Citizenship education in times of crises

Rede IACSEE Fachkonferenz, Paulinerkirche Göttingen

3. Juli 2015, 14:15 Uhr

Dear Monika Oberle, conference delegates, colleagues and friends,

It is a great pleasure to attend this year’s international conference of IACSEE, the International Association for Citizenship, Social and Economics Education.

Thank you, dear Monika Oberle, for inviting me to join the debate.

It is very good to be here in this beautiful setting of the Paulinerkirche. Some of the walls that surround us go back more than 700 years. This place has been shaped by history over many centuries as a venue of worship and contemplation, of research and scholarly debate, and education. I can just imagine the enormous density of ideas that these walls have witnessed over time, each of them reflecting the particular challenges of the world that surrounded them. Yet again, these are formative times for Europe and the world. I am sure all of us will find it a challenging task to understand and describe the changes that our political systems, economies and societies are currently witnessing. Mapping out the drivers of these changes is equally difficult. But all of us gathering here are even more ambitious. We are committed to engaging citizens in these changes!

The conference invitation says, ‘If citizens ought to be decisive actors confronted with such challenges, they need citizenship education to develop relevant competencies. Or so we think’. Dear colleagues and friends, to make it very clear, and this will not surprise you: SO I THINK. But we all know that this is a demanding task for educators, and I will talk a bit more about this in a moment.

For now, let me congratulate the organizers of this conference, and IACSEE, for a most relevant and timely conference agenda, and for upholding citizenship education as a continued priority. In my talk, I would like to briefly share five points with you, which I consider relevant to our debate:

1. The mission of the Federal Agency for Civic Education;

2. Reflections on citizenship education in times of global change;

3. How citizenship education can be our response to democracy fatigue;

4. The thinking behind the initiative ‘Networking European Citizenship Education’ (NECE);

5. And finally, some concluding thoughts on the future of citizenship education.

Most importantly, I am interested in your views, which is why I will limit my speech to some fundamental reflections, so that in the end, we have ample time for debate.

The mission of the Federal Agency for Civic Education

Let me start by sharing with you what my organization, the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung – German Federal Agency for Civic Education – stands for. What is our understanding of citizenship, and where do we see our role in citizenship education? Some of you might already be familiar with what we do.

We prepared a short introduction with a film that you will see now. I will then return to my speech.

(Film screening: The bpb at a glance: a short film about our work http://www.bpb.de/mediathek/142817/the-bpb-at-a-glance; 7:49 min.)

I trust that this film shows the unique set-up of the bpb:

• It was founded to help Germans deal with their history of National Socialism and to live up to a new, democratic future.

• It is committed to a strictly bipartisan approach to civic education in a wide sense, but is far from being non-political.

• It continues to adapt its content and methods to the changes in Germany, Europe and globally, and to the evolving needs and interests of our citizens.

While in its first decades, the programmes, services and publications of the bpb focussed mainly on multipliers and opinion leaders, now and for more than a decade, young people have been the focus of our attention. I understand this is also the focus of the work of many of you.

So, where do we come from? The main objective of our approach is to spark an interest in participation at an early stage of life; essentially, to teach children and young people that they have the power to make things happen and to change the world around them. We have therefore developed new types of accessible, attractive activities and services in the areas of music and youth culture over the past years, as well as a range of new campaigns and events. We also continue to improve our web-based services and outreach work to be able to connect with young people. As you can imagine, with Germany becoming an ever more diverse society, we have also made projects reaching out to young migrant communities a major pillar of our work. We continue to promote formal ways of increasing democratic participation. To give you one example, the bpb’s ‘Wahl-O-Mat’, an online election tool to help choosing one’s preferred candidate or party in the run-up to Bundestag, European Parliament or Länder-level elections, has proven enormously popular since it was launched in 2002. In 2014, we cooperated with a wide range of partners in European Union (EU) member states to make the ‘Wahl-O-Mat’ a truly European experience – some of you might have been involved in the project. ‘VoteMatch Europe’ has come with its own challenges in terms of its methodology, language and political culture. But it has been an exciting journey so far that we are determined to carry further in the years to come.

The bpb has also launched various peer education projects such as ‘Young European Professionals’ and ‘teamGLOBAL’ that are designed to train young people as multipliers, passing on their knowledge to their peers. These projects demonstrate that we place our understanding of citizenship beyond the borders of our nation state. And we work on empowering citizens to think and engage as European and global citizens. Let me underline: We have started, but we still have a long way to go. Citizenship education in the founding days of the bpb was clearly designed for the post-World War II German nation state that the Allies helped set up with great success. Today, Germany is a country deeply embedded in the EU. We are still grappling with the impact on our nation state, on questions of identity, and, as a result, of citizenship. I will come back to this question later in my talk.

Let me briefly mention our priorities this year. In 2015, we focus on themes that not only reflect our wide understanding of citizenship education but also demonstrate our commitment to actively contributing to the most controversial political debates of our time:

• Rising inequalities;

• Extremism (right- and left-wing, Islamism);

• Europe after the 2014 European elections;

• The post-Soviet space;

• The right to self-determination with regard to data;

• The twentieth century 70 years after the end of World War II and 25 years of German unification

• (Post-)Colonialism.

