parliament or active at the top level of a political party. |
| Having an effect through the expert knowledge | Participating in the preparation of legislative proposals or law-drafting, preparing reports and writing policy recommendations. |
Several interviewees were disillusioned with party politics; others - still active - spoke negatively of their experiences. In Finland, Hannu felt betrayed by senior politicians in his first attempt to become a Member of Parliament - leaving him to rely on his own, younger, generation. But reservations about parties - even strong ones - do not imply lack of concern for politics. In Spain, long involvement with community affairs led Luisa to develop a critical perspective on organisation, and a belief in grassroots initiatives:
One reason why I would never work in a political party is because of its hierarchical organisation that sets a fixed way of doing things, and gives you little space to create or invent, thus cutting your initiative. (Luisa, Spain.)
But election to the local council was still important for Luisa: 'I'm representing an important group of people [...] my work consists in doing all that is in my hands at the municipal level, because people have entrusted me to do so.'
Other interviewees worked outside formal politics, but stressed the need for strategic relations with politicians within the parliamentary system. As a student, for instance, Kirsi became active in forest conservation in Finland. She obstructed logging and organised a forest conservation congress - some of her activities crossed the boundaries of legality, and she was fined for civil disobedience. Nevertheless she saw influencing politicians in the state system as crucial:
The fundamental issue is what button (yes or no) they are pushing in a ballot situation. [..] The relationships with ministers are very important. They have the power [..] the parliament decides it totally. (Kirsi, Finland)
(b) The Work Domain
Our interviews included many examples of active citizenship at work (see Table 3.5). Some chose jobs which enabled them to further something they believed in. Some brought their own values to work. Some were active in trade unions or held positions of trust in work-related groups (such as professional associations and producers' organisations); some did voluntary work. In addition, some sought alternatives to paid work.
We encountered two types of entrepreneur. Some created a business to pursue their concerns. Jane from Britain and Olga from the Netherlands, for example, both believed in ecologically and ethically sustainable food. Jane set up a vegetarian lunch club, while Olga started a store selling health drinks. The second type of entrepreneur did not establish enterprises to pursue aPage 41 social aim, but found entrepreneurship offered space and other resources which allowed such commitments to flourish.
Table 3.5 Active Citizenship in the Work Domain
| Category | Examples of Interviewees' Activities |
| Having an entrepreneurial approach | Establishing a company, contributing innovations, enthusiasm, breaking down the division between work and other life. |
| Bringing one’s own visions and values to work | Promoting democracy, equality or ecological values in work, extending the working role, using professional knowledge outside the workplace. |
| Choice of a career | Choosing a job that is in line with one’s own commitments |
| Trade unionism | Being an active trade union member, lecturer, shop steward |
| Commitments in other work related organisations | Being an active member of the chamber of commerce; presidency of woman’s section of a managers’ association; local representative in a producer’s organisation. |
| Seeking alternatives for nonprofitable work. | Running a give-away shop, doing voluntary work only. |
Rok, is an example of the second type. He is now a successful Slovenian entrepreneur, co-founder of a private charitable foundation. This work also benefits his business activity by helping to build a good social environment. Originally, he wanted to be a researcher, but found his environment limiting:
I realised the whole institute didn't achieve anything in a year, [...] I mean a whole bunch of engineers and doctors and others, [...] and I decided I'm going to move from this environment [...] I actually moved from science to entrepreneurship [...] I just changed the philosophy, didn't I? (Rok, Slovenia)
Running his computer firm, Rok noticed differences between Western Europe and Slovenia:
I realised the environment where I have been living does not comprehend it [information technology] in the way it was introduced abroad, so I have increased my activities in this field. I started to write and to participate in round tables, seminars etc.
Rok joined, and became a leader of, the Slovenian Informatics Society, working to promote 'Slovenia as an information society'. To influence key areas of decision-making, he helped prepare a book, later adopted by government as the national informatics strategy document, and promotes the strategy through lecturing and a weekly newspaper column.
To Antoine from the Netherlands, his duty is to manage his shoe shop in line with his principles. This involves an open relationship with his employees:
I see myself as a person who is engaged every day in his business honestly and conscientiously and who talks about it with a lot of people. On the one hand you try to listen to people, but on the other hand there should be an interchange of ideas. (Antoine, the Netherlands)
For many, the choice of job seems to have been related to citizenship. While only a few explicitly made this claim, we found an interesting coherence between active citizens' biographies and their jobs - almost half the biographies hint at this. Several activists began as volunteers in an association or movement, and eventually became employees. For example, Charlotte from the Netherlands, finding that a nature reserve with which she identified was in danger, joined a movement to preserve it: she proved able, and became a paid worker.
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A significant proportion of Europe's working population is unionised: 16 of our interviewees had been trade union activists. Having left school at 16 with few qualifications, Mandy (uk) took up union activities when she went to work in a factory. Unhappy that her union ignored younger workers, she became a shop steward. As a result, she attended union courses, became senior shop steward, and now occasionally works as a tutor for the union and is currently studying for a Masters degree in industrial relations - though she still works at the factory.
Several interviewees participated in organisations or networks related to their work. Nika was a member of the Chamber of Economy of Slovenia and of the women's section of the Slovenian Managers' Association. In Finland, Anja participated in the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners.
Some active citizens devote their lives to supporting those at risk in the labour market. For instance Sandra (uk) worked in the voluntary sector developing employment initiatives for black and ethnic minority groups. Majda (Slovenia), a former social worker, continued after retirement to help find work for the hard-to-employ, including ex-prisoners. As a former youth worker, Peter (Belgium) knew the unfairness of the labour market: when he took over his father's farm, he employed mentally retarded people.
But some of our interviewees actively sought alternatives to paid work. Two anti-globalisation activists shunned employment to devote themselves full-time to the cause:
The state sees paid work as an ideal. [..] They make a lot of voluntary work impossible, because you have to have a paid job, because you have to complete your study within a certain time limit. People hardly get space to do what they want to do. [... ] I think it should be possible that everyone gets a certain amount of money and that it would be up to the person whether for instance he wants to earn some extra money. (Rita, the Netherlands)
We try to show the economy can be organised also in a different way. For instance by running a small non-profit shop for periodicals and a give-away shop, to demonstrate that trade is not necessarily to do with earning money. We also have a health food restaurant [...]. Some of these initiatives are really successful, for instance the give-away shop [...] this shop is visited each week by hundreds of people [including ...] migrants, just common people, who like the idea of not throwing away things but using them again. (Donald, the Netherlands.)
Much governance literature stresses human resources development (hrd) approaches - such as the learning organisation (Senge 1990). This perspective sees organisations as needing to engage employees through such initiatives as works councils and teamwork. Nearly all the employers in our sample were active supporters of such approaches. Leo (Finland), for example, developed electronic performance support systems for learning organisations. Tomás (Spain), on the other hand, is an employee enthusiastic about HRD policies. He enthuses about how his enterprise fosters collective work and favours co-operative and supportive relations among colleagues:
If you participate in decision making or in the group's organisation [there is more responsibility]. [..] Working groups are more dynamic, because there are common things and questions to all of its members. [..] There is a lot of communication. [..] Here in Barcelona they are only a few of us and hierarchyPage 43 is virtually non-existent. [..] That's why I'm doing well here. There is a lot of teamwork. (Tomás, Spain)
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the voice of 'ordinary people' -just living a decent life and doing their work properly - though under-represented in our data, is not entirely absent. But such people tend not to see ordinary hard work as active citizenship. For example:
The idea I had about marriage and family was that I had to work and earn a living for all the other family members and that only the father had to work. [...] I worked hard and all the money was for my family's subsistence. [...] I have never been interested in parties or associations. [...] I just acted to accomplish the mission I had been trusted to do and that was it. (Manel, Spain.)
(c) Civil Society
Our interviewees played many roles in civil society. Some were highly active - chairpeople, counsellors, educators, campaigners. Others' contributions were more modest - occasionally serving coffee. They were active in a large range of organisations, networks and groups: global movements like Amnesty International and Greenpeace; national organisations such as - in Britain - the National Childbirth Trust and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution; local groups such as Lapikas, a Finnish student association. Table 3.6 gives brief examples of our interviewees' activities, though the rather arbitrary categorisation - voluntary service, new social movements, miscellaneous - does not do justice to the richness of our data.
Table 3.6 Active Citizenship in Civil Society
| Category | Examples of Interviewees' Activities |
| Associations and groups of public utility (care for children and youth, culture) | Area post-natal organiser and a breast-feeding counsellor in an organisation for young mothers and babies; leader in Girl Guides Association; publicist for an amateur theatre; leading a sports association. |
| New movements (economy, the third world, environment, animal rights, human rights, minorities, peace, women rights) | Participating in anarchist collective searching for alternatives to globalisation; working for an organisation fighting for third world development; activist for an environmental protection organisation; campaigning for animal rights; treasurer of a local Amnesty International group; board member of a disabled people’s or gay organisation; action committee member for anti-nuclear weapons organisation; member of a women’s anti-rape group. |
| Miscellaneous (age concern, community and neighbourhood, education, religion) | Participating in interest group for the elderly; participating in local group fighting for the preservation of ‘heritage’ (historical districts); member of school governing body; doing pastoral work. |
Maria (Spain) was active from the age of 19 as a trainer in the scouting movement. The movement had deep roots in Catalonia and had stood out for its role in the struggle against the Franco régime. Later, as a teacher, Maria joined a movement for pedagogic renewal, which stressed co-education and local language and culture. This found opportunities even during Franco's last years:
[During the dictatorship] we had some negotiations to organise a school that was co-educational and Catalan [... ] Culturally, we had to fight a little, because these were hard times. We had boys and girls in the same classroom. Whenever the inspector visited us, we would send the children to a nearby forest, because the inspector already knew [..] it was complicated. (Maria, Spain)
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Miha, who became a powerful politician in independent Slovenia, would, as a young Christian, only join organisations which did not endanger his religious position. He explains:
In order to make something happen in the town, we did [... ] somehow organise a youth organisation [.... We] liaised with the municipal conference of the youth association and it obviously came to their attention that we were 'making noise' and I was given some functions there as well. But then, I think, followed the question of entering the [Communist] Party to which I gave a negative answer and then it was plainly obvious to which level one could actually get [.... S]ome started from the viewpoint that nothing could be done. I did not agree, I wanted to explore what could be done. (Miha, Slovenia)
Other advocates of civil society refer to the limitations of the welfare state and see civil society, based on voluntarism and philanthropy, as an indispensable partner. On this view, the welfare state cannot realise its social and cultural ends alone: it lacks the necessary finance and capacity to mobilise volunteers. Marius and Carla are two of many unpaid workers. Marius (the Netherlands) sits on the board of many charities and is an expert on fundraising. Carla (uk) is an indefatigable volunteer organising arts events. Among her activities were chairing the local choral society, organising concerts for children and open air festivals for adults, and setting up a database of local arts events.
Moreover, volunteers sometimes do better than professionals. For instance, after a rebellious youth Oiva (Finland) joined a local church, was 'born again', and became a youth worker for the congregation. Although later distanced from the church, he became a notable youth worker with drug abusers, hooligans and troublemakers. He says he can do this because he has himself been 'a life escapee for years, I know addiction extremely well'; since adolescence he has lived 'the life of a backpacker or vagabond'.
(d) The Private Domain
Active citizenship has generally been associated with activities in the state and civil society domains (and to a lesser extent, work). The private domain seldom receives attention. In recent decades, however, family and educational problems have focussed attention on the private domain. In our active citizens' biographies, the private domain was prominent especially - but not only - for women. We came across many activities in this domain, as Table 3.7 shows.
Table 3.7 Active Citizenship in the Private Domain
| Category | Examples of Interviewees' Activities |
| Caring | Bringing up children and managing the household; caring for the sick, elderly parents or disabled family members; looking after relatives with difficulties; supporting learning among family members. |
| Life style | Being a vegetarian or a responsible consumer; choosing to live in the countryside; having exchange students in one’s own home. |
| Discursive activities | Engaging in dialogue about politics, social issues and the environmental concerns; advising and counselling friends. |
| Contemplative active citizenship without constant external action | Reading, studying, reflecting, contemplating. |
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However, we had some difficulty in interpreting this data. Many, if not all, of the activities listed in Table 3.7 would typically not be considered expressions of 'citizenship'. Marjaana, an older Finnish woman, clearly saw family issues - parenting, caring for relatives - as the core of her active citizenship. She also had wide experience of citizenship in civil society and traditional politics: voluntary service, and membership of a moderate conservative party. In contrast, the men we interviewed seldom mentioned the private domain as part of their citizenship activities: the private domain was important to them, but their citizenship lay elsewhere. They repaired, even built, the family house, or installed or maintained domestic appliances or the family car. We cannot tell from the data whether they related this kind of activity to citizenship. But though Marjaana had participated in politics and in civil society, she saw her main achievement as linked to family responsibilities. Clearly, in her case, a private role was active citizenship.
