A critical approach to Rethinking Education and the need to develop citizenship
skills
Alistair Ross1
Institute of Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University
The recent European Commission paper Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for
better socio-economic outcomes (EC, 2012) is a remarkable exposition of the neoliberal agenda for education: remarkable, in the sense that rarely before has the link
between a rationale for investment in education been so explicitly made to the
explanation that this will lead to economic growth.
Aristotle set out alternatives for the educational curriculum:
In modern times there are opposing views about the tasks to be set, for there
are no generally accepted assumptions about what the young should learn,
either for their own virtue or for the best life; nor is it yet clear whether their
education ought to be conducted with more concern for the intellect than for
the character or soul … it is by no means certain whether training should be
directed at things useful in life, or at those most conducive to virtue, or to
exceptional accomplishments. (Aristotle, The Politics, VII.ii:1337a33 (453))
What he was saying, in the terms of those times, was that education could be justified
in three various ways
•
A utilitarian or instrumental argument for education: training directed at the useful
things in life (but: useful to whom? - to develop citizens ‘useful’ to a society and
an economy; to develop deference to/acceptance of authority; or for student’s
views of what will be useful).
•
To support ‘virtue’ - a multi-faceted disposition to behave in a particularly
prosocial manner, focusing on the development of the individual and the processes
by which their individuality was formed in relation to others in society.
•
Exceptional accomplishments’ - agreeing on what is cultural knowledge and on
what is ‘the exceptional’. Education is thus the transmission of culture.
The debate that has been had since the days of Aristotle about the purposes of
education has finally been resolved, after some 2,300 years. The most pressing
mission of education, we are told ‘is to address the needs of the economy and focus
on solutions to tackle fast-rising youth unemployment’. We are to ‘deliver the right
skills for employment, increasing the efficiency and inclusiveness of our education’.
Modern knowledge-baser economics require people with higher and more relevant
skills’ – in order to ensure that Europe can compete in the global economy (all from
EC, 2012: 3).
Educational attainment has become increasingly seen as a competitive process, as
instrumental reasons are used to justify educational policies and to drive parental,
1
Alistair Ross is Jean Monnet ad personam Professor of Citizenship Education in Europe and an
Emeritus Professor of London Metropolitan University. http://www.alistairross.eu
This paper is based on the keynote address given to the EUCIS-LLL conference Rethinking Learning:
Transversal Competences in the Spotlight, at Vilnius, Lithuania, 14 May 2013
national and now continental ambitions. In international competition, the development
of scales and league tables that have followed the introduction of the Programme for
the International Student Assessment (PISA) has lead to individual governments and
the EU fretting about international rankings, asserting that these are closely related to
eventual economic performance (on very little evidence of a correlation).
Figure 1 – EU PISA country scores in science against per capita GDP, 2006
Data source: OECD 2007
Figure 2 – EU PISA country scores in science against latitude of capital, 2006
Data source: OECD 2007
The European Union has set itself the target of maintaining (or improving) Europe’s
comparative educational ranking. The Lisbon Council concluded that the target of
becoming ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’
(European Union 2000, § 5) required Europe's education systems ‘adapt both to the
demands of the knowledge society and to the need for an improved level and quality of
employment’ (§ 25). The Commission has developed these strategies, and recent
documents stress that education should be seen in economic terms, designed to create
a competitive economy (European Commission, 2007).
The European Union has set itself the target of maintaining (or improving) Europe’s
comparative educational ranking. Education is being positioned as key to
employment, and if employment is in short supply – especially for young people –
then the competitive element in educational attainment becomes enhanced, ratcheted
up by each percentage point in the unemployment rate for young people. It’s not just
important to do well in education – other people have to do worse, so that you get the
job.
There are similar competitive motivations in the way that individuals now view
education. Many individual parents and students view education as a zero-sum game:
there are inexorably winners and losers. It is not merely that if one child wins,
another loses: the point is that the other child must lose in order for education to have
been ‘successful’. The commodification of education, its location in a competitive
market, and the dominant discourse of instrumentalism have turned education into a
game that requires losers in order to be successful (Ball 2003, Reay 2006).
