Daniel Schugurensky,
Department of Adult
Education and Counselling
Psychology
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the
University of Toronto (OISE/UT)
|
Three
theses on citizenship learning and participatory democracy
Preliminary
Notes for Class Discussion
Daniel
Schugurensky, OISE/UT, 2003
Participatory democracy nurtures citizenship learning, and citizenship learning enhances participatory democracy processes. By promoting a reciprocal relation between citizenship learning and participatory democracy we can help to develop both more democratic citizens and healthier democracies.
This website is being developed as a resource material for students enrolled in the course ‘Citizenship Learning and Participatory Democracy’ (which I teach regularly at OISE/UT) and for all those interested in these issues. The site includes three main themes. The first relates to citizenship education. The second theme relates to the theory and practice of participatory democracy. The third theme (which I labeled the ‘meeting space’) explores the rich connections between citizenship learning and participatory democracy. This general inquiry is guided by three basic propositions, which correspond to each of the three themes:
1. Citizenship learning is a lifelong and lifewide process
2. Participatory democracy can make politics more inclusive, transparent, fair and enjoyable
3. Citizenship learning is both a prerequisite for, and an outcome of, participatory democracy
I sometimes refer to them as
the ‘cradle to grave’ thesis, the ‘healthy democracy’ thesis, and the
‘virtuous circle’ thesis, respectively. Below is a brief summary of each
proposition, and links to three documents that provide further elaboration on
them.
1. Citizenship
learning is a lifelong and lifewide process.
Although schools are
important sites of citizenship learning, the acquisition of knowledge, skills,
attitudes and values regarding citizenship cannot be reduced to citizenship
education courses taken in formal education settings. The acquisition of (and
reflection on) these knowledge, skills, attitudes and values constitutes a
complex process that spans from cradle to grave, and includes a broad variety of
formal, nonformal and informal learning settings.
Together with the school, the family, media and community associations
are among the most powerful socialization agencies for the development of
citizenship values and political competencies. Hence, in the context of this
proposition, education is not understood exclusively as a teaching-learning
process mediated by a curriculum, but also as an experience-learning process
that takes place throughout our lives in a variety of social spaces.
In this experience-learning
process, three main types of learning can be identified: cumulative, learning
and transformative. Indeed, some of the learning that we acquire is cumulative
in nature, as it builds or expands on previous knowledge, skills, values or
dispositions (e.g. from math to budgeting, or from school democracy to community
democracy). Other learning can be
conceptualized as new, as it nurtures a skill that was never explored before
(e.g. public speaking) or a new awareness about a particular issue (e.g.
ecology, sexism). Transformative learning, following the work of Jack Mezirow,
refers to that learning that challenges our prior assumptions.
The notion of transformative
learning is important, because although the ‘cradle to grave’ metaphor may
suggest a chronological sequence, lifelong civic learning is seldom a
continuous, uninterrupted and linear accumulation of learning experiences.
Oftentimes, it is rather a messy complex of learning experiences that can
complement and contradict each other. Research on primary and secondary
socialization suggests that our learning experiences (both those intentionally
sought after and those acquired incidentally) often reinforce prior dispositions
and values, but occasionally can contradict them, creating significant tensions
and conflicts in our consciousness.
An elaboration of this first
thesis can be found in the article A
framework to explore lifelong learning: The case of the civic education of
civics teachers. This piece explored 10 settings of citizenship learning on
5 civic domains (D. Schugurensky and J. P. Myers, International
Journal of Lifelong Education 22
(4), 2003: 352-379).
2. Participatory democracy can make politics more
inclusive, transparent, fair and enjoyable
This thesis argues that
participatory democracy provides a healthy complement to representative
democracy. The word ‘complement’ is intentionally chosen, because in most
contemporary societies participatory democracy cannot function as an alternative
to representative democracy. At least in our large and complex cities, it is
almost impossible to develop a governance system based on direct or
participatory democracy. Because of simple matters of scale, some degree of
mediation and representation is needed through second-order and third-order
institutions. Having said that, it is pertinent to ask ourselves: what happens
with democracy and civic engagement in between elections? Unfortunately, as of
today, not much. I argue that participatory democracy can help to fill that
blank. However, it is also pertinent to recognize that participatory democracy
is not a perfect model, and as such it has flaws and risks (for an elaboration
on this, see the forthcoming paper 'Ten arguments against and for participatory
democracy').
It is important to clarify
that by participatory democracy I do not mean token consultations without
authentic decision making power, clientelistic relationships that disempower and
control people, or even basic associationalism in the sense of membership in
community associations. Instead, I mean processes of deliberation that are bound
to real and substantive decisions. These processes can be present in schools,
families, the workplace and a variety of organizations such as churches,
advocacy groups, neighbourhood associations, political parties, housing
cooperatives, or social and environmental movements. Now, having clarified the
concept of participatory democracy, and having acknowledged its complementary
and imperfect character, I submit the proposition that participatory democracy
has the potential to make politics more inclusive, transparent, fair and
enjoyable.