A conceptually similar case is that of Dorian, a young Belgian woman, who calls herself an 'armchair politician' and 'street philosopher'. While studying philosophy and psychology at university she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; her family abandoned her, and she now needs help from social services for many everyday tasks. Reading and studying is her way of being an active citizen. She communicates with friends and family about politics, social issues, and the environment, writes 'open letters' to newspapers and politicians, tries to influence others. 'People leave my house different from when they came in,' she says. Dorien is, of course, physically disabled, but there seems no reason to suggest that only for the disabled can contemplative or discursive activities be seen as active citizenship - many able-bodied interviewees mentioned reading, studying, reflecting and arguing, though we cannot say whether they typically regarded them as expressions of citizenship.10
Several of our interviewees enthusiastically described their hobbies and participation in social events. Were these active citizenship? They told us of activities such as having fun with friends and organising parties. Perhaps they wished to show they are not only 'activists' but human beings living a full life. But it is possible they saw these activities as part of their citizenship. Such activities do, of course, strengthen networks and community links. For some of our interviewees, however, choices in their private life were consciously part of their citizenship. For example, some were vegetarian, or bought produce from organic farms or fair trade organisations, or developed life-styles that expressed their concern for the environment or for spiritual values (slowing down, non-violence). Bas, for example, a Dutchman active in the anti-globalisation movement resisted consumerism in his private life too:
I am not averse to a little bit of luxury. But I would not buy a second car; I do not have even a first one. [...] People buy too much unnecessary clutter, I do not join in. [...] On the one hand you lose the meaning of things that are really crucial. [...] On the other hand it produces a gigantic trash heap. People buy a new car, but what happens to the old one? (Bas, the Netherlands)
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We were struck, then, by the extent to which activities in the private domain could be considered - by citizens themselves, or by us - as forms of active citizenship. Very often, however, it seems easier to accept the private domain as a site where citizenship is learned, rather than of citizenship activity itself.
(e) Connections between Domains
We conclude, therefore, that we can meaningfully speak of active citizenship being practised and learned in all four domains. We also found, however, that our active citizens were very commonly involved in more than one domain, and that what they learned in one domain often seemed to lead to, or prepare for, participation in another: what is learned in one domain can be used in another for a different purpose. There are many examples in our transcripts.
A typical pattern is the transfer of skills from civil society to the political domain, for instance Tatja, a young woman from Finland. When she began primary school she joined the scouts. From the ages of 15 to 19 she was herself a group leader, played volleyball - she learned leadership skills as team captain - and participated in many meetings. As a student she became active in (and finally chaired) a student association, where friends convinced her to stand for election to the city council - to which she was recently elected.
Another typical pattern in the ETGACE material is the active citizen who uses skills learned in the work domain in civil society. Nigel (UK) had a successful career as an insurance broker in the City of London. He was challenged to become active in civil society during the 1980s when - as a gay man - several friends died of aids. As a result, he became more politicised and began to use his financial and social skills for fund raising through social activities and to establish a lesbian, gay and bisexual helpline (of which he is currently chair). Antonio (Spain) raised this to a point of principle: 'What we achieve in the workplace needs to have continuity in the neighbourhood in order to improve it, to improve the schools.'
A further pattern is the transfer of skills from the private domain to activities in voluntary social care. There are many other combinations, some less obvious. Daniel (Spain) who lives in a Gypsy community in Barcelona. As a child he dropped out of school for economic reasons. He has worked as a travelling salesman with his parents, and in a warehouse. He is now a security guard and animator at the school he used to attend. Through this he has become actively involved in this school becoming a 'learning society' - i.e., an open space for family, volunteer and community participation. His active engagement with this process of transformation at school taught him, for instance, that 'we [the monitors] cannot go shouting because children see it and then they take this as reference [..] dialogue is the best way to resolve things and to arrive at an agreement'. But this involvement in transforming his work at school also led to a series of changes in the private domain. He encourages his wife and children to read and write (no small thing, considering the high level of illiteracy among Gypsies) and to be serious about education.
Active citizenship often involves confronting difficult situations, and managing - in the fullest sense - a complex array of commitments and pressures. Sara from Belgium was involved - often at the same time - campaigning against nuclear weapons, caring for rape victims, fighting the extreme right, working for adult literacy, counselling young people. Some of these she undertook professionally (i.e., in the work domain), while others were voluntary commitments. When interviewed, she was active in her children's school's parent-Page 47teacher committee, and was doing door-to-door research about rebuilding her neighbourhood. Thus Sara (Belgium) eventually ended her involvement with rape support because she no longer felt qualified to cope with the heavy problems she confronted, or properly to help the women involved. She quit a socio-cultural association after eight years because she felt empty and burned out. Time management also matters. Handling multiple citizenship agendas requires target-orientation and the ability to move on from projects when their - or the individual's - aims have been achieved, or one can contribute no more. In practice, the changing focus of active citizenship means that an activist's close associates are likely to change many times over a lifespan.
A common theme in our interviewees was the positive influence of childhood experience, in and around the home:
If you ask me where my interest and active citizenship originates from, I must say it stems from home. I think home has been a very determining factor: my dad and my mum were both part of a youth movement, they took on leadership [..] And we've sucked it up with our mother's milk. My home context was one where societal commitment was the norm. There was no other possibility than to have some sense of active citizenship. (Mieke, Belgium)
Similarly, active membership of youth organisations was common. Leena from Finland is typical: her best memories of youth were of 4h club activities; as a young adult, away from home, she joined a youth organisation and studied to be a youth leader - the start of a busy life of activities in several domains.
(f) Differences between Domains
Although many citizens move and transfer skills and learning between domains, we found some evidence of significant differences between the domains. Many active citizens described the state domain as both strongly hierarchical and very competitive in the struggle for positions of power within this hierarchy. Many citizens who became involved in politics left it rather quickly because of this harsh climate. There are also people, committed for many years to the political domain, who came in the end to express similar bitter criticisms. After the Slovenian transition, Olga became a member of one of the small, newly established, political parties and was elected twice to the national parliament. In 2000 she voted against the party line and was expelled. She learned, she said, that parties are not democratic organisations at all.
Active citizenship in the work domain - at least within unions - seems sometimes to share this hierarchical character. Alfonso (Spain) is critical of the hierarchical organisation of unions since the transition:
I entered the CNT [anarchist union] because I continued to be faithful to my ideals. I became disillusioned with the unions to which I had belonged. I heard a lot about the CNT, but I became also disenchanted with the CNT and left the union because I was nothing but a bureaucrat over there. (Alfonso, Spain)
In civil society, in contrast, many active citizens see teamwork and mutual trust as essential. Ronald, who has an impressive activist experience against nuclear power generation, 'retired' from this heroic life and to enjoy the different climate of civil organisations, in his case foundations for local media and to support young musicians:
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When I first came there, I thought 'Yeah, what a mess here', so to say. But at a certain moment, I saw, together with a couple of board members, possibilities to really develop that club. There is so much potential in such an organisation. All possible ways that remained unused, because it just plodded on, you know. So in that sense, it is inspiring, that the possibility is there, because you try to work there with those people. That is why I stay. I mean, there is a lot possible, and I like to see how such an organisation develops and what your part in that development can be. (Ronald, the Netherlands)
Regardless of domain, active citizens often stress the importance of determination, perseverance, steadiness. We have many examples of such statements from people in leading positions, but it seems also true for the rank-and-file active citizen. The story of Jeffrey (Belgium) reads like the Biblical book of Job. As a young man he led the good life: good marriage, good job, lots of money, lots of friends, flings with other women, and so on. But in mid-life he felt trapped. He started a travel agency, but then his fortune started to unravel. Very hard work led to marriage problems, severe depression, and admission to a psychiatric hospital. He had experience not only with soft drugs and alcohol, but heroin. Then his wife filed for divorce and things went from bad to worse. Six or seven years later he began to feel better and a bit more in control of his life. At this time he came across an advertisement from an organisation which desperately needed aids buddies - and he started to feel he could contribute something to the lives of other people in similar hopeless situations. Some ten years as an aids buddy has helped him regain self respect and confidence; but his experience also means he has much to offer these people.
(g) The Impact of National Context
The countries investigated provide a cross-section of European nation states: long-established democracies, and those with more recent transitions from two forms of authoritarian rule; some former colonial powers (leaving a legacy in immigration and so forth); some with strong regional identities, others strongly unitary; and so forth. We expected these diverse national histories to have had an impact on the nature of citizenship and learning about it. We found evidence to support this.11
Where democracy is relatively long-established, traditional political structures appear to have been eroding in recent years. In Finland, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, we noticed a focus on a sense of identity and responsibility, increasingly located in the self- a growing emphasis on 'authenticity' and 'lifestyle', suggesting learning of citizenship may be increasingly diverse and personal. Thus :
For me it's all about authenticity, and not about all that bullshit about being powerful. I always want to grow, develop myself. If you ask me why I am alive, I'll say you live to enlarge your consciousness. I really like doing that. [..] Life is an adventure. I want to grow open and critically. (Olga, the Netherlands)
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I think you do everything for yourself and your own satisfaction, the realisation of your own person and identity. That is very essential to me. (Ans, the Netherlands)
You mustn't neglect your own personality in the process, create pauses in your development and in your own person. (Antoine, the Netherlands)
Where democracy has been established - or re-established - more recently, in contrast, understandings of active citizenship seem framed by awareness that citizens have been a moving force in democratic transition.
In order to gain a right you have to fight for it. If we don't work more than eight hours a day, if we have social security, it is not because we have a government that enacted it, but because there was a massive social mobilisation prior to it. No political party intervened. The people have worked for it alone over the past years, and we have a historical heritage donated by all these people that have worked for a decent living and to achieve something in the past. And we want to take that heritage further. (Enrique, Spain)
Under Franco, movements confronting the régime were clandestine, and Franco the 'common enemy'. Since the end of totalitarianism, active citizenship has been more about equality and the radicalisation of democracy. There is a strong sense of social identity, solidarity and unity:
Whatever I know - I depend on my context. How important can I be? What matters is the context you are in! [...] We all depend on each other, as it has always been. (Antonio, Spain)
In Slovenia, we found a marked sense of riding a wave from state socialism to a more open, democratic society, with greater opportunity for social and economic welfare. Stability and loyalty gave way to dynamism and innovation. Under the socialist system, educational and professional opportunities were good, though opportunities for participation (e.g., in workers' self-management and in public life) were rather formal, and the system was controlled by the Communist Party. Nevertheless, we found evidence that people acquired useful capacities and connections - in politics and the work domain - under the former system which formed a good basis for social commitment in the new system.
When those political changes in Slovenia started to take place, [... I realised] that the future depends on us all, and not only on those who have made the decision themselves to direct and pass decisions in the name of others. [..] In this place where I live, we founded a political party at the local level. (Miha, Slovenia)
We have shown that people learn and practise active citizenship in a number of contexts. We have shown that the practice of citizenship, through a lifespan, often involves activities spanning more than one of these, and that people are often able to draw on expertise developed in one context for activity in another. We were also interested, however, in how different forms of citizenship knowledge were related in citizenship learning processes, and it was to this end that we asked our third research question:
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* What is the mutual articulation of 'effectivity', 'responsibility' and 'identity' in the formation of active citizens?
As we investigated this question, however, we found it continually necessary to refer back to context. The fact that active citizenship is always learned in a specific biographical and social context is inescapable and central. In any context, however, we felt that three conceptually separate though in practice overlapping conditions of citizenship learning could be distinguished:
* Effectivity or effectiveness: having a feeling of agency and of being competent is a key constituent of learning active citizenship. In our discussions, we felt the term capacity was in some respects more helpful.
* Responsibility: learning to be an active citizen involves taking responsibility for some social issue - taking responsibility involves responding to, and coping with, a challenge.
* Identity: learning active citizenship involves processes of forming and reforming identity, which can be considered in terms of connection between oneself, other people, convictions, opinions and ideals.
Table 3.8 gives the main questions we used to analyse the data around these dimensions.
Table 3.8 Analytical Questions Derived from Dimensions of Learning
| Dimensions of learning active citizenship | Questions used to analyse the biographical data |
| Responsibility-building | What is the issue at stake? What is the content of the respondent’s commitment? To what themes or dimensions does the respondent commit himself or herself? What or whom do people feel responsible for? Why does he or she feel responsible? Why does he or she identify with, or join, a certain group? |
| Effectivity-building | How does the respondent try to realise his or her commitment? What means do people have and use to realise their commitment? What support systems, strategies, instruments or possibilities help the respondent to achieve his or her goals and ends? What gives them a sense of effectiveness? |
| Identity-construction | What are the reference groups to which the respondent relates? To whom does the respondent refer? With what collectivity or mutual life world does the respondent identify himself or herself? What social relations does the respondent identify with or try to develop? |
(a) Challenge
Challenge can arise in confronting a personal problem (e.g., being ill, excluded or discriminated against) or an injustice done to others. It can also arise from a family tradition of social commitment. For one British respondent active citizenship stemmed from a personal experience of oppression. Religion, marriage, society - all these she found oppressive. She tells her life story:
I grew up thinking that everything everybody else said, was true. [...] I thought everybody else knew better than me, from the postman to the bank manager to the doctor, to everybody else. At school the priest said that becoming a mother is the most important thing for a woman. (Marlene, UK.)