This discourse of meritocracy argues that efficiency requires that ‘the best’ can ‘rise’
to the top. Appointments are made, responsibilities given, to those individuals who
can best demonstrate their intelligence and ability, and these factors are generally
assessed by educational performance. A high level of educational performance gives
access to positions and experience that then allows the individual to accumulate more
evidence of intelligence and ability, and denies (or at least hinders access to) such
experience to those with lesser levels of performance. This is an insidious argument: it
implies that those who do not succeed – even entire groups of people – are themselves
responsible for any disadvantages they suffer. It discounts institutional and structural
impediments to success, and ignores the fact that those who do ‘succeed’ in a
meritocracy take steps to ensure that their children become embedded in structures
that will ensure that they succeed regardless of ‘merit’.
The term meritocracy originated in a satirical argument against mixing ideas of
equality with notions of merit in The Rise of the Meritocracy by Michael Young, a
sociologist and a social entrepreneur. He mockingly points to how an elite selected on
merit would inevitably seek to ensure, through arrogance and complacency, that that
the privileged positions they rose to would be passed on to their offspring, even
though they might well be less talented. His argument was that any attempt to give
special status to an elite as being particularly important to society – a ‘creative
minority’ or a ‘restless elite’, as he put it, would produce a much larger majority of
the disempowered: ‘Every selection of one is the rejection of the many’ (Young 1958:
15).
Writing just before his death in 2002, Young observed wryly on how his satire had
been misunderstood and misused:
Ability of a conventional kind, which used to be distributed between the
classes more or less at random, has become much more highly concentrated by
the engine of education. A social revolution has been accomplished by
harnessing schools and universities to the task of sieving people according to
education's narrow band of values. With an amazing battery of certificates and
degrees at its disposal, education has put its seal of approval on a minority,
and its seal of disapproval on the many who fail to shine from the time they
are relegated to the bottom streams.
The meritocratic fallacy pervades much of the justification for educational
competition. It is predicated on the assumption that the principal purpose of an
educational system is to filter and grade individual’s attainment, rather than to equip
them with the abilities, skills and understanding to become fulfilled members of
society. The system, as Young eloquently puts it, is designed to create failures: this
make inequality, with all its social consequences, inevitable. It is the rationale behind
equality of opportunities policies – the so-called ‘level playing field’ approach. The
term itself – a playing field – demonstrates the mind-set that see education as a
competition between individuals, with the implication of there being losers and
failures.
The practice of meritocracy has, in many countries, created whole social groups that
‘fail’, and this institutionalises underachievement, offering reassuring rationalisations
for social differences and justifying discriminatory practices against social groups, be
they social classes, ethnicities, the disabled or any other minority.
So this inequity is not distributed randomly or evenly across the population. Socioeconomic disadvantage is closely associated with educational underachievement, as is
membership of a minority ethnic group. Migrants in particular suffer in the
educational qualifications race, and this can be demonstrated not to be the
consequence of second language difficulties, but because of institutional practices on
the level of school and country. Take these examples from PISA of competence in
language of native students and first generation migrants – and then look at the second
generation migrants – who are, of course ‘native’ in that they have been born and
brought up in their parents’ country of adoption.
Figure 3 - Differences in student performance in reading, by immigrant status
and country 2006
(Performance on the reading scale – mean score; selected EU countries where data is
available for both 1st and 2nd generation immigrants)
Data source: OECD PISA 2006 (Adapted from European Commission, 2008, Figure 3, p 6)
The work of the Migration Policy Group in Brussels, and in particular its comparative
work in the MIPEX Index (Huddleston et al 2011), has been significant in
highlighting the extent of discrimination against migrants in educational policy, and
the new group SIRIUS is now actively assembling and promoting evidence of how
migrant education can be improved (SIIUS 2013).
So what skills do young people need, and what skills will help us ensure some form of
equality of outcomes?
I am not arguing that foundation skills of numeracy or literacy, or general scientific
understanding are unimportant: they are indeed essential for modern day life. But in
these areas we have, in a number of countries, our educational structures and routes
particularly emphasising the filtering nature of each stage. Attainment and
qualifications focus on the admission requirements of the next level, even when many
participants do not wish to progress to that stage. This means that those who do not
graduate with the qualification necessary for the next level are characterised as
failures, and the system produces a population who most see themselves as having
failed to attain the next level. The academic pathway thus becomes particularly
valued, and the vocational pathway becomes – at best – a consolation prize.
Education is too often still regarded as a process of transmission: young people are
there to be filled with ‘the facts’ that they will need. The teacher possess the
knowledge, and her or his task it to ensure that they are successfully reproduced in the
minds of the learners.
