Session Information
13 SES 07 A, Educational Narratives and Citizenship
Paper Session
Contribution
The official discourse of the European Union posits education as a main arena for the development of a peaceful and prosperous Europe. Education appears strongly connected with youth participation and identity, as well as with the high goals of citizenship and democracy. (www.partispace.eu) However, and notwithstanding the munificent tone of the official discourse, the fact remains that many of these terms—participation, identity, citizenship and democracy—are often deprived of their full meaning, ending up functioning as empty signifiers, thus susceptible of being filled with any ideological content (Mouffe, 2002; Žižek, 2012). The aim of the Partispace project – an investigation into styles and spaces of participation funded under Horizon 2020 - is to develop an analysis of the way these terms have been colonised by a market oriented discourse that tends to reduce education to the development of competences for the future life (Biesta, 2009); and youth participation to recognizable, acceptable and often formal spaces and styles of participation.
In order to develop this analysis, this paper will put to work a set of contemporary philosophical questions against the background of the current economic crisis, exacerbated by the recent migratory movements and the war against ISIL (as declared by the French President after the Paris shootings). These challenges are changing the social and political tissue of Europe, with direct implications for how we perceive education and youth participation. In particular, the Partispace project is interested in addressing:a) How can education induce people into an existing culture of European belonging and, at one fell swoop, enable people to create (perhaps collectively) a new emerging set of understandings and life experiences?
b) Is it still worth fighting for an ideal of citizenship when this same ideal is often used to specify the kinds of activities and ‘investments’ that individuals need to make so that the specific socio-political order can be reproduced (Biesta, 2011)?
c) Is democracy still the ultimate horizon of education? Or, as the recent Greek crisis attested, a disposable mechanism that only functions as an ideological appeal, thus asking for reconsideration (Mouffe, 2005; Balibar, 2004)?
d) Finally, what are the challenges that the growing “part of no-part” (Ranciere, 1995) of the European social body—groups of people for whom there is no place within the organised totality of the European Union, although they formally belong to or are in Europe—poses to Europe’s identity within the sphere of education?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Mouffe, C. (2005). The democratic paradox. London and New York: Verso. Žižek, S. (2012). Less than nothing. London: Verso. Biesta, G. (2009a). Good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 33-46. Biesta, G. (2009b). What Kind of Citizenship for European Higher Education? Beyond the Competent Active Citizen. European Educational Research Journal June 2009 vol. 8 no. 2 146-158 Rancière, J. (1995). Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Trans. Julie Rose. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1995. Balibar, E. (2002/2011). Politics and the Other Scene. London: Verso
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