Leaving school at 15 without qualifications, however, left a deep scar. During an unhappy and violent 26-year marriage, she had five children, but when they grew up, she left the family home. One day she walked into a women's centre: 'It felt warm, it felt friendly, it felt like it was my place, it was a place I needed to be, I wanted to be there,' she told us. ShePage 51 began to help other women in similar circumstances. 'I think that was part of my sudden feeling of women, it was so exciting to think that women were gathering together.' (Marlene, UK)
With rapid social change, people face a diverse range of challenges today. In responding, active citizens must balance 'authenticity' - knowing and being true to their own values -and developing themselves with appealing to broader social themes. For example, Gerda from Belgium found herself challenged to take up two issues: the environment and the Third World. However she felt unable to have an effect on both . She explains:
That is why I chose more for the environment issue than for the issues of the Third World [....] It is easier. The environment issue, that conviction is more obvious for me, that is a clear picture: we are exhausting the natural resources, we are driving with cars and poison the air, etc. In the story of the environment I can see clear and I know what my contribution can be [...] But the Third World issues, that is a more difficult story. We first had colonisation, now we speak of development co-operation, but what does it all mean, this is much more difficult to have a clear picture and what can I contribute? (Gerda, Belgium.)
The environment was something she could live up to in her daily life. Her lifestyle reflects her interests: thus, for instance, she is a vegetarian, a member of the Green Party, committed in a 'foodteam' (voedselteams) and an ecoteam.
Peter from Belgium was not raised in a socially active family, but took a job with 'problem' young people because he could find no other work. It was confronting injustice in others' lives that triggered his commitment to become an active citizen. He explains:
That was something that really startled me, that there is so much misery in so many families. Even in those [where] you would least expect it. That was my first confrontation. (Peter, Belgium)
(b) Capacity
To generate social commitment, one needs also to have the means to be effective. Active citizens often have a high level of formal education, such as an academic degree. Sometimes their activities as citizens follow this education. For instance, our sample has a couple of citizens with degrees in geography and agriculture who decided during their studies to become environmental activists. But active citizenship itself also often motivates and facilitates people to return to university study. A typical pattern is poorly-educated workers who become active in their union and then take the opportunity for further study, often related to their union work. Charlene (uk) left school with few qualifications. In her work she experienced lots of contracting out and privatisation, making people feel vulnerable and insecure. She became active in her union, at regional and national levels, raising women's and ethnic minority perspectives. For her the union was also a resource to return to learning; she took many courses and is now enrolled on a Masters degree in Industrial Relations.
Many others learn in more non-formal and informal ways. But as with degree studies, non-formal and informal learning often takes years. Fourteen years ago Teresa (Spain) began to participate in an adult education centre. This led her to join other cultural associations, such as a women's group, and now she actively campaigns for women's rights. She is acutely aware of the disadvantages facing 'other' - compared to 'academic' - women:
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By 'other women' we mean housewives, women with no or lower formal education levels, because they also have to be taken in account, as academic women already have been. I think this is how it should be, and since we have not yet been recognised, we want to get the recognition we deserve. (Teresa, Spain)
Frank (the Netherlands) has been active in scouting throughout his life - starting as a scout, becoming a leader, moving to positions on boards at various levels. Sometimes this has led to special assignments - for example, for three years after retirement Frank was an almost full-time organiser of the 1995 World Jamboree, held in the Netherlands. Every step has been accompanied by skill training:
As a boy, immediately after the war, I landed in scouting and then, as happens quite often in associations, you cling to it. In the beginning it is really working with children: Cub Scout leader and so on. At a certain point, it is not satisfying enough any more, so you move on to the organisation of bigger activities for 200 to 300 children. Next you start to do something in training, firstly you are training yourself and later on you give courses for volunteers. This still happens [in scouting], although the way it is done has been changed since then. At that time it was really teaching, like you should do it like this or that, and there was not much participation, lack of time did not allow that. Fortunately, all of this has been improved now a little bit. Next you start to do some things on an administrative level [... ] first [on the municipal level] and later on, automatically, on regional and national level. So you just go from one thing to another. (Frank, the Netherlands.)
(c) Connection
In an instrumental sense, connection refers to the social settings one is part of and the ideas and opinions with which one identifies. Some of our active citizens acted from clear and coherent 'grand narratives', which define the values that guide their activity. Such convictions and beliefs were sometimes formed in their early education. But for our purposes it is more important to realise that, whenever it begins, learning how to apply such values continues throughout life, often in close-knit organisations and communities dedicated to such beliefs.
A typical example is the active citizen inspired and supported by his religious belief and religious community. There were men and women among our interviewees who served their church as professionals (a priest, an evangelist, etc.) In Slovenia the political transition facilitated greater political and civil activities by Christians. But Belgium and the Netherlands also had, until the 1960s, social-political systems based on separate organisations for each religious group. This has dissolved gradually since then, challenging the countries' religious citizens to redefine their societal positions. Jaap (the Netherlands), now retired, went through this process. Born in a traditional Catholic family with fourteen children, he learned from them a deep commitment to social issues and social organisations. In the 1960s, as traditional Catholic organisations dissolved, he moved to more radical social and political positions but nevertheless continued to serve Catholic organisations, trying to redefine the mission of the Church. After retirement (as a personnel director of a big company) he became active in a Catholic organisation for the elderly. He took up important positions in the nationalPage 53 leadership, still wrestling to define through public debate the Christian message of such an organisation.
Another type of inspiring grand narrative is political ideology, supported by political organisations and groups of people who share these political values. Despite an apparent process of de-ideologisation in Europe, many active citizens still position themselves more or less explicitly within historical political movements such as socialism and liberalism. Martha (UK) adopted Conservative political views early in life, became active in the Conservative party and eventually became a borough councillor in 1998. As a child, her politically literate parents encouraged her to listen to the radio and watch television. Her political views sharpened when she was 10 years old and her mother became ill with multiple sclerosis. The family income was too high to qualify for social services' support, so she and her sisters became carers for their mother:
Because you were trying to help yourself you can't have any help! If you are living in a council house you get everything done for you [... but] my parents [had bought] their own home, [so they] could not get help with ramps and things for the [her mothers'] wheelchair - it was a nightmare. [... ] People in other parts of society were getting help but because my parents were choosing to be independent and buy their own house [...] they were excluded. (Martha, UK)
Modern science remains a third and perhaps less likely example of a grand narrative. Our interviewees include a couple of active citizens, educated in the natural sciences, who had devoted their professional lives to disseminating new technologies. They often combined it with a mission to democratise access to these technical opportunities, by creating extra opportunities for the poorly-educated. For instance, with some friends Nika (Slovenia), an engineer who worked in a big company in the 1980s, set up (as a volunteer) one of the first Slovene initiatives in the field of computerisation and computer education. She later became its paid director:
We had as a group of friends, as a totally informal group, started with training in other enterprises on our computers, which were bought, I do not know whether in '88 or '87, in Germany. That was quite an interesting trip, how we bought these computers and how we then taught people to use them [...]. We discovered, that we were not going to do this free of charge, since there was too much interest and too much of our time was spent. We started to think about how to shape such a work. We first and foremost established a youngsters' association [..] and then in the framework of the zsms (Association of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia) [... ] we founded the first computer club [...]. I still can't analyse what came into me then [...]. I knew that if we wanted to work professionally, we couldn't throw mud on ourselves, and the firm, by bankruptcy [...]. I console myself that it was my wish for changes. (Nika, Slovenia)
But perhaps more typical today is the 'post-modern condition' where grand narratives, such as religious beliefs, political ideologies and science, lose their self-evident authority. In an era of individualisation, citizens often do not just follow values instilled during early socialisation. Individuals are challenged to inform themselves broadly about relevant values. They are forced into an ongoing process of comparing values and finding a personal balancePage 54 that seems adequate for every domain of their life and every stage in their development. An outspoken example of such an ongoing search process is Hans (Belgium). In the political domain he has shifted during his life from the Christian-Democratic party towards a left progressive party; then he was for a time politically independent, but returned later to the Socialist party. In the domain of work he searched for a profession that fitted his commitment, but finally found a job with a progressive educational publisher. In the civil society domain, when his children started going to school, together with several other parents he established a new school in the spirit of Freinet:
I dare to say that I am really pluralistic, this means that I constantly search for possibilities to enable change. For me nothing is fixed and people always evolve along with societal changes and trends, whether [they] explicitly choose to or not, and one is always determined by the social context. One of the basic principles of pluralism is that one can realise one's own conviction. (Hans, Belgium)
(d) The Process Character of Active Citizenship
Learning active citizenship appears to be a process deeply embedded in individuals' biographies and the socio-cultural and political contexts they live in. Individuals today face unpredictable changes in the dynamic between their lives and the changing context, which they must (learn to) anticipate, handle and reorganise. This triggers a continuous process of constructing meaning, making choices, taking up responsibilities and dealing with change. People develop through shaping their own biographies and telling their life stories, as well as through (re)constructing and transforming their environments. We refer to this process as biographical learning. It is about creating meaningful connections between narrative understanding of oneself as an actor - past, present and future - and of the context in which one operates and lives, in terms of broader themes and social issues. This entails (re)constructing meaning, acting upon the (new) meaningful connection, and taking up personal and social commitments. Such learning is often not intentional or conscious, but rather accidental, unexpected and ad hoc.
People can experience events and changes in their lives as dramatic and 'jagged' (e.g., from critical or frustrating experiences), but also as smooth and easy (e.g., involving strong socialisation in the family). Carla from the UK had a 'smooth' learning trajectory, following a life cycle typical of middle-class women of her generation. After school she went to university, worked until she married and had children, but then devoted herself to her family. When the children grew up, she 'reclaim[ed] her life a little bit'. She did not need to find paid work, so looked for other ways to fulfil herself: singing in a choir brought her a social network that led to other local voluntary arts activities. She has found fulfilment in local charitable work for over twenty years.
We were not concerned only about where and how learning of citizenship occurred, and about how far learning of active citizenship was being reshaped in the contemporary world. We were also interested in whether various forms of adult learning were themselves helping to reshape active citizenship. Our fifth research question attempted to address this:
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* To what extent does adult learning in formal, non-formal and informal education contribute to the development of new forms of active citizenship in the work, state and civil society domains?
What is at stake here are the relationships, possibilities for participation and opportunities for success established within and across domains. Active citizenship comes about through learning by doing and participating. Informal ways of learning that presuppose and represent equal participatory relationships seem to be particularly important. But does adult learning itself contribute to new forms of active citizenship?
At an individual level, it is clear that active citizens' learning leads them into new forms of active citizenship. We find this frequently with informal learning. As Carlos (Spain) remarked, 'the better way of living is doing, when you act you discover things and until you are doing you do not see them'. Enrique confirmed this in his story:
Once I entered that group, I became more and more accustomed to it, and I found my place in there. I realised I could contribute my own share and I ended up feeling like I was a part of it and identified with it. (Enrique, Spain)
And also in the story of Roos from the Netherlands:
And then you start with it, and you gradually grow into it, little by little, and you increasingly know more about it: what it is all about and how it goes, and you get mixed up with it. (Roos, the Netherlands)
In Slovenia, Pavla recounted a similar experience with non-formal learning linked to self-management: this non-formal learning for self-management was a totally different thing. [... ] With the passing of time you realise, that again you acquired some new ways, formal and informal, that a certain problem could be solved. [..] This then gives experiences for the future. If you connect all this, you get a solid base for formal and informal work. [..] All this lecturing, with one talking and the other listening, they are a little old fashioned and people don't like them. But let's say some workshops, circles, learning in small groups, much more let's say in informal ways [..] It attracts people more than let's say other things.
Formal education can also shape individual agency, though often in the background. We need to re-examine and revalue particular skills which can play a crucial role in developing active citizenship among traditionally excluded groups:
My teacher of Dutch [..] really stimulated me to start reading books and newspapers. [... ] He is also the one who stimulated me to go to university. (Sara, Belgium)
In Slovenia, the transition from socialism involved learning which clearly generated new forms of citizenship:
When those political changes in Slovenia started to take place, [... we realised] that the future depends on us all, and not only on those who have made the decision themselves to direct and pass decisions in the name of others. [..] In this place where I live, we founded a political party at the local level. (Miha, Slovenia)
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One of our specific concerns was raised within our fourth research question:
* How do processes of learning for citizenship and governance vary between ... selected age-cohorts?
Our focus on 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 became adult from the late 1970s onward. Putnam's argument, that there has been a marked change in the civic activity of Americans over the twentieth century (Putnam 1995, 2000) is also relevant. Putnam argues that members of the 'long civic generation' (born 1910-1940) are 'substantially more engaged in community affairs and more trusting' than those those born later - specifically, he compared this generation with 'generation X' born between 1965 and 1980 (Putnam 2000, p. 254).
We found some evidence that younger active citizens may be encountering more significant transitions than former generations did at the same stage of their lives. For both older and younger people, biography now seems to play a larger role in the formation of active citizens. It seems that in former periods the structures of political and citizenship activity were more prescribed. There is some evidence that today people may be less willing to be active citizens against their own feelings - i.e., that people today are less able to feel a sense of duty on the basis of an imposed or externally-derived sense of responsibility. This suggests that the value of authenticity is increasingly directing social commitment.