First, participatory
democracy can make politics more inclusive by removing them from the exclusive
control of professional politicians and advisors, and incorporating ordinary
citizens to processes of deliberation and decision-making in neighbourhoods,
workplaces, educational institutions and any many other spaces. Making politics
more inclusive implies to ‘democratize democracy’ by making it more
accessible, more grassroots-based, more open to a diversity of constituencies.
Second, participatory
democracy can make politics more transparent by limiting the possibilities that
democratic processes degenerate in a variety of mechanisms for power
accumulation and reproduction that are likely to occur in representative
democracy. Among them are corruption, nepotism, clientelism, lobbyism, conflict
of interests, all of which contribute to voters’ low turnout and other
expressions of the so-called democratic deficit. Participatory democracy,
particularly if they include open and transparent participatory budgets, can
certainly increase the level of accountability and citizen control over the
democratic process.
Third, participatory
democracy can make the political process more fair and equitable by creating
rules of the game and social justice criteria that favor the less privileged
groups in each community. It can also do it (unlike the Greek Agora), by
actively promoting the entrance of traditionally excluded groups and citizens
into decision-making venues.
Last but not least,
participatory democracy can make politics more enjoyable by linking issues to
people’s daily lives, by creating a community spirit, by developing fun
activities, by nurturing a sense of optimism, possibility and hope, and by
incorporating popular arts or by producing dramatic events like ‘legislative
theatre’. Making politics more fun would not solve all problems of
modern democracy, but would certainly help to reconcile people (particularly
young people) with politics.
In short, this proposition
suggests that participatory democracy can improve the political process by
creating healthy democratic spaces in as many communities as possible. If
healthy democratic spaces are understood as inclusive, transparent, fair and
enjoyable, then participatory democracy can play an important role in this
process. A more detailed elaboration of this proposition can be found in the
document ‘The case for and against participatory democracy’ (forthcoming).
3. Citizenship learning is both a prerequisite for and
an outcome of participatory democracy
This proposition suggests
that citizenship education has an important role in preparing citizens for
participatory democracy, and at the same time participatory democracy provides
powerful opportunities for further citizenship learning.
The first part of this
equation is that for a good process of participatory democracy to occur,
citizens need to have certain knowledge, skills, values and attitudes. The
better equipped citizens are with the basics of democratic processes, and the
more oriented they are to the values and principles of democracy, the more
likely that the process is fair, inclusive, transparent, and enjoyable.
Educational institutions, both
formal and non-formal education programs could play an important role in
preparing citizens for the tasks of participatory democracy.
In other words, we are not born democrats. We have to learn to be open to opinions different than ours, to listen carefully to what others say, and to express our viewpoints in public. We have to learn to be fair, to abhor discrimination and injustices, or to put the common good above our particular interests. We are not born aware of our citizen rights and responsibilities, and on the ways to ensure that they are fulfilled in our daily lives in our respective communities. Neither are we all genetically predisposed to research the strengths and problems of our communities, to consider collectively the pros and cons of several options, to deliberate respectfully, or to reach consensus in decision-making. These are some of the dispositions and capacities required to participating effectively in local democracy, and educational institutions can provide a great assistance to citizenship building by helping to shape them.
The other side of the coin in this equation is that one of the most effective ways to learn democracy is by doing democracy itself. For this reason, it can be claimed that one of the multiple sites for learning the competencies and values of citizenship is participatory democracy. A good process of participatory democracy, with appropriate enabling structures for participation, improves enlightenments and encourages engagement.
A particularly strong form of
participatory democracy refers to processes of shared decision making and
governance between municipal governments and civil society. Examples of these
processes of co-determination are experiments like the participatory budget of
Porto Alegre (Brazil) and the neighbourhood councils of Montevideo (Uruguay).
The argument here is that participatory democracy not only contributes to the
construction of more transparent, efficient political
capital.
Indeed, through participation
in deliberation and decision-making (and in collectively elaborating fair and
workable criteria for making decisions), ordinary citizens develop not only a
variety of civic virtues (like solidarity, tolerance, openness, responsibility,
and respect), but also political capital. Political capital implies the capacity for
self-governance and for influencing political decisions. In this framework,
political capital includes five components: knowledge, skills, attitudes,
distance to power, and resources. In short, based on prior
research findings, and on my own empirical data recently collected with
participants on these processes about their experiential learning, I submit that
participatory democracy has great potential to be an effective informal school of citizenship.
Summarizing, the third proposition,
which lies at the core of this website, suggest that a positive mutual
reinforcement can exist –and sometimes does exist- between citizenship
learning and participatory democracy. This
synergy, however, needs to be explicitly sought after in order to be successful.
To cultivate this sort of ‘virtuous circle’ of reciprocal relations between citizenship education
and participatory democracy, we have to simultaneously nurture ‘schools of citizenship’
in the
formal and non-formal educational systems as well as in
every available associational space. This can lead to the development of an
archipelago of democratic learning communities, and the
more democratic the participating
citizens are, the more democratic the processes are likely to be in those
communities.
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Last updated on August 23, 2005