There are many other important life skills that are needed besides those directly
needed for the labour market. All young people need to develop skills and
competencies in areas such as personal health and fitness, managing personal
relationships, developing moral and social values and the ability to be an active
citizen. They need to understand how to manage personal finances, and to be aware of
the environmental awareness. In the non-utilitarian sphere, it could be argued that
education should also help develop an understanding and valuing of culture and
human activity.
These are life-long-learning skills, that should be embedded in our culture, to be
continuously updated through practice, both informal and formal: they are what make
our life.
There’s an economic crisis, caused by excessive borrowing and careless lending.
Excessive borrowing by individuals and commercial institutions has in many cases
been the result of individuals being presented with opportunities to borrow what
appears to be easy money, on terms that are not made clear, by institutions who have
already taken out insurance against a failure to collect the interest or capital they lend.
This indicates that we need schools and colleges to be working with young people to
understand how personal finances work: why money can be borrowed, and from
whom; why it is offered; what can be repaid; what it is sensible to borrow for, and
what not to borrow for. This would be one concrete and very practical away of that
education might prevent the crisis recurring. Even better, but perhaps more unlikely,
would to be have rigorous compulsory tests for our bankers after a course in the ethics
and morality of banking, where only the most successful would be licensed to act in
the financial market.
The area of social learning, of citizenship education, has a particular importance and
significance, and I conclude with a resume of my currently research, and its
significance in suggesting the kind of citizenship education that may be useful.
I am investigating how young people, in the 12-19 age range, are currently
constructing their identities, as members of their own countries and as Europeans. I
have been visiting countries that have joined the European Union in the past decade,
or are currently applicant countries, talking to groups of young people about what it
means to be a member of a country, or a citizen, or a European. These terms of
identity are constructed – they are made up as descriptions to share with others about
who the individual ‘is’, what identity they have.
We construct our identities contingently- that is, we do so in a particular set of
circumstances that include the context, who we are talking to, when we are talking,
and what we imagine the conversation is about: these are social constructions, that
take place in a social context. Take a young man in a town in northern England: he
might describe himself differently in different contexts – as British, a British Muslim,
of Pakistani origin, British-Pakistani, Sunni Muslim, or from Bradford, for example.
This answer might depend on whether he was talking to a friend, a reporter, a police
officer, a journalist – or an academic researcher. It might depend on recent events in
Britain, or locally, or elsewhere in the world. None of the descriptions is untrue, but
each represents a selection from a repertoire of possible answer.
I was not seeking a definitive answer as to who these young people ‘were’, but
wanted to hear them discuss the possibilities between themselves. I organised focus
groups where about six young people, generally from the same school class, would
talk about these issues. I was looking for social constructions, and these are
articulated in a social context: an interview be unsuccessful, because it would be a
simple dialogue between an insider and myself, the outside researcher, In a focus
group, I start off the discussion along the lines I think will be fruitful – but then leave
it, as far as possible, to develop between themselves, so they can argue, contradict,
agree and disagree.
I have conducted 150 such groups, in 60 different locations in these 15 countries, so I
have a wide range of places, social groups, social classes and ages – but it is not a
representative sample, nor indeed is a representative sample possible. But these are
960 young people that show a range of diversities in east and central Europe – not a
precise representation, but covering many viewpoints.
Identities are recognised as being multiple and constructed contingently and, for many
people, developing in a context of growing diversity. In Europe in particular, this
diversity is complex: globalisation means that the populations of most European
countries are becoming intercultural in new and interesting ways, and the European
Union itself adds a new layer of potential or actual identity.
Civic identity used to be associated with a defined, limited and exclusive territory
(Mackenzie 1978). Over the past sixty years, this conception has become gradually
and partially eroded, through processes such as globalisation, large scale migration,
and the development of dual citizenship. Rights have become deterritorialised as
supranational institutions and conventions override national sovereignty. A growing
number of young people in many parts of the European Union acknowledge an at
least partial sense of European identity alongside their national identity. European and
national identities are not alternatives, but potentially complementary feelings that can
be held in parallel (Licata 2000; Lutz et al 2006).
Do young people identify variously with the cultural and civic aspects of Europe, and
how does this relate to the presence of the same two components in their identification
with their country? Do young people acknowledge a multiplicity of identities, or do
they insist that their identity is singular and essentialist? Do they see their identities
as differing from the way in which they think their parents and grandparents
constructed their respective identities?