In Spain, the older generation was confronted with new challenges when Franco's regime ended, relying on capacities acquired before the democratic period. The younger generation was confronted with the radicalisation of democracy and established different connections to manage the challenge. In the Slovenian transition too, the older generation has learned how to apply their capacities in a new social environment, while the younger generation has learned how to 'use' new and promising opportunities . In Finland older active citizens rely more on established networks and conventional strategies, whereas younger ones seem more adventurous and willing to experiment. Active citizens in the UK are learning to relate to different issues (gender, sexuality, class, specific events like the war), while the meaning of these issues constantly changes over time. In Belgium the fading of normative institutionalised ideological networks makes room for different kinds of commitment. The Netherlands has also experienced 'depillarisation', which affected the challenges active citizens faced. However, we found little difference between the generations in level of education, independent critical thinking or degree of commitment.
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Collecting data on active citizens' learning processes is of course important, but there is no direct or automatic link between this and knowledge of how to support such learning. For this reason, we planned to discuss the results of our life history research in each country with panels of professionals in citizenship education. More generally, we wanted to discover from them what educational interventions are in use, and what new and promising developments are emerging. Given the breadth of our understanding of citizenship, we wished to discuss our results with experts from different domains (politics, work, civil society), and we also sought people who had knowledge both of educational interventions that support governance structures introduced from 'top-down', and of interventions that support citizens' participation at the 'grass roots'.
In this section, we start with a short description of the research design. Basically we followed a focus group approach. Further information is then given about the development of the research questions, about the techniques we used for data collection and analysis, and there is a final note on diversity - on variation as the crucial characteristic that determines validity and reliability of qualitative research. The main part of this chapter is, however, devoted to reporting the research results. We start with a general overview of the results, based on a synthesis of the national reports.12 The synthesis is presented here in three parts. The first focusses on intervention to support governance structures. The second part is about support for the learning processes of individual citizens. The third part summarises the answers to the additional research question on internationalisation. A final section discusses the relation between formal, non-formal and informal education in supporting active citizenship.
We were not interested merely in experts' individual opinions, but much more in an in-depth discussion among them that would highlight implicit problems and innovative solutions and strategies. The focus group method seemed an appropriate way to collect such data (Morgan, 1997, 1998). Nevertheless, most focus groups in social research only meet once and only for two hours or so. In order to get more reliable results - to encourage as complete as possible a representation of all relevant arguments and facts - we wanted experts to spend more time together. We therefore embarked on a rather ambitious project to bring national experts together within each country for two full days (six effective working hours each day). The two meetings were separated by a period of about two weeks.
(a) Research Questions
The focus groups were intended to provide answers to our sixth, seventh and eighth research questions:
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* What approaches to education for active citizenship and governance have been advocated in literature at various levels of governance? What have been the prime modes of intervention (formal, non-formal, informal), and what have been their effect on different individuals and sectors in society? How far have these addressed citizenship and governance as gendered notions? (Sixth research question)13
* What new approaches to educational intervention for active citizenship and governance are currently being developed given current changes in societal contexts? Which approaches should be fostered in view of the challenges with which Europe is confronted? (Seventh research question)
* What modes of educational intervention have proved most effective for learning citizenship and governance? What modes are likely to prove most effective in the future? (Eighth research question)
In addition, however, we believed we might discover some evidence related to some of the other ETGACE research questions, in particular:
* How are practices and concepts of 'active citizenship' and 'governance' being reshaped in the current context of social transformation, such as 'Europeanisation', globalisation and individualisation? (First research question)
* To what extent does adult learning in formal, non-formal and informal education contribute to the development of new forms of active citizenship in the work, state and civil society domains? (Fifth research question)
These were quite open questions. In analysing the data, as presented below, a number of considerations emerged. Our initial research questions did not discriminate sufficiently clearly between interventions from the top down, designed to support structures of governance, and interventions at the grass roots level, designed to support individual citizens. Nevertheless in the analysis of our data it became obvious that we should disaggregate our data according to these levels of intervention.
The initial research questions were also based on a distinction between prime modes of intervention (sixth question) and new approaches (seventh question). In the analysis it became clear that we had to define 'prime modes' more clearly as 'traditional modes'. Moreover, it became clear that the struggle for new intervention approaches dominated experts' discussion and provided the most interesting data. Therefore we focus below (although not exclusively) on these new, innovative approaches.
We found, moreover, that our interest in the effectiveness of interventions could not be answered in a precise way, based - for example - on numbers of participants, the satisfaction of participants or the extent in which certain precisely defined objectives were realised. Very little such data emerged from the experts' contributions. But they did provide a huge number of 'examples of good practice'. For each intervention described below, we mention some of these examples.
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Finally, in our initial open questions we did not foresee, or at least did not sufficiently stress, the tendency for governance to be at the same time a mechanism for inclusion of citizens and also - often implicitly and unintentionally - a mechanism for exclusion, mainly of less educated citizens. In fact this turned out to be a central theme in the discussions of 'our' experts. This tendency is therefore extensively documented below.
Of the two additional research questions the fifth - about new forms of active citizenship -delivered little new data. The focus group session relating to this topic did, however, deliver some additional information about governance practices in the work and civil society domains. In the summary of the findings below we therefore include these data in the section on interventions for governance.14
(b) Research Strategy
At first glance, the focus group method seems to be an unproblematic research strategy. Nevertheless there are some hidden 'traps'. In order to check how well we fared, we compared our research procedure with three other recent European projects on adult education that also used focus groups as an element in their research design. The results are to be published separately (Chioncel et. al. 2003). We highlight below three crucial elements.
Identifying and recruiting participants. The national teams used two main strategies to identify experts: brainstorming within the national team and asking others (especially advisory panels and colleagues) for recommendations. In total, however, nine different methods of identifying participants were employed. Only about half of the experts who accepted the invitations in fact attended one or both focus group meetings. At first glance this drop out rate is shocking. However, the reality is that focus groups, like questionnaires, suffer today in general from a drop out rate of over 50 per cent. Compared with the four other European research programmes, the etgace figures for attendance are in fact slightly better. The major problem in all countries, as in the other three European research programmes, was that experts on education and training in the workplace were hard to get. Some declined invitations, others accepted but did not actually attend. Ultimately, in some countries, the subgroups of experts on education and training in the workplace had only four participants, and of course this may have damaged reliability in that the range of opinion may have been limited.
Focus. As the term focus group suggests, the topics to be discussed should be structured. Therefore we developed a detailed manual. This stated the five research questions (see above) explicitly. Guidelines were proposed for timing for each of the two one-day meetings of the focus groups in each country. One or more specific session over these two days was allocated to each research question, but national teams had some freedom to re-schedule the sessions in the light of local conditions and perspectives. Three out of six countries made some changes. The most important changes refer to the unwillingness of focus groups in these three countries to split up in gender-homogeneous subgroups to discuss the gender issues in active citizenship. One of these countries redesigned the time schedule quite radically, but appliedPage 60 all original research questions. Compared to three comparable European programmes, the etgace procedure had a somewhat more prescribed agenda for focus group discussion.
Coding, report and feedback. The ETGACE focus group manual suggested a specific procedure for coding. Countries were asked to divide the records of the focus group discussion into short paragraphs, to attribute each paragraph to one of the central research questions and finally to make a file of all paragraphs attributed to the same research question. Within that file researchers were asked to develop codes that reflect all types of answers to that research question. All countries followed this general procedure; two countries added some more specific analysis techniques. The manual also suggested that additional research activities could be undertaken, such as:
* collecting further evidence on examples of good practice,
* short interviews on the phone to collect further evidence from participants who made interesting statements during the discussions, and
* asking participants to make amendments to the drafted report of the focus groups.
All countries used some of these additional data collection techniques. One country describes it as follows:
The researchers became aware that the time available during the expert symposia meetings was insufficient to ensure full answers to the research questions. It was therefore decided, in discussion with participants, to establish an e-mail list, which consisted of 33 experts. The first draft of the report was circulated to the e-mail list and comments were solicited from the experts. Participants were also asked to provide examples of materials, curricula, etc., which illustrated points they had made in discussion. The researchers also followed up the symposia with telephone calls and e-mails to specific participants to clarify, expand or otherwise illuminate points made. The final report and its conclusions are based, therefore, not simply on the discussions, but also on evidence collected by these supplementary methods; this evidence comes, however, only from experts who participated in the group discussions. (ETGACE 2001b, p. 27)
(c) Diversity
Behind the 'mask' of a standard table of contents, and despite common guidelines and procedure, there are substantial differences between the national focus group reports in the way they address the central research questions. This is partly due to differences in national contexts. For instance, there are differences in the assessment of the role of the state between post-communist Slovenia, post-fascist Spain and post-welfare states such as Belgium and the Netherlands. But there could also be differences in the agendas of focus groups, due to differences in internal group dynamics between national focus groups. For instance, the report on Finland gives more than average attention to information and communications technology. Is this because of its vast and empty rural areas, or is it just an accident of the specific interests of the members of this focus group? The report on the United Kingdom focuses more than most on innovatory projects for fostering citizenship. Is this an artefact of a government policy that sees its role mainly as stimulating citizen participation but notPage 61 regulating and financing it on a regular basis, or again just a particular and contingent interest of the members of these British focus groups?
Moreover, because of the qualitative character of this research we should not speculate too much about similarities and dissimilarities between countries. Given the limited number of experts in each focus group and their selection on theoretical grounds, the results for each country cannot be seen as representative of that country. Qualitative research is not about representativeness but about diversity and variation. Rather than six national studies we should consider them as a single report. Together they sketch a more balanced overall description of the dynamics and variation in educational intervention for active citizenship than a single national report could do.
Interventions to create structures for governance are just as important as interventions to activate individual citizens, particularly because since the 1970s traditional forms of governance have - gradually but radically - begun to change. On the one hand, many traditional organisations (such as political parties, unions and churches) have lost members, while new looser networks of citizens have become prominent. On the other hand, the structures of those traditional organisations (such as states and corporations) which have maintained their position have become less hierarchical. Participation, communication and individual autonomy became the new key concepts of social organisation.
For most of the experts participating in our focus groups this was not just a sociological description of what happens in late modernity. Most of our experts supported such developments, offering radical critiques of hierarchical organisations and strong support for more democratic and 'bottom-up' practices of active citizenship. For instance, the central theme in the Spanish report on the focus group discussion is the need to create democratic, participatory decision-making structures: democratising democracy as it is called in this report. This principle refers in particular to the facilitation of egalitarian dialogue between people. A group of Dutch experts stressed that the most important role for government is to create conditions under which people easily engage in social and political activities. The Belgian report stresses that educators should not just follow the agenda of established organisations (which they see as a 'top-down' approach) but should start where the people are (a 'bottom-up' approach). They advocate the creation of experimental spaces for such 'bottom-up' participation.
But what educators worry about most is that new forms of citizens' participation often leads to exclusion of less educated people. All national reports stress again and again that new approaches to governance and citizen participation open doors for the well educated, the broad new middle class of late modern society, but leave out marginal groups. Examples mentioned include immigrants, older people, gypsies, and disadvantaged youngsters. It is a recurrent theme in the sections below.
(a) The reinvention of politics
As the Dutch wrote, secularisation and 'the end of ideology' has deprived people of many ideological and ethical anchor points. Consequently ideologically-based political parties and churches are losing members. There is a need for more open public debates, organised byPage 62 independent institutions. In the Netherlands cultural centres and adult education institutions, for instance, try to fulfil that need. Belgium describes the 'Archipel Project', which brings sixty people from different social backgrounds together over eighteen months, to discuss and work on real social issues from their own experience and expertise. It is a way to learn and participate, to form and voice opinions, to take a position and to grow personally and professionally:15
The Archipel initiative is funded by the King Baudouin Foundation16 with the ultimate aim of improving living conditions for the population. The foundation is developing activities at local, regional, federal and also the European level. Between 2002 to 2005 the main themes involve social justice, funds and contemporary philanthropy and activities in the fields of civil society and governance. Civil society initiatives are set to help to make associations more effective in developing 'social capital' by encouraging citizens to get involved, bringing people with different backgrounds together, developing new forms of local co-operation between citizens, associations, businesses and local authorities, and encouraging cultural pluralism. In relation to governance, the Foundation tries to involve citizens in decision-making on science and technology and production and consumption issues and makes use of the Foundation's role as a forum for impartial consultation to build new models for public debate and decision-making. (Focus group, Belgium)
Often these new initiatives are internet-based. Finland has an Internet programme Express your Opinion. Spain highlights the Catalan Forum to Rethink Society that produced proposals in twelve different thematic forums; all the preparation was done via the internet. The Dutch have a newly started project, also partly Internet based, called Echte Welvaart (Real Prosperity). Echte Welvaart17 is a network of activities and initiatives involving nearly thirty associations and institutions, initiated by the green movement and supported by churches and several charity and humanist bodies. Its goals are to achieve a better balance between economic, ecological and social values by stimulating reflection on the one-sidedness of the dominant ideology of economic growth, careerism, money making and consumerism, and to promote values, scarce in our society, such as silence, space, care, and empathy.
