2. EduMap project
• EduMAP http://blogs.uta.fi/edumap/ is a Horizon2020 research project
(February 2016- February 2019) focusing on the educational needs of
young people with low levels of basic and functional literacy, with deficient
language and cultural skills (foreign newcomers, ethnic minorities), those
who have dropped out of school and those not in education or training due
to handicap.
• The main research question is: What policies and practices are needed in
the field of adult education to include young adults at risk of social
exclusion in active participatory citizenship in Europe?
• Final product: IDSS system that uses actual European case studies and data
input for advising policymakers how to improve adult education for
vulnerable youth
3. Adult education for active citizenship
• The European discussion on active citizenship emerged to counteract deficits in the social
cohesion and solidarity and, above all, the democratic deficit.
• Lisbon European Council, 2000 - active citizenship concept has emerged: The key idea of
active citizenship is that a person is engaged in participation in activities that support a
community.
• ‘Learning for active citizenship” was stated as one of three major pillars in lifelong learning
(Commission of the European Communities, 2001).
• The key competences: the ability to communicate in one's mother tongue and foreign languages,
adopting civic competence based on knowledge of social and political concepts, and a commitment
to active and democratic participation (European Parliament and the Council of the European Union,
2006).
• Adult education has been seen as a key means for supporting active citizenship and social
cohesion, and equal opportunities, and for reducing the democratic deficit across Europe
(Mascherini et al., 2009: 5).
• However there has been the neo-liberal shift in the field of adult education: While historically, adult
education has been an important means for providing people with a broader, more humane
education, recently in many European countries, adult education has become reduced to only one of
its functions, namely that of employability or ‘learning for earning’ and only now the lifelong learning
also for learning self-development and excercising active citizenship has been highlighted.
5. Learning for active citizenship
• Learning for active citizenship comprises two approaches to citizenship learning,
namely learning about citizenship and learning through citizenship (cf. Johnston,
2003: 158, Kalekin-Fishman, Tsitselikis & Pitkänen, 2007: 28-32).
• Learning about citizenship covers historical and cultural understanding as well as
information on citizens’ rights and responsibilities. This learning is primarily about
citizenship as status, and focuses mainly on the politico-juridical spheres of
citizenship. It relates with the concept responsive citizenship (e.g. in Hungary)
• Learning through active citizenship is seen as part of lifelong activity in which a
person constructs the crucial links between learning and societal action -
citizenship as practice (Concept active citizenship is becoming widespread across
European countries agendas.)
• The contexts where citizenship can be learnt occur not only in educational
organisations but in various areas of social life: civil society, work, and what is
usually designed as the private sphere. (Kalekin-Fishman, Tsitselikis and Pitkänen,
2007: 30.)
10. Political-legal dimension
Active citizenship incorporates
adoption of democratic values
• A citizen as a holder of rights has become more and more a bearer of
duties (Eriksson, 2009: 194-198)
• A person’s active participation in society and political life is incorporated
with democratic values (Mascherini et al., 2009: 10).
• Democratic practices are ‘owned’ by citizens.
• The individual is expected to exercise citizenship by means of economic
choices. Socio-political order specifies the kinds of activities and
‘investments’ that individuals need to make so that the specific socio-
political order can be reproduced.
• Active citizenship is not about any participation in community but the idea
of active citizenship denotes a set of activities which are considered
necessary for a stable democracy (Hoskins et al., 2008: 389).
Not just voting (responsive
citizenship) but becoming engaged
in policy-making (active citizenship)
To channel a persons’ political agency
13. Socio-economic dimension
’Consumer citizenship’
• There is the constant shift of responsibilities from the state traditionally obliged to
create civil, political and social rights to the individual consumer’s fundamental
right – the ’consumer citizenship’.
• The individual actions of active citizens are considered to be the main ‘solution’ for
collective problems.
• An active citizen is the person who, through active involvement in the local
community, would provide those ‘services’ that are no longer available through
welfare state provision.
• With the the ’consumer citizenship’ one of the key principles of a democratic
society: the goal of equal opportunities.
• The goal of equal opportunities is difficult to fulfil for vulnerable people. Younger
generations, the unemployed, workers at home, and so on, are being left behind in
exercising active citizenship in the community and become passive receivers
(Milana, 2008: 208.)