Active Citizenship as a Context and a Challenge for Citizenship Education Practices Inside and Outside Schools

Abstract

Recent transformations of the political and socio-economic landscape in Europe have critical impact on the arrangement and on the justification of citizenship practices in and outside schools. Political, cultural and religious radicalization, political populism, societal polarization, inequality, globalization and migration challenge educational institutions and programs as well as actors’ common conventional practices and understandings of citizenship, civic activism and participation. These changes also translate into conflicts about the educational transformations of the political at all levels of the educational system and in society as a whole. On one hand, there is a new impact of civic activism as a critique of contemporary democracy, so that the current established justifications of civic participation in contexts of public education are often also taken into question. On the other hand, the new "politics of belonging", which are instrumental for the political reconstitution of heterogenous societies of the 21st century, make use of the imaginary of the active citizen to establish a new democratic model, whose constituencies are hybrid and more individualized than ever. Thus, active citizenship is at the centre of debates about the ideational, regulative and cultural dimensions of the transformation of citizenship education in very different, and often contradictory, justification contexts. This panel questions the different ways of political mobilization around civic education for purposes of social inclusiveness and active democratic involvement. It calls for deeper analyses of the underlying justifications, assumptions and narratives, guiding educational conventions and ideologies, policies, practices and interests. It welcomes contributions of different formats, such as theoretical and conceptual papers, policy analyses and discourse analyses as well as empirical educational research papers.