The network adopts, supports and links a lot of different activities and projects by all kinds of associations and institutions. The network consists of about 500 local projects, clustered by province and target group. It brings together professionals, experts and decision-makers by organising workshops and master classes. Important features of the master class method are: bringing together three learning levels (the individual, the organisation, and society), double loop rather than single loop learning, and using diversity in working methods (convert information, reflection, and practice). People share knowledge and inspire each other; they share common values and goals, without losing their own identity. Such a learning network creates a diverse and rich coalition, in which people and initiatives are strengthened. The EchtePage 63 welvaart project has three main functions: to do, to learn and to show. In the activity 'to do', the network adopts and strengthens certain projects. In the activity 'to learn', the projects become laboratories for the network. Finally, in the activity 'to show ', the findings are published. It publicises articles and essays in magazines and newspapers, contributes to television programmes and has its own web site. (Focus group, the Netherlands)
One of the experts, active in this campaign explains:
We want to stimulate professionals and active members in associations of the green movement and of other social and religious organisations to reflect on their role. Changes in society towards sustainability and a higher quality of life require that people take into account the interests of others now and in the future. In this campaign we use values and notions people accept as being important. So we do not impose anything upon people. We try to trigger discussions in work and in schools, at home and in associations and churches about these values people share. We 'mirror' these values and ask people: so what can you do about it? We organise for instance, 'masterclasses' for people in which they discuss strategies and methods to realise these values in their work. (Focus group participant, the Netherlands)
A somewhat different form of the new politics, reported from Finland, the Netherlands and Spain, is a growing practice of interactive policymaking. Local, regional and incidental national authorities ask professionals to design a consultation process in which citizens' groups and individual citizens can express their opinions through workshops, meetings, surveys, and so forth. Action and learning are interwoven. An interesting example of citizens' participation in the public sphere is in Rubí, an area in Barcelona with 60,000 inhabitants, which is apparently implementing a participatory decision-making process for the local budget:
This example of the radicalisation of democracy, where citizens participate directly in the organisation of the community budget is based on the project Orçamiento parti cipativo 'from Porto Alegre, Brazil. A project for participant democracy was initiated in the year 2000, in order to involve people in governance. This initiative emerged from the inhabitants' disillusionment with representative democracy linked with the situation of social exclusion that is generating a shortage of educational and professional training, and precarious labour conditions which called for a real involvement of citizens in the governance of the public sphere. (Focus group, Spain)
Our Spanish team formulated four specific principles which characterise interactive policymaking: giving a voice to all citizens, direct participation, discussion based on argument and collective decision-making.
Several examples were reported of attempts to better integrate disadvantaged groups in the political domain. An example from Spain is a Research and Animation Group of Cultural Minorities (GRAMC), one of whose main objectives is to foster immigrants' participation in neighbourhood decision-making bodies. In the United Kingdom, a project Getting Involved and Influential (GI2) aims to support educators and facilitators who are seeking to re-engage young adults in the political process by drawing them into learning.
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Getting Involved and Influential (GI2) has received positive feedback from many young people with whom the idea for the programme was tested. The planners have put in an application for a grant to fund the technical infrastructure. The programme is a partnership between two national development agencies: NIACE18 and the National Youth Agency19, and the development work is funded by the Local Government Authority. The programme, still at the planning stage, will develop a framework of skills to support young adults in developing their influencing skills. The programme providers consider that young people need to learn skills such as 'negotiation, advocacy, communication, research', in order to take part in democratic processes. Learning will be facilitated by incorporating a framework with expected learning outcomes and a series of steps to achieve them. Also a set of tools, techniques and processes are provided for trying them out. In future, the programme will be made available as a web-based resource to create a community of users who can connect with each other. It will include bulletin boards and chat rooms. The plan is to make the programme highly interactive. Users will be able to post examples of activities and campaigns that work - and those that do not as well. (Focus group, UK)
(b) The Learning Organisation
The nature of business organisation has changed over recent decades. There has been a marked 'de-industrialisation' and growth of the service sector. Corporations have become more dependent on each other in the new network economy, and some have started to reflect on their obligations as 'corporate citizens'. Their main challenge is to develop new business ethics to balance societal and economical aims, but this is of course a difficult and slowly developing process. A clear example in our research material of a corporation that has made remarkable progress in this direction is the Finnish marketing firm Kesko:
Kesko is the first Nordic corporation to announce its commitment to the 'Social Accountability 8000' standard. Based on International Labour Organisation Conventions, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this was published in 1997 by the US-based Council on Economic Priorities, now Social Accountability International. The standard is expected to become general quickly, to complement quality and environmental standards. Kesko considers itself indirectly responsible for social and ethical issues related to the production of the goods it sells. It also pays special attention to its employees. For example, discrimination against any employee in respect of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction, social origin or comparable reason is forbidden. A safe and healthy working environment is provided. No employee is to be subject to any physical, psychological or sexual harassment, punishment or abuse. 'Kesko has always tried to be a good citizen' stated the manager of environmental policy in the leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (6 August 2000). (Focus group, Finland)
But there are also marked changes within corporations. On the one hand unions have lost members and influence. On the other hand, hierarchical organisation has been decentralised, allowing a greater autonomy for teams and individual workers on the shop floor. All ourPage 65 expert groups reported that flatter organisation required new policies for human resource development and training in employees' communicative skills. Spain and Belgium reported in more detail the emergence of teamwork in corporations and Belgium provided an example of a radical alternative, a workers co-operative that tries to escape market imperatives to manage their business collectively. Slovenia reports on a non-profit organisation SOCIUS, established by 18 successful large companies to encourage the development of learning organisations, and also mention ELES20, a national company for the production and distribution of electricity:
A training centre established by ELES provides the employees with the opportunities for formal, non-formal and informal education and learning. Formal education is necessary to meet the professional requirements of work and professional innovations, but the need of the employed to have access to knowledge that is not directly related to their jobs is recognised as well. The centre for autonomous learning gives this opportunity. The training centre also enables access to learning to the members of their employees 'families and to the local population. By doing this it improves access to education while at the same time helping to strengthen the ties between the company and local environment. A representative of the training centre describes its concept as follows:
[...] this ever growing demand for professionalism in the workplace makes people realise that they have a shortfall in certain fields [.... W]e offer them training that is non-formal, and informal, too. That means, that we make available, not only knowledge needed for the job, but also some other things [.... I]n that way we support learning and enhance possibilities for people to become active not only in their personal life but also in their social life. We also invite the families of our employees to our centre. (Focus group, Belgium)
Experts in Spain and Belgium reported the emergence of teamwork in corporations and in Belgium added a radical alternative example, a workers' co-operative that tries to escape the dominant market imperatives and manages and runs its business collectively. All countries reported that learning organisation approaches require new training in communication skills. Much of this training is informal.
Also characteristic of the last three decades is that employment has become a basic requirement for citizenship - more evidence of work as a central facet of citizenship. But for education and training professionals this is also a worrying and crucial challenge. All national expert panels stressed the need to expand and to improve training in basic skills for the unemployed. In particular, projects for specific groups at high risk of unemployment were reported in the United Kingdom, Spain and Slovenia.
(c) Constructed communities
Traditional civil society, and in particular local communities, comprised close-knit networks of social and cultural non-governmental associations, but there were interesting differences between countries. It was reported with apparent pride from the Netherlands that - after Denmark - it has higher membership of political and civil organisations than any otherPage 66 European country. On the other hand, Slovenia and Spain reported that although civil society and volunteer work had been weak under the socialist and Franco régimes, churches had played an important role. In Belgium and the Netherlands civil society had been organised in religious and ideological 'pillars', which were now gradually losing their significance ('de-pillarisation'). In late modernity churches seem to be experiencing a downward trend in membership similar to other traditional membership organisations (e.g., political parties and unions). However, in Slovenia we were told that the role of the church has increased recently, while in the United Kingdom we learned of an interesting project called Church for Un-Churched People.
Where traditional civil organisations have been weakened, we may see professional interventions to strengthen local communities. Some reports mentioned initiatives to build new, looser, network structures in local communities. For instance, we learn from Spain of a project called vern, a neighbourhood committee to co-ordinate and support smaller neighbourhood associations and cultural groups. The report of the United Kingdom mentions professional principles and projects to build community networks and bring people together: thus projects to train catalysts for community work such as Community Champions and Can-doers.
The Scarman Trust is 'dedicated to helping people gain greater power over their lives, especially by formulating new 'deals' between community-based organisations and decision-makers in government. ". The Can-doers umbrella programme aims to empower people so 'they are not alienated from power and institutions'. The programme enables local communities to be involved in governance, and to make a difference. About 500 resourceful people - can-doers - countrywide, identified as catalysts, are already 'at work, setting up saving schemes or food clubs, getting young people off the street and into sports or the arts, renovating estates, or setting up not-for-profit businesses to achieve their aims.' They need some support, such as finance and connection to other networks (e.g., local government, civil service, and other local community workers).
A second Scarman Trust programme is Community Champions,21 run in collaboration with the DfES [the central government's Department for Education and Skills] to increase community activities. Very often in communities where there is little activity, it might take a group of people with a common interest to make something happen. Working together helps them feel a little less powerless and a lot more able to change things for the better. The initiators of that process, 'community champions', are committed to helping members of their community have a greater say in the decisions that affect them. They must be skilled in helping people to help themselves. Community champions are forward looking people persistent enough to see things through. They must be good at networking and sharing ideas. In the focus group, it was reported that about 150 people were involved in London. These enterprising individuals and organisations, trying to change their communities, will - it isPage 67 claimed-form new 'civic networks [that are] the 21st Century equivalent to the parish pump'. (Focus group, UK)
We heard of many programmes aimed at overcoming social exclusion, such as programmes oriented to activating young people or immigrant communities. From Slovenian experts we heard reports of successful use of study circles. Study circles are apparently one of the most popular non-formal educational interventions in Slovenia. One of their appeals is the personal approach. As a Slovenian expert from the state domain said: in short you don't start with professional terminology and expertise, but you start with a person. Concrete situation, concrete problem, concrete person, that's what it's all about. You have to pull in the people out of anonymity who usually don't have that opportunity. (Focus group participant, Slovenia)
Study circle participants also appreciate the method itself. Participants themselves discuss and decide the content of what they learn, depending on their interests and the problems present in their community. The method puts an equal stress on learning and social aims. A study circle mentor explained: every circle brings something new [..] I tell participants that everyone finds in a circle what he or she's looking for [... ] first we only discussed things and got to know each other [...] then we set our objectives [...] then we prepared our plan how to realise these objectives [..] we acquired all the literature needed [...] then the fieldwork started [...] and the final objective was the exhibition [... ] later we added some new elements [... ] and now it has become a kind of meeting place, where people meet after mass, they sit and talk [... ] I think that it has a long-term effect because all the community gets more self-esteem [..] we've found out that we ourselves know best how to settle our 'garden'. (Focus group participant, Slovenia)
Study circles' importance also lies in encouraging socio-cultural animation and education and learning in communities where other forms of education and social life are more or less absent. They also help develop local communities. State funds are provided, which covering both the education of mentors and organising the circles - although many also find sponsors for additional costs.
There also seems to be an interesting shift from volunteer work in associations to programme volunteers, who assist professionals in the social services in the execution of their work. Two types of volunteer programme were most often mentioned in our national reports: in the field of health, and to support immigrants.
These combined efforts seem to have had some effect. In Slovenia and Spain, political transformations to democracy seem to have encouraged a flourishing of civil society. The Netherlands addressed head-on whether there has been a decline in volunteering, with data showing the level of volunteer work has not decreased since 1975.22 But there has been a change in the composition of this volunteer 'army': in particular fewer housewives and students but more retired people. Notwithstanding this, concern about the long-term effects of the growing dominance of work was widespread: ultimately the fear is that this could damage people's willingness to engage in civil society and the community.
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This section summarises our main findings with respect to interventions to support individual citizens within old or new governance structures. A crucial problem is how to motivate citizens to participate in such structures. Our experts saw two main shifts in support for the learning processes of active citizens: a shift from traditional teaching to facilitation, both moderating group discussions and individual mentoring; and an increasing impact of information and communication technology.
(a) Motivation
Although our experts thought challenging new structures of governance were the key to encouraging citizens to be active, there was some interest in other, more direct, methods. For instance, we found from the life histories that the starting point in learning active citizenship is often when a citizen identifies with a specific group or issue. Commenting on this finding, Spanish experts suggested that such identification can be fostered by offering good examples of active citizenship, while Finnish experts considered role models important.23
Another recurring theme in the life history and focus group research was that in the late modern era, characterised by individualisation, citizens are motivated to become active not only by a societal good cause but also by the benefits they may personally reap from participation. Active citizenship can generate greater respect from others, it is a way to socialise and make new friends and acquaintances, and ultimately active citizenship can contribute to self-actualisation. This may have negative effects - as the Dutch report comments, membership becomes more volatile. Instead of lifelong attachment to a particular association, citizens tend to attach themselves for limited periods to a particular cause, and then shift their interest to another - searching for new challenges, connections, identities.
In considering motivating interventions for disadvantaged groups, it seems essential to avoid a deficiency perspective. For instance, from Spain the pedagogy of maximum was stressed. Drawing on what individuals can do (their capacities and skills), rather than on what they cannot (their deficits), this pedagogy fosters people's self esteem.
