The Transformative Citizenship Learning Project

The Lifelong Citizenship Learning Website

INTRODUCTION

A work in progress edited by Daniel Schugurensky
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

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:

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.

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.

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).

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. Although some citizenship education programs today still focus almost exclusively on the memorization of facts on history, geography, political institutions and the law, others also pay attention to the nurturing of a critical and active citizenship. When citizenship education programs develop informed, critical and engaged citizens, the health of democracy improves.

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, efficientand democratic ways of governing, but also provides a privileged space for civic learning and for the redistribution of 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. In other words, participatory democracy nurtures citizenship learning, and citizenship learning enhances the process of 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. A more detailed elaboration of this proposition can be found in the working paper Citizenship learning and participatory democracy: Exploring the connections, written especially for this website.