Paul Allender
Day 1
Turn to the person next to you, introduce
yourselves to each other and talk about
how you travelled here today.
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Aims:
To introduce you to a range of ideas about and definitions of active
citizenship;
To encourage and motivate you to discuss these ideas – in theory
and in practice;
To explore the issues involved in the practical implementation of
active citizenship;
To explore the ideas of you being active citizens and being active
citizenship tutors.
Learning Outcomes:
You to define what is meant by active citizenship;
To critically engage with these ideas/definitions in relation to their
practical implementation;
To consider the usefulness of ‘active learning for active
citizenship’;
You to begin to develop some personal ‘tools’ for active
citizenship;
Explore the idea of you being potential active citizenship tutors.
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Active citizenship is a term that has been
used in recent years to mean a number of
things.
We will look at a variety of approaches and
perspectives on active citizenship and will
do so in an interactive and inclusive way:
active learning.
So, the model of learning employed on this
course will reflect the concept of active
citizenship: active learning for active
citizenship.
What does the term ‘active
citizenship’ mean to you? There are
no wrong answers and what you say
and discuss will reflect where you
are coming from in relation to this
subject. Are you an ‘active citizen’?
What does it mean to you?
Let’s look at the two word separately:
‘Active’ and ‘Citizenship’
What do they mean to you?
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it
as: “consisting in or marked by action;
energetic; diligent...”
‘Citizenship’
“a member of a state or commonwealth,
either native or naturalized...”
One simple idea of active citizenship
then is that of participation in public
affairs:
“If we are to have a healthy democracy
we need to support each other in
identifying the issues that concern us,
and develop the confidence and skills to
make a difference to the world around
us.” (Woodward 2004)
“Active citizenship generally refers to a philosophy
espoused by some organizations and educational
institutions. It often states that members of companies or
nation-states have certain roles and responsibilities to
society and the environment, although those members may
not have specific governing roles.
Active citizenship can be seen as an articulation of the
debate over rights versus responsibilities. If a body gives
rights to the people under its remit, then those same people
might have certain responsibilities to uphold. This would be
most obvious at a country or nation-state level, but could
also be wider, such as global citizenship. The implication is
that an active citizen is one who exercises both their rights
and responsibilities in a balanced way.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_citizenship)
In recent years the concept of active
citizenship has been directly linked to
learning approaches and this is most
obviously the case in the organization
Active Learning for Active
Citizenship (ALAC) which was founded
in 2004 and was the forerunner of Take
Part.
“Active learning for active citizenship is:
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a flexible approach to personal and community
development through experiential learning (learning
through experience and reflection) in group settings. It
offers proven strategies to build stronger communities
through promoting personal effectiveness, social enterprise
and lifelong learning;
shaped by the values of participation, co-operation, social
justice and equality with diversity. These values require the
work to be: (i) community based, (ii) learner centred, and
(iii) developed through active and reflective learning;
(http://www.takepart.org/assets/documents/take-partframework/)
“Citizenship learning is:
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social learning (learning in society, about society, for
society)
based on experience and practice, through learning by
doing, through exploration, action and cooperation
implies the democratisation of learning by focusing on the
learner, valuing his/her situation and experience, fostering
his/her autonomy and responsibility in the learning process
is achieved through multiple, interconnected, transversal
learning approaches, for example through civic education,
human rights education, intercultural education, education
for peace, global education and media education.”
(Cecchini, 2003)
 Do
you think that education and training,
such as this course, can lead to more
active citizenship ? Are there any barriers
or constraints to this happening ? That is,
are there any other factors than education
and training that might play a part here ?
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The overall aim of Active Learning for Active
Citizenship is to develop engaged and
critical communities of people who will take
part in the decision-making structures
processes and structures within their
localities and maybe also at a national and
international level. It is believed that this
will lead to a wider empowerment of
individuals and communities.
As such, active citizenship is a ‘valuesbased’ idea and practice. What do we mean
by this?
Active citizenship, on this course, means learning
about how to take part in politics at different levels
including:
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How the political system works, locally to globally, the
decision-making processes, people and power
structures;
Developing the knowledge, skills and confidence to
engage with the political processes at different levels.
Three core ideas are at the centre of active citizenship
education:
The critical and engaged citizen, confident to ask
‘why?’, seeking the facts and challenging and changing
things;
A commitment to social justice, equality and inclusion;
A commitment to openness and accountability in
public affairs, with easy access to information, debate
and decision-making.
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Someone who:
is aware of the wider world and has a sense
of their own role as a world citizen;
respects and values diversity;
has an understanding of how the world
works;
is outraged by social injustice;
participates in the community at a range of
levels, from the local to the global;
is willing to act to make the world a more
equitable and sustainable place;
takes responsibility for their actions.
Exercise 3 – What do these values
mean when we put them into
practice? What might get in the
way of us doing this?
Look at the case studies.
While the government’s citizenship agenda tends to focus upon
the ‘rights and responsibilities’ approach, active citizenship
goes beyond this traditional framing of the issue and
concentrates upon the active element. A good citizen may well
vote in elections as part of their engagement with and
responsibilities within civil society. However, as the Take Part,
Active Citizenship website states:
“For many people, ‘citizenship’ is the embodiment of the rights
and responsibilities that they are due, and owe, from living in a
particular nation state. For Take Part though, this is not enough.
Firstly, of course, we must add the term active to citizen, with
the fundamental implication that citizens should be actively
involved in the mechanisms of governance. This active
involvement does not stop with voting, or even with
volunteering, because both of these activities can be carried
out ‘within the rules’, without challenging existing structures to
do things differently.”
“Active citizenship is concerned with more than
learning ‘the rules of the game’ and how to
participate within existing models and
structures. From Take Part’s perspective, active
citizenship should be defined more broadly to
encompass active learning for political literacy
and empowerment, addressing structures and
relations of power and working to change these,
where necessary, in the pursuit of social
inclusion and social justice agendas (Lister
1997). It also relates to how people can promote
community cohesion and social solidarity,
thereby strengthening civil society as well as
empowering individual citizens.”
What is political literacy? What are
‘structures and relations of power’? What
do you understand by the terms
‘empowerment, social inclusion and
social justice’?
Can you think of some examples?
So, going beyond the more traditional
approaches may well mean taking action
to address inequalities, challenge power
structures and working for change within
society. And these things are not easy!
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We would like you to go away and think about some
issues and concerns within your own life or that of a
close friend or colleague and how they might be
addressed by active engagement. We are not asking
you to come up with a ‘solution’ to these issues but
instead to think about what the active citizenship
agenda might offer as regards trying to begin to
address them.
Write some brief notes down and bring them to the
next session. Important – Don’t reveal anything that you
don’t feel comfortable talking about within this group.
 Think
about how active involvement
might begin to address some of the
issues in the case studies I’ve provided
you with. Choose one or two to focus
upon.
 Write
some brief notes on your thoughts.