Excluded sectors 'participation is sometimes difficult because their contributions and culture have not been valued by the whole society. For this reason it is necessary to begin with a pedagogy of maximum which draws on the capacities and skills of individuals and not their deficits. If the approach is based on the idea that people are not capable or that they do not want to participate, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; and with marginalised sectors the case is further aggravated. In practice the pedagogy of maximum means: 'Quality training in which theory and practice is connected. Using this training to foster people's motivation and self-esteem especially when they are from excluded sectors in order to contribute to their active participation.' (Focus group, Spain)
The Belgian report also stresses this positive approach, commenting that there are many citizenship activities which do not require complicated competencies. The same reportPage 69 suggests active citizenship can be 'sold' by presenting it as 'sexy' and 'fun' and they mention as an example a free magazine for youngsters in secondary school called MAKS.24
MAKS is a democratic initiative that addresses youngsters from 14 to 19. It is a part of the magazine Klasse25, intended for teachers, parents and pupils, and talks about participation and communication in school. Pupils are informed about their rights, about the offers available for them, to make them more involved in their education and in society at large. The magazine also provides a social platform to encourage tendencies in society that foster participation. Their intention is to stimulate youngsters to participate by giving them the feeling that they have everything in them they need to be an actor.
MAKS presents positive images: they give examples of boys and girls who are positively involved. People need to be challenged and informed in a contemporary and attractive way. It is important to stress not only problems in society, but also the capacity to solve these problems or to bring about a social change.
A concrete example created by MAKS is 'change your desk'. Youngsters can swap with another student for a day. For example: students in Latin and Mathematics can change with somebody studying to become a baker. The project 'change your desk' is about giving pupils an opportunity and stimulating them to follow another subject, at their own school or elsewhere. The purpose is to deflate prejudices, to awaken their interest in other pupils and subjects, to strengthen their feeling of connection. Another example is an international exchange between schools. Stories and testimonies of other people with different experiences in different living conditions can provoke recognition, solidarity and reflection. Exchange projects can confront people with other realities and urge them to look for possible solutions together. (Focus group, Belgium)
In the United Kingdom, a project entitled Play's the Thing uses drama to engage people who have previously been unable to take up educational opportunities.
(b) Active learning
While children's education has long been dominated by traditional teaching methods, adult education was freed rather early from this tradition by its stress on facilitative methods. Nowadays adult education generally expects and stimulates active learning - that is, an active role for learners themselves. With respect to citizenship education we see in the national reports a mistrust of governments' public information programmes. For instance, in Slovenia the population tends to reject educational interventions from the state after the collapse of the communist régime, because education promoted by the state is seen as indoctrination. The Finnish seem to agree, expressing the view that state (formal) education in their country has historically been an instrument of successive oppressors: Sweden, Russia and Nazi Germany. The Dutch experts questioned whether the European Union's public information campaigns are very effective and whether, in fact, providing information is a significant force in activating citizens.
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The expert panels advocated various new methods of citizenship education which give a more active role to the learners themselves:
* Forms of education where a teacher does not transfer information to the participants, but where participants themselves collect and analyse information. Slovenia mentioned, for example, workshops, project learning, problem-solving methods and research activities.
* Using the group as an educational instrument. The Dutch report describes this method, in which group members support each other, and discuss each others' situations and problems: examples include peer learning for groups of women and of older adults. In this way group members learn their problems are not unique and that collective action is required.
* Integration of acting and learning, also called learning-by-doing, in which acting in everyday practice is followed by deliberate feedback, reflection and planning improved action. There seems to be a connection with an increasing interest in forms of individual coaching, sometimes called mentoring or tutoring. The United Kingdom report gives examples of such individual tutoring in different contexts.
A typical example of learning by doing is the fostering of voluntary work, as has been done by the Dutch Stichting Vluchtelingenwerk'26 (Refugee Council Association).
The Council is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and works to protect asylum seekers and refugees. This work is mainly done by its many volunteers and entails personal support and the protection of refugees' interests during admission, reception and social participation, primarily in the Netherlands. Volunteers and paid staff of the Council promote the interests of refugees and asylum seekers. They provide guidance during the asylum procedure and in the municipality. They also provide information about the position of refugees and try to eliminate prejudice. The organisation relies on the efforts of volunteers and paid staff throughout the country, who are at the heart of the Council's work. It also relies on the support from members, donors and organisations that subscribe to the objectives of the Dutch Refugee Council. An expert from the expert groups working in the Council explained why the number of volunteers is declining:
In Vluchtelingenwerk about 7,000 volunteers are active, organised in 350 local sections. The tendency in recent years has surely been that it has become more difficult to recruit volunteers and to keep them for a long time. Sometimes volunteer workers are affiliated to a certain refugee family and stay as long as that particular family needs them. But there is a shift in the organisation of the work force from traditional volunteer workers, faithful and trustworthy for years and years, to student trainees who stay for a year at the most. There is a shift also from housewives to pre-pensioners and pensioners. These changes have to do with changes in the labour market. Workers are scarce, so housewives go out to work (often part time). Students, traditionally another source of volunteer force for Vluchtelingenwerk, have to earn money as well as study because of the deterioration of the grant system. So most of them no longer have much time toPage 71 be volunteers, although their social involvement has not been diminished, as they show in their trainee time. (Focus group, the Netherlands)
The 1970s and 1980s were a period of technological innovation that democratised the use of audio-visual equipment and led - among other innovations - to the introduction of a more diversified and decentralised broadcasting system presenting new opportunities for fostering active citizenship. For instance, when Slovenia became independent public tribunes were organised and transmitted by regional radio stations; these were meant to explain the nature of democracy.
The British organisation Community Service Volunteers (CSV) has for many years run a Social Action Broadcasting project that involves local people in issues that matter to them. For about 25 years, CSV Media, in collaboration with BBC Three Counties Radio, has been giving voice to communities across the UK. This initiative helps to strengthen the community by building links between local people, business and community organisations. In 1999 CSV Media's BBC Radio Bristol Actionline ran campaigns for over 200 local organisations, generating 6,800 calls to the Actionline. One volunteer, aged 53, says:
The real joy of the radio we produce is the way it connects people with help. I worked on a campaign promoting therapeutic massage for visually impaired people and appealing for more volunteers. The response was amazing. Some of the stories we heard from people who benefited from the message made you realise that it is so worthwhile. I get so much back from the campaigns we run. (Focus group, UK)
In much the same way as new audio-visual media were the challenge of the 1970s and 1980s, so the Internet was the challenge of the 1990s. It will probably be another five or ten years before we can properly assess what works for citizen education and what does not. For the moment the dominant development seems to be the explosive growth of websites that deliver all sorts of information, and to a limited extent interactive services. The Finnish provide the most detail on this subject. Among other examples they mention a digital register on Finnish government projects and legal preparatory documents, a portal to public sector information and its services, and a digital Citizens' Guide.
We have already encountered some initiatives to construct new political forums through the Internet, such as the 'Catalan Forum to Rethink Society' and the Dutch environmental forum 'Real Prosperity?' The Finnish city of Tampere offers on its website a simulation game that enables citizens to experiment with different alternatives to plan town districts.
The British report mentions the possibility of internet communities, and provides an example of an Internet community of survivors of domestic violence. This Democracy Forum Discussion,27 initiated by the Hansard Society28 as part of their political education programmes, was set up to enquire into all aspects of domestic violence from the survivors themselves. Also a computer-training programme was given for 250 survivors of domestic violence to enablePage 72 them to interact with MPs on-line and give their views to an All-Party Committee on Domestic Violence. The discussions provided evidence to influence subsequent legislation. In a similar way those on tax credits have been able to give their views. Usually the targeted participants are members of excluded communities or groups. (Focus group, UK)
Most reports worry about the currently limited access to the Internet. Many initiatives to train people - particularly disadvantaged groups - in Internet use are mentioned: co-ordinated by local adult education centres, libraries, specialised training centres and in industry and union projects. Big leaps towards the information society were apparently made in Finland, with a pilot project 'The Learning' in Upper North Karelia29. This was part of a process of revising the national information society strategy, under the auspices of SITRA (Finnish National Fund for Research and Development).
Upper North Karelia is a peripheral sparsely inhabited rural area in South Eastern Finland. It suffers from high unemployment with many people of working age traditionally leaving for more prosperous areas. The project fights social marginalisation by improving the information society capabilities of the people.
At the beginning of the project, 21 local unemployed people were trained to become net trainers and support people in a six month education course. They then started to teach net skills to other local residents at kiosks, in separate courses at schools, at village meetings, in a senior 'drive-in' and in people 's homes. All residents, associations and companies in the area can call a trainer into their home, to install software and train them in the use of the internet and local community network. All this is totally free. The basic teaching principle has been 'learning by doing'.
Under the project all residents of the area have the opportunity to use the internet and the local community network at the cost of a local phone call, and there is a free helpdesk service for all network problems. More than 50 computer kiosks are established around the area for access to the regional community network and the internet. The kiosks are in places which people frequently visit: libraries, youth centres, houses for unemployed people, banks and shops. The use of these computers is free for all, both local residents and tourists can use them without any payment.
The main achievement of the project has been the creation of regional community networks for communication involving all residents, authorities, companies and associations in the area. Registered users can chat, send and receive e-mails, read announcements and reports, publish their home pages, sell and buy things in a 'flea market', etc. The local companies are advertising and marketing their products, and municipalities and authorities have conferences of their own. All key actors are local and it is thus very sensitive to the real needs and skills of people. Although local enthusiasm is important, it is also clear that the implementation of this kind of project has required a significant amount of economic support. SITRA is now funding similar learning projects for other peripheral regions in Finland. (Focus group, Finland)
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It may be over-optimistic, but perhaps one might anticipate, with such a broad range of projects, that within a few years most families will have, next to their telephone, radio and television, a computer - or all of these media combined in one appliance in their living room.
Although all focus groups conducted a special session on Europeanisation and globalisation, the results were quite meagre. Generally speaking, our experts saw internationalisation as a development mainly driven by economic competition; in its slipstream political integration follows, with the forming of the European Union as a clear example. The national reports mention particular problematic side effects: environmental problems, the marginal position of immigrants, and so forth. But when it comes to education, experts are well aware of the limited effectiveness current strategies can have in stimulating an international perspective on these problems; yet they have no clear alternatives. Three current educational strategies came to the foreground in the discussions.
Firstly there is the strategy of information. The European Union, together with national governments, spends a lot of energy on providing information about its purposes, structures and regulations. Slovenia, which aspires to become a member of the European Union, offers information through formal education, non-formal workshops and - for instance - a travelling library and information service called Eurobus. The Finnish United Nations Association has developed a Challenge to Global Citizenship Maturity Test comprising four elements: a diary, in-depth studies, action and self-evaluation. Some Dutch experts wondered whether this whole information circus is very effective, and indeed whether it is possible for information and knowledge in general to play a strong role in activation.
This brings us to the second educational strategy: problematisation. This strategy is typical of social movements. A commonly mentioned example is educational activities around environmental issues. Another - related to social exclusion, another oft-mentioned theme - is the European Union's own activity over many years in supporting local projects to combat poverty. One such project - CICERO, mentioned in the United Kingdom expert group -delivers modules exploring citizenship, democracy and the EU, and social exclusion. A study visit to Brussels is included. The British report even mentions a company, Capacity Unlimited, created in 1994 specifically to manage European funds.
Finally there is the educational strategy of exchange programmes. All reports mention examples, which are of two types. One type is exchange between countries, such as international camps and student exchange. The other type is projects or programmes fostering exchange between immigrant cultures.
A central theme of the etgace research is the varying roles of formal, non-formal and informal education within interventions for governance and active citizenship. The distinction between the three formats for education was mentioned explicitly in the first research question for the focus groups, about prime modes of intervention, but in fact the theme recurs in the answers to the other research questions. In this section we summarise our main findings for this central theme. In essence, formal education seems to play an important role in thePage 74 background, non-formal education seems often to add to formal education, but in specific interventions informal education in particular seems to dominate.
(a) Formal education
Formal education, as we have seen, plays an important background role. Participants in our expert groups in all countries emphasised the tendency for well-educated citizens in particular to respond positively to interventions for governance and active citizenship, and stressed the danger that less well-educated citizens would be excluded. All national reports therefore, advocate additional measures, mostly of non-formal education, to improve the access of less educated citizens to forms of governance and active citizenship. Examples are literacy courses, vocational courses, social skills training and computer workshops.
Discussing prime modes of intervention, experts in three of the six countries mentioned citizenship education as a specific subject within formal education. Slovenia reports a subject in compulsory education called 'Civic Education and Ethics', the Netherlands report a subject 'Social Studies' in some forms of secondary education and the United Kingdom mentions a recent government decision to introduce Citizenship as a subject in the National Curriculum for all state schools. Some reports contain passing remarks to the effect that, in a more general sense, citizenship is an element of some courses in secondary and higher education. Slovenia and the United Kingdom, against the background of recent introductions of national curricula for citizenship education at schools, worry about whether teacher education prepares future teachers adequately for this new challenge. Research was reported from two countries, the Netherlands and Finland, on the effects of citizen education courses on the knowledge and attitudes of pupils with respect to citizenship and democracy within formal education. (In both countries, the conclusion had been that there is some positive effect.)
Belgian and Spanish experts in particular were critical of traditional school education as a whole. They saw schools as teaching pupils to be good citizens but not to become active citizens. They argued - as did British experts - that more should be done beyond the formal curriculum to encourage active citizenship at schools. Two types of activities were discussed in the focus group sessions: more extra-curricular activities (clubs, mock elections, etc.) and more internal democracy in schools, involving pupils, representatives of the broader community, and parents.
