Inclusive Citizenship Education II

Abstract

Inspired by the discussions in Citizenship Studies, we developed the concept of Inclusive Citizenship Education. All learners possess concepts that enable them to orient themselves in the contexts of societal relations. With their subjective mental models of citizenship, all learners move through contested fields in which questions of belonging, so called identity, participation and subjectification are negotiated in their daily lives. All learners inevitably have working concepts about societies that they use every day. Those concepts should not be applied as mere starting points for citizenship education but as its very subject.   By taking the perspective of inclusive citizenship, we unite two distinct discourses: citizenship studies and the debate over inclusion. Citizenship is a fuzzy, context-dependent term used in different ways in research depending on the discipline, the political orientation of the researchers and the discursive context. We argue that citizenship is a concept which encompasses the potential to build up spaces for equality and inclusion. Often, citizenship is reduced to the idea of citizenship in a legal sense. In contrast, the perspective of inclusive citizenship focuses on two other, interrelated dimensions of the term, such that the meaning of citizenship oscillates between the attribution of status and act.   To capture the contested regime of citizenship in terms of struggle, Engin Isin coined the term acts of citizenship. In such acts, the actor is not understood as an entity and does not precede the act but is constituted by the act itself. Isin thus understands citizenship as performative, meaning that the dynamics of citizenship play out in acts of domination and emancipation. The logic of rupture does imply that speaking of acts of citizenship does not mean to focus on acts and forget about the regime of citizenship but, instead, to focus on both in its relations and tensions. In that light, according to Engin Isin, acts of citizenship are defined as acts that transform modes and forms of being citizens. This leads us to an understanding of the political – like the one from Jacques Rancière – which differs radically from the common sense in the debates in citizenship education.   We aim to constantly discuss, adapt, and revise the concept of citizenship and citizenship education. That is what we aim to do in this panel. Thus, we are looking for contributions which aim to discuss, criticize and rework the concept of inclusive citizenship education. What are the potentials and limits of the approach?  

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