What did I find? (for fuller descriptions, see Ross 2012a, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2014
(in preparation, Ross and Zuzeviciute 2011),
In terms of identification with their own country, young people mostly – not all –
seem to perceive their countries in terms of its language and culture, rather than its
civic institutions. They will talk of the music, the food, the dances, and sometimes of
the history: some talk at length about the natural landscape and their enjoyment of its
beauty. When they talk about political institutions and civic structures, it is often in
negative terms: about the unpopularity of political leaders, about perceptions of
corruption, about maladministration. They also talk about the possibility of leaving
the country in order to find work, or to further their education, and the tensions they
experience around this. Some see it as a duty to stay and reform and develop the
country, others see it as an opportunity for personal development.
The idea of Europe is rather different. A minority – not a small minority – say that
they do not feel that they are European. Europe – particularly to those in southeastern Europe – is somewhere else, over there – the ‘real’ Europe is the big countries
to the west, with the schloss and the château. ‘Real’ Europeans behave in a particular
way –sometimes referred to as a ‘civilised’ way – that they fear their compatriots do
not. Is there a European culture? - when the question is put in this way, they
generally think not – there are too many languages, customs, practices from which to
generalise a European culture. Europe may be a geographical expression, but it is also
to these young people a real institution, particularly in the European Union. Many of
them are very well aware of the way that they can now travel without visas, to study
or to work, or just to visit. They are aware of the educational opportunities to study
aboard through various Erasmus/Life Long Learning schemes, and many hope to use
these. They are also aware of Europe as an institutional entity in a less personal
manner – they know about European support and funds to support infrastructural
development. Some mention Europe s a place where human rights are particularly
respected – particularly some of the minorities in Turkey.
In all these matters, their own country and Europe, they are consciously different from
their parents and grandparents. They distance themselves from their parents, who
lived through the dismantling of the Soviet hegemony, an event that took place before
they were born. Some, the Polish young people in particular, have some sense of that
nationalism, but in an attenuated form - many of the others see any national identity
as something that is, for them, a cultural attachment, rather than political. Their
grandparents are even more in the past, some retaining the polarities and orientations
of the second world war, others looking to the certainties of the socialist system. Both
parents and grandparents are more nationalist that they are, and are less interested in
Europe.
But I then asked them to consider if other countries could join the European Union.
What about Russia, or Belarus, for example? Some saw no problem with this, but a
many raised objections, particularly in the Baltic states and in central eastern Europe.
These countries were not democratic, they were repressive, they would not fit in –
because ‘our country’ is democratic and respects human rights, they argued. Whereas
earlier, in simply describing their country, they had downplayed the political and civic
elements, when Russia or Belarus were comparators, then the political nature of their
state shifted to the fore.
I then suggested that Turkey was a potential member. Again, many saw no issues
with this. But there were objections: and this time, largely on the basis of cultural
difference. Turkey had a different culture, some said, to European culture. Those
who had previously explicitly denied that ‘a European culture’ existed not argued that
the Turkish culture was different from it.
My purpose is not to demonstrate inconsistencies and lack of rigorous thought, but the
contingent nature of they way that they constructed their identities, and the way that
these shift around particular situations. Citizenship education needs to reflect their
preoccupations and interests not impose an ‘adult’ – or rather, a ‘national’ or a
‘European’ identity on them.
On what did these young people base their ideas and arguments? I asked them at the
end of each session if they talked about these ideas with their friends, with their
parents, or with their teachers.
Some – not many – did talk with friends about ideas of the country of Europe, of
politics and economics. More – but by no means a majority - talked with their parents
- particularly when watching the news on television. Very few talked in school or
with teachers: a few mentioned history or civics teachers, but it seems to be an area
that is off most schools’ agenda. Some kids even laughed at the idea that they might
talk with teachers about these.
In school it’s forbidden to speak of politics. At home we are just little kids
who don’t understand about these things! (Naz K, Tokat TR, 16 ♀)
But if we are to learn here in school, then we should talk about this! I miss it, I
miss the opportunity. (Kamilia F, Krakow PL, 15 ♀)
They lack the opportunity to give voice. One young Czech said to me after our group
discussion ‘May I say how brave it is, for a person of your years, to come so far to
hear what we have to say’ (Oldrich, Hradec Kralove CZ, 12 ♂) ; in an Albanian town
in Macedonia I was thanked by Pëllumb (Tetovo MK, 17 ♀); ‘No one has visited to us
to talk about our future – I am really happy that you care about our opinion, and we
appreciate that’.
A single curriculum change? Every teacher, in every class, to spend the first fifteen
minutes of the day discussing the two main items on the day’s television news.
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