(b) Non-formal Education
Turning to non-formal education, experts in three countries mentioned that schooling for the workplace is important, especially programmes helping unemployed and excluded people get back into paid employment and free them from the margins of society. In discussion of the national reports within the international ETGACE team, Spain in particular stressed this point, arguing that access to the labour market opens access to participation in other domains. Access to the labour market, for instance, is a key factor in social inclusion of such disadvantaged groups as ethnic minorities and immigrants.
All reports mention non-formal education for volunteers (in the civil society domain). Dutch experts indicated that non-formal education of volunteers was increasing as a consequence of severe cutbacks in government funding for civil organisations. Rather than being themselvesPage 75 actively involved in carrying out the organisations' work, professionals train volunteers to take over a range of essential tasks. Organisations approach volunteers more and more to be unpaid semi-professionals, starting their careers at the bottom of the organisation and only gradually climbing the ladder to qualitatively more challenging functions - supported by non-formal training.
Among the experts in the focus groups, we found a widespread ambivalence with respect to non-formal education in the state domain. Slovenians were most explicit about this. On the one hand they mentioned important issues for public information in their country - for instance, at the time of independence, information about the new political institutions; more recently information about plans to join the European Union. On the other hand they emphasised that the population has tended, since the collapse of the communist régime, to mistrust educational interventions by the state, seeing state education as indoctrination. In relation to formal education, the Finnish seem to agree, stating that state education in their country has always been an instrument of its oppressors.
(c) Informal Education
The etgace research results (from both life histories and focus groups) lead us to the conclusion that, by and large, formal and non-formal educational interventions alone are not enough. There is a more hidden form of education that goes hand in hand with the action itself. Effective interventions generally combine support for action with support for embedded learning processes. As a matter of definition, we refer to such education embedded in action as informal education.30 Examples of informal education mentioned by our experts may be arranged in several ways; for example:
* Who is the educational agent? At the one extreme, there are examples of professional support for informal education. These would include organisational development or community development professionals supporting an active group by introducing moments of skills training, or moments of assessment and reflection on the purposes of particular actions. Somewhere in the middle are standardised educational formats applied by active citizens, such as simulations of local urban planning procedures on the internet or manuals with examples of sustainable solutions for environmental problems. At the other extreme we might see experienced active citizens acting as mentors for people who have just begun to be active.
* How far is the education deliberately planned? On one extreme are sessions explicitly focussed on education, such as a group organising a reflection weekend or an afternoon of training. In the middle you see planned contributions to meetings, providing specific information or discussing strategic options. At the other extreme are spontaneous moments of reflection about unexpected feedback, or rather sudden transitions in the purposes of active citizens.31
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* What are the specific elements of the group process? Slovenian experts mentioned a threefold distinction. First, some informal education supports active citizens in solving concrete problems, in being up-to-date with current social changes and in understanding and evaluating their effects. Second, informal education may support the development of social skills, such as positive self-esteem, communication skills, taking responsibility for oneself and others and co-operation with others. Third, it may foster development of critical thinking, changing of values and breaking of stereotypes. The Slovenians added that in practice too much attention is given to the first two types of informal education, which are mainly 'training', and not enough to the third - supporting critical thinking -which is the really educational part.
This discovery and initial exploration of informal education in the broader framework of interventions for governance and active citizenship is one of the main findings of the ETGACE research project. Over the last decade, useful contributions have been made in relation to informal vocational education (see, e.g., Eraut et al. 2000). If we are to be able to understand and design more effective informal educational interventions for active citizenship, there is an urgent need for a more precise analysis and delineation of what they can achieve, and of the relative effectiveness of the methods and strategies available.
After completing drafts of their national reports on the focus group research, the ETGACE international research team discussed the main themes of the six reports. This helped to structure the above account, but also raised several points which - on closer examination -could not be supported from the evidence available in the national reports. Two deserve mention here.
First, the division between domains of citizenship can be misleading. There are many connections at the institutional level - as the Spanish report, for instance, stresses. Less visible are connections on the individual level. In particular there is a considerable 'spillover' effect: competencies learned in one domain are applied in another - the British report mentions this. This is partly because individuals tend to change their commitments over their lifetimes, but also because many citizens are active in more than one domain at the same time.32
Second, an important finding is that training and education for active citizenship is more and more organised in temporary projects which are required to deliver precisely defined goals. The ETGACE research team agreed that an unwanted side-effect of this development is the exclusion of citizens who need longer, more intensive periods of educational support in order to become active. This applies chiefly to citizens with a lower levels of general educational attainment. The ETGACE research team also supported the conclusion - found in the Belgian and the Finnish national reports - that the effects of interventions cannot be accurately predicted, and that - rather than a 'product approach' which seeks to define measurable results in advance - a 'process' orientation is more appropriate.
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A gender-specific dimension was included in the research. The main research question related to this was:
* How do processes of learning for citizenship and governance vary between men and women ...?
In order to answer this principal question, we felt it would be helpful to explore the following subsidiary research questions:
* What values and attitudes have influenced decisions by men and women over their lifespans to undertake citizenship activity?
* Are there particular features of the present environmental and social conditions which women and men face differently?
* Are there particular ways in which women and men give meaning to their experiences and their identities?
* What are the implications for a future citizenship education agenda that incorporates a gender perspective?
Across most of the life history interviews there were similarities of educational and family expectations for women. Women's education and career opportunities were limited; this applied especially to older women - these differences were slowly weakening, to a greater or lesser extent in each country, among younger generations. Sandra (UK), for instance, said that where she grew up, opportunities for girls were 'much more limited.' They 'just married young, were pregnant young, a lot of them [...] worked in shops. [...] they didn't really educate you as such.' In Spain, particularly during the Franco era, women were given limited education and not expected to do paid work. In Slovenia the tradition had been that women were expected to work, but still to be responsible for the home. Only in Finland did the life history report not identify particular differences in educational opportunities for women. But even here, as in most countries, equal opportunities legislation emerged during the 1970s and 1980s.
In spite of these differences, one value seems to have remained constant - the deferring of women's career ambitions to their husbands' or partners'. For all the women, marriage resulted in either disrupted career plans or at least a change of job. The power relationships between heterosexual partners was such that women's autonomy had less value in the public sphere than men's. The significance of this for active citizenship perhaps lies in the status given to public and private roles. In some cases female-specific experiences - childbirth, domestic violence, care - led to female-specific activities. But these were rarely political activities and rarely engaged with men's responsibility to women. In this respect the activities remained 'gendered', and values about women and family seemed to change little across generations. Only Belgian interviews found men who claimed specific family roles as part of their citizenship activity. Another exception to this rule was those women who played aPage 78 public role at work as trade union shop stewards. Of such women interviewed, however, all admitted to both gender discrimination and a struggle to prove themselves in their public role.
In Spain men and women have had different opportunities throughout history, influencing how their active citizenship developed. In Franco's time cultural, ideological and political repression was particularly harsh on women. Women, confined to the private sphere, caring for families and households, could develop as active citizens only in that context. Men's role was dominant in the public sphere. With industrial development, some women started to work in factories, where their labour was cheaper, and the struggle for decent working conditions was carried out by men and women through illegal unions. Leading positions in the workers' movement were, however, occupied mainly by men.
During this period the feminist movement fought for a true equality of opportunities for men and women. Thanks to this movement women have succeeded in opening access to formerly male jobs, and to higher education, and have obtained improved legislation on social, economic and political rights. In Spain today the feminist movement is facing a new challenge: the inclusion of all women in the struggle for a more egalitarian society, to break down differences between women of different educational backgrounds. Working-class women, women lacking much formal education, are claiming a right to education and to participate in governing society. The private domain is often important in this, leading to a process of self-transformation; some men are also influenced by these perspectives. In the Spanish interviews, we also saw men fighting for more egalitarian relationships between men and women: the learning of active citizenship for both men and women can be traced across all domains.
Although equality between men and women was a formal principle in socialist Slovenia, and full employment for both sexes was a normal part of life, traditional cultural patterns remain prevalent. Compared with women, male respondents only exceptionally mentioned the private sphere as important in influencing the course of their careers. In general, the mutual support of partners in their activities is acknowledged. However, women in the older cohort had had to suppress their participation in public life because of family demands. Women seem to have been more aware of gender differences than men. This was particularly so for socially constructed images of women, and in regard to women's activity in the state domain, where they faced adverse and discriminatory media and public attitudes.
The differences between men and women activists were not identified as so prominent in the Finnish material. Nevertheless, women tended to be more care-oriented, talking for example more about their children. This lack of difference may be more significant among activists than among people in general, though we should note that in Finland both the President and the Speaker of parliament are women.
All British respondents learned citizenship values, attitudes and skills in a variety of domains, primarily through informal discussions and activities. Factors influencing women to become active citizens often included their role in a marital relationship (or after its breakdown), and societal expectations for motherhood. Such roles were often learned in childhood, or emerged from family circumstances that women seemed unable to challenge. Interviewees tended to see the family as the woman's concern, rather than the man's. Men gave little or no indicationPage 79 that their identity, or sense of responsibility in active citizenship, was formed or changed by such matters; whereas women often had problems reconciling private responsibilities with public life. In other words, public life for women conflicted with additional, private, demands that might not be extended to the men. There are indications, however, that further and higher learning, formal, non-formal and informal, were particularly significant for more than half the women. Here some learned to resist normative images of themselves; others just extended their identities beyond that presented through the private domain.
All Belgian female active citizens interviewed felt responsible for gender as an important social issue. In diverse ways they felt committed to improving the position and situation of women in society. From personal experience of oppression or inequality, from an identification with the situation of other women or girls, or from personal drive, they felt the urge to act politically as active citizens. At the same time they looked for more personal, less prescribed ways to be active, combining different responsibilities within their lives. As in the UK, the women indicated that (higher) education and work were important for their proper emancipation and social participation. In their work they tried to give shape to their social commitment, and looked for work roles where this was possible. Those with a partner and children expressed some feelings of being impeded from taking up active citizenship roles by their family situation, but attuned their activities to these circumstances.
However, these tendencies are tendencies only. Nowadays there are no distinct differences in the way women and men learn and take up active citizenship. This can be understood against the backdrop of the opening up of Belgian society, creating more room for alternative concepts and practices of active citizenship that appear to include rather than exclude the experiences of women and thus seem to be less gender biased. An example of this is the way gay men would take responsibility for issues that would normally be classified as private, but involved both care and social responsibility that crossed the normative divide between public and private.
In the Netherlands both men and women in more traditional relationships referred to their partner as enabling their activity. However they did so in different ways. Men pointed out that their wives took care of the household, so they could spend more time on their cause. Women pointed out that their husbands took care of the income, so they could invest time in their cause. In less traditional relationships, both men and women were concerned about their independence, each seeking their own a balance between private life, paid work and cause.
Although the Netherlands interviews revealed that women encounter more disempowering transitions than men this did not affect the degree of citizenship, that is, women did not withdraw from their activity. Women were no less ambitious or self-confident than men; neither were they afraid to enter the spotlight - but these were the successful women. More 'female' forms of leadership (identified with such language as 'consulting', 'to the point', 'good atmosphere') were beginning to be appreciated both by men and women. There are some indications, then of an emerging ethical, mutual dependence and pluralistic attitude that has been advocated in recent literature.
In all countries, men's and women's experiences were affected by their social class backgrounds and by national history. The degree to which care responsibilities affected women's ability to act as independent and self-directing agents depended on their personal biographies and occasionally on their direct experience of discrimination. In most countriesPage 80 (Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, UK, Slovenia) younger women perceived themselves as having better chances - than older women - of equality in terms of work and family relationships. In many cases this was facilitated by more equal access to education, both popular (e.g., in Spain) and higher education.
Specific circumstances affected people's decisions to become active in society. For women these often arose from family pressures: a mother's illness, children, the experience of domestic violence, isolation as a wife without paid work. Others were motivated by a sense of injustice, closely associated with social class. Both gender-specific and domestic or private experiences influenced the kinds of routes people took into wider social roles. But the more private, family route taken by most women suggests that women's autonomy is still defined by different boundaries - controlled geographically by the husbands' public life and by family relationships. Usually, only when men experienced some form of oppression (sexuality or disability, for example) did they take up an active citizenship role that interfaced with their private sphere.
The gendered state of oppression is, however, complex and hegemonic. Women can collude in their own oppression - as Marlene's story demonstrates. Subjected to abuse and violence from her husband for 25 years in order to keep her marriage together, Marlene explained how her childhood experiences led her to believe her role in society was to be a mother:
[T]here was such a lot of Catholic stuff, it came up in everything, and I don't know if I told you about the priest that used to come in twice a week, he said 'what is the most important job for a man?' so we said 'policeman, fireman, lifeboatman, a pilot' and he said in a sanctimonious way, 'No it is a priest'. So of course when he said 'what is the most important job for a woman?' we all shouted out: 'a nun, it is a nun' and he said 'No, it is a mother'. (Marlene, UK)
As a dutiful wife, she 'always stayed back.' Her role, she thought, 'was to support him, make sure there was clean clothes, food and the place was quiet when he comes in'. Consciousness of what is oppressive, therefore, determines whether and what action people choose to take. The implications for learning active citizenship from a gender perspective lie in how people can be enabled to develop a critical awareness of the nature of their own gender-specific influences.
The reasons why some women became active citizens, it seems, were influenced by their role within a marital relationship and inextricably tied to societal expectations for motherhood. Some of these roles were learned in childhood, others emerged from family circumstances. Even if their active citizen role moved outside a family focus, the ongoing pattern of behaviour in family relationships usually persuaded women to make decisions based around consideration for the family.
Thus caring was a central theme in active citizenship for many women interviewed. Some had experiences of needing to take a caring role for their family members or other loved ones. Beryl (uk) mentioned how the experience of caring for her son gave her a new awareness. Laura (Finland) worked with an association for people with cerebral palsy because her son had cerebral palsy. Majaana, another Finnish woman, cared for her parents and later took up responsibility for caring for the elderly.
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In contrast, caring did not seem to be a motivating factor for most of the men's active citizenship. Few, for instance, were involved in activities related to children or other caring roles. In Finland, children and young people were important for men but more as friends than as a responsibility. The male image of family responsibility was usually depersonalised, as indicated by Hannu when he described his interest in youth:
I have a dream or vision to combine my love for sport and work for youth still in my later life. I would like to start a junior soccer team and act as a coach for it. It would be nice to have my own children along in such activity [....] There are never too many situations, where education and youngsters' own activities were combined in a sensible way, and sport is excellent for that purpose. I have myself got a lot from sport during the years, it's a sensible way of life. (Hannu, Finland)
Similarly in the UK, men's perceptions of family 'responsibilities' rarely loomed large. Whilst male respondents might have played a family role they seldom saw it as significant to their public lives. In this respect 'family' did not affect what they chose to do. This sense of family disconnectedness, applicable to most men, again placed women in a family power relationship that defined them as carers, and ultimately controlled how they viewed themselves in relation to the outside world.
The male Slovenian interviewees were all involved in traditional family relationships and all their wives, bar one, were employed. This was common in Slovenia, but division of labour sometimes still ran along traditional lines, where the women supported the partner's professional occupation. Women active citizens were more diverse - half did not have traditional marriages, and two of those who did received support from their spouse. The fact that most women did not have traditional family relations suggests that if women are to be active, things must change - as the literature suggests (see §3.2.6 above). Again, as in other countries, few men mentioned the private sphere in relation to their active citizenship; for women, it was dominant.
The goal of equality has not yet been achieved, however. For instance, half the Slovenian women felt equal to men, but at a cost. Ana, one of the youngest politicians, said women must put in more effort to achieve what men can achieve just by being men. Women in Slovenia (and Spain) saw solidarity as a motif of engagement, linked to a sense of injustice and feeling of responsibility towards the community. Active citizen and professional careers were more complex and unpredictable - less linear - for women.
In the Netherlands, Merel was taken as a child to feminist events, and later became a politician focussing on women's issues. Rita, in relation to her active citizenship, mentioned how she had to deal with typically male-dominated organisations - 'you really must take effort to fit in, wear the right clothes - I just didn't fit in'. In ironic contrast to this was the comment from one man in a focus group bemoaning the fact that it seemed so difficult to recruit women into his organisation: 'There are plenty of women we would like to have on our body and we do invite them [...] but we fail'. So attitudinal differences and social behaviour both prevented and stimulated participation by women in governance systems. One person observed, for instance, that governance practices were often acted out differently by men and women. It was felt that women's personalities were pragmatic and co-operative, while men were more wordy and stubborn.
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The Spanish interviews indicated the private domain was becoming more political and a space from which public campaigns for equality were being realised as women's critical awareness grew. The Belgian women also revealed a need to fight for the position of women in society. All felt connected with gender issues, such as injustice, rights, oppression. The women all had paid work, except for one who could not. The older ones, however had found difficulties at work. Generally women felt they had to work much harder than men to be respected equally. The personal was more political for women than men. Nowadays, as in other countries, it was felt that the opening up of Belgian society presented more room for alternative concepts and practices which included the experience of women.
In spite of these more egalitarian tendencies, there were some examples of women's public roles being given diminished status by male colleagues. In the UK, Catherine, for instance, described how her gender, rather than her abilities as a police officer, meant she was 'pushed around' in the police force. Most police officers were men. Men were allowed to see assignments through to their completion, but Catherine was often called away because someone else wanted a woman to contribute to their task:
I would get sent on these specialist things like [...] murder inquiries [...] and then I'd get called back [...] because they hadn't got a female and so everyone else would stay on a murder inquiry for six months and I would be on there for a week and a half [...] and then I'd go back and something else would happen [...] and I'd go on that for a week [...] I would never see anything through and it became a standing joke [...] I just got pushed around. (Catherine, UK)
This eventually affected Catherine's career. Whilst she chose to leave rather than complain, the incident demonstrates how gender, rather than citizen skills, can be defined by men, and ultimately defines women's public role. In this sense, the power to define the form and content of women's active citizenship lies with men.
Where do men and women learn about citizenship? A premise of the research was that people learn mostly through informal means. This was true to a significant extent. Even in the state domain much of the learning was informal. There was, however, a particular learning issue for women's acquisition of active citizen skills. The analysis suggested, for instance, that women's experience of the state domain (formal and non-formal education, though chiefly after leaving school) can be a significant resource for developing critical awareness of the attributes and skills for active citizenship. Although this was not their only source of learning, it is possible that traditional societal values and structures put pressure on women to conform to particular gender roles. Society-oriented attitudes and values learned within the private domain may reinforce gender divisions. Similarly self-oriented attributes and values can be gender-specific, emphasising for women the learning of caring. The critical context of adult, popular, further or higher education allows women to question their socially-induced status more deeply. In Belgium, the UK and Spain, women cited examples of using their own new awareness gained in such education to raise other women's confidence and political awareness, as well as build up personal skills to help them negotiate their way through male-dominated worlds such as unions.
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If these understandings of gender are applied to an analysis of how educational interventions address citizenship and governance, three questions emerge:
* Are there educational interventions that ignore the perspectives associated with women and thus make women invisible in learning programmes?
* Are there interventions that specifically address marginalised women's needs so as to empower women to strive for an equal stake in citizenship and governance?
* Are there educational interventions that raise the profile of activities done mostly by women so that their behaviour and contribution to society is made more visible?
In the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Belgium there were similar comments. Women are often perceived as active in different domains and positions, but men usually have higher level roles politically and economically. Women would be more likely to engage in voluntary work involving children, care and other low-status roles. Men's active involvement in civil society might be more associated with, for example, sporting clubs (the Netherlands). Levels of education were becoming more equal, but the character of education was still differentiated. Where people segregate private and public time, men are defined by career, women by their role as housewife and mother. The Netherlands data indicated that women might have different motives for joining something, such as an interest in the activity content, its goals or social contacts; whereas men were more calculating, saying: 'It will it look good on my c.v.' Women were seen as less confident, more cautious in their general outlook, needing deeper knowledge before taking action, and more aware of children. Men were seen as more inclined to tunnel vision, more willing to take action and risk their knowledge in public. Men were more likely to take up others' opinions and make use of them themselves. Images of the women as emotional and caring and men as rational, logical and theoretical were linked to - and reinforced - the continuing socialisation of boys and girls into different role expectations.
Slovenia emphasised that despite a different historical tradition from the Socialist period, women are not well represented in the state or work domains. There was a sense that education should sensitise men about women and women about their potential. In Spain women were less represented at work than in other countries, but this situation was changing, except at the decision making level. In Spain it was argued women have developed their own forms of participation, based on solidarity as a key principle. This usually started in the private sphere but was beginning to extend to the public sphere. Such women were seen as paving the way for others. There was some sense generally that society was opening up to allow for more alternative forms of active citizenship. In Finland it was recognised that women still struggle in a patriarchal society; men get higher positions, are paid more, and take less responsibility for the home - which has a negative impact on women's space and career.
Suggestions for bringing about equality included providing crêche facilities and attention to time constraints influenced by the family. There was also a feeling in Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia that competencies and management styles often associated with women should be promoted. This was interpreted as transferring private competencies to the public sphere, creating space for women's dialogue, providing affirmative action to create spaces forPage 84 women and raise the profile of women's issues. In the UK suggestions included the need for women-only learning programmes, addressing confidence and similar themes. There was also a concern that men tended to associate authority with men, with implications for how women are seen in the public sphere. Women need to become aware of how to access power.
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[1] The number of meetings held were: Finland (7), the Netherlands (6), Spain, Belgium and the UK (5 each), Slovenia (4).
[2] In Belgium a somewhat different approach was taken: the panel comprised 28 members in all, spread across the specified categories; an average attendance often was achieved in each meeting.
[3] The sixth question was also addressed in the focus group research: see §3.4.below.
[4] The term 'active citizenship' has, of course, often been used in rather different ways from this - within essentially political projects designed to encourage certain forms of citizenship activity (rather than others), as Rose (1999) has eloquently argued.
[5] The state (or 'politics'), work, civil society, and the private domain.
[6] Formal education and training occurs in school and post-school institutions, typically in the public sector, and is the major mechanism of public intervention in education. It is characterised by relatively centralised, stable and sequential curricula, and well-established structures of assessment. It is the main locus of most state 'civic education' policies and expenditure. Non-formal education is systematic educational activity outside formal system (e.g. work-based training, community education programmes in health, co-operation, etc., adult literacy programmes). It has been the main traditional source of state intervention in post-school learning, and the main context for provision by NGOs, SMEs and the voluntary sector. Informal education is unorganised, unsystematic and/or unintended lifelong learning, e.g. from home, work, and media. It is the source of most learning over a lifetime, but the outcomes are strongly dependent on individuals' learning environments. Recent policy emphasis on 'lifelong learning' and the 'learning society' has brought this into the policy mainstream, but strategies to operationalise it are not well-articulated or understood. (Cf Coombs 1985, esp. pp. 20-26.)
[7] With the recent popularity of notions such as 'lifelong learning' and the 'learning society', parallel terms, formal, non-formal and informal learning, have appeared (cf, e.g., Eraut et al. 1998, Eraut et al. 2000). These seem to add confusion to an already complex territory.
[8] A sample of 16 was interviewed in each country. In two countries, additional people were interviewed (five in the UK, one in Belgium), so the total number interviewed was 102. This followed discussions with Advisory Panels, which felt that the initial samples under-represented significant categories of active citizen (e.g., trade union members, environmental activists, ethnic minorities). The project team considered whether analysis should be based only on 96 (i.e., discarding some of the respondents), but concluded this would be a pointlessly 'strict' interpretation. The additional interviews all fell within the categories of the sampling frame, and there was no attempt to draw conclusions from the samples on a quantitative basis. The additional interviewees have not altered our main conclusions, but they have added texture and depth to our understanding.
[9] One interviewee in Finland, and four in the Netherlands, fell slightly outside these age ranges.
[10] There is some evidence in our data that our disabled interviewees had experienced discrimination restricting their potential to become active citizens: it is hard to participate, for example, if there is no physical access for wheelchair users. It is also worth mentioning that five out of six advisory panels picked members of minorities as examples of active citizenship: not only disabled persons, but also minorities related to cultural origin and sexual orientation.
[11] A caveat is necessary at this point: we should be cautious about reading too much into apparent similarities and contrasts between national findings. Although selected by a formally common procedure, the number of respondents in each country was limited, and should not be taken as a representative sample for that country. The purpose of the research was not to secure representativeness, but to explore diversity and variation across Europe. The contrasts discussed in this section should be considered in this light.
[12] The full text of the national reports and a somewhat more elaborated text of this synthesis can be found in ETGACE (2001b).
[13] Aspects of this question were also addressed in the literature review (see §3.2 above).
[14] We also found significant evidence of gendered notions of active citizenship, reinforcing the results of our analysis of this point from the life histories. These results are set out and discussed in §3.5 below.
[15] Paragraphs in italics in this section (§3.4) of the Report comprise information (or summaries of information) provided to us by members of our focus groups. They are accurate representations of what focus group participants told us, but we have not in general sought additional verification. "
[16] http://www.kbs-frb.be/code/page.cfm?id_ page=125&ID=56
[17] www.echtewelvaart.nl
[18] The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.
[19] http://www.nya.org.uk
[20] http://www.eles.si/
[21] http://www.charter88.org.uk/press/scarman1.html
[22] http://www.dfes.gov.uk/communitychampions/
[23] The Table, from Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (1999), p. 158, is reproduced in ETGACE (2001b), p. 102.
[24] In this respect it is relevant that the etgace project developed a publication containing examples and models from our research material for use in education and training of citizens: see ETGACE (2002a).
[25] http://www.maks.be/html.taf?pub=18
[26] www.vluchtelingenwerk.nl
[27] http ://www. democracyforum. org.uk/
[28] http://www.hansard-society.org.uk
[29] http://unk.pkky.fi/englanti.htm
[30] As used by Coombs (1985), 'informal education' is virtually indistinguishable from 'learning'. In this section, we use the term informal education where specific times, places, actions or instruments are used to support learning processes.
[31] Evidence for more spontaneous moments of informal education come chiefly from the life histories, rather than the focus groups.
[32] This is, of course, one of our findings from the life history research. See §3.3.2 above.