This is just to give you an idea of our current agenda. I am happy to address these themes in greater detail in our discussion afterwards. You might wonder, for instance, what our work on (post-)colonialism is all about?

A quick word on finances: In 2013, the bpb had a budget of 39.3 million euros, which forms part of the federal budget. This gives you an idea of the scope of our activities. Between 2013 and 2016, the bpb receives an additional annual 2 million euros to address the challenge of right-wing extremism. We are aware of the responsibility that comes with this budget, and continue to challenge our work to ensure it is well spent. I am proud to say that while the bpb is more than 60 years of age, we are far from being a dinosaur, a relic of past times. Our mission is to continue to innovate, and to bring fresh ideas to citizenship education in Germany, Europe and beyond. As Europeans, we might even think about establishing a ‘European Agency for Citizenship Education’ one day? I know this is a controversial thought, but I am happy to argue the case for such an organization in our discussion later on.

Reflections on citizenship education in times of global change

Let me move on and reflect on the overall subject of this conference for a moment. I am aware that in my analysis, I am somewhat trapped in a Eurocentric view that we often, and rightly so, criticize. But I deem it is important to share with you coming from many corners of the world the major disruptions that countries within the EU have witnessed over the past 5 years – disruptions that pose major questions to citizenship education at both the national and the European level. Let me give you my analysis, and I am happy for you to challenge me on it later on: The EU is still stuck in the most severe crisis since its founding days. To be more precise, we are looking at several layers of crises that go back to the global financial and banking crisis in 2008. These interconnected layers of crises not only affect our governments, struggling to fix what so far has been a dysfunctional economic and monetary union, the euro zone. The crises have also very directly hit the lives and wellbeing of many citizens in the EU. I say this loud and clear in a country that has not only been lucky to largely escape the devastating impact of the sovereign debt and economic crises so far, but that has partly benefitted from fellow European economies struggling.

Fundamentally, what has shaken up the EU, and in particular the 19 members of the euro zone, is no less than a broken promise: For many decades, the EU was considered and promoted as the guarantor for peace and prosperity on a war-torn continent. This promise for many, in particular Europe’s youth, looks no longer valid. This has been a shock for European elites committed to building an ever-closer union of nations and peoples. How on earth could we get into this situation? Even the most committed Europeans had to ask themselves this painful question.

But what I call the internal shock of the Union goes far deeper. In the course of the crisis, European nations have seen their fundamental democratic values undermined: governments were swept out of power in elections and (at least temporarily) replaced by technocratic governments; extremist parties gained ground across the EU and made their way into the democratic arena; the non-elected European Central Bank became the institution that kept the euro currency alive, while even the most powerful governments struggled to fix it; national parliaments were overwhelmed by the complexity and time pressure under which they had to vote on rescue mechanisms; and fundamental freedoms have come under attack in EU member states such as Hungary, to give only one example.

As a consequence, Europe’s citizens have been taking to the streets, challenging what they consider the false promise of European integration and an undemocratic modus operandi. Many of them feel powerless in what they see as a dictate of ‘Brussels’ and of powerful members such as my own country, Germany. What conclusions do we draw as citizenship educators?

Adding to this internal shock, and related to it, has been a more recent external shock: the aggression of the president of the Russian Federation against a sovereign country, Ukraine, and the annexation of Crimea, openly violated international law that EU members rightly cherish. It seemed as if Moscow seized the opportunity of an internally weak EU to challenge its values from outside – a deeply disturbing experience for EU governments that now witness the post-World War II European Security order to be crumbling. This is also a frightening development for many citizens in the EU, especially those with recent memories of Soviet domination, such as in Poland and the Baltic states. War has returned to the European continent. What, again, are our conclusions as citizenship educators?

I will mostly focus on the internal shock as I continue my speech, as I believe the key for addressing both shocks can be found within the Union itself. And while I am indeed mostly focussing on developments in Europe, I do believe they hold wider considerations for citizenship education that are relevant to other parts of the world too.

How citizenship education can be our response to democracy fatigue

I have been convinced throughout my life that citizenship education is vital to engage our societies in shaping economic and social policies in our liberal democracies. But we have seen over the past decades that while we have so heavily invested in strengthening our democratic institutions, power has shifted: away from democratically elected institutions at national level to multinational companies and market forces – and for us Europeans, towards the EU level. Do not get me wrong: I am convinced that Europeanization is the right answer for us tiny European nations – but we have to admit that it creates a lot of questions for democratic representation, and a certain level of discomfort among increasing parts of our societies. People feel not only that they no longer have a say, they also sense that state institutions are no longer the arenas in which their future is being shaped. This gives us reason for great concern. In this interpretation, democracy is challenged in its very nature! What is our answer?

Democracy, for me – following here the analysis of the political theorist Benjamin Barber

is ultimately about finding ways, discourses and mechanisms to subvert the natural hierarchy and dominion of power. Power has to be shared – not eliminated, but shared! The challenge today is – of course – to figure out how to share power across borders.

Citizenship education is in danger of becoming an ‘empty and artificial process’ – if we do not regard it as a political and even subversive authority, empowering participation and a critical review of power structures.

If we take that notion of a subversive quality of citizenship education seriously, we should bring politics back into citizenship education. While citizens might be tired of the institutions they feel no longer represented and protected by, they are far from being un-political – actually, the opposite is true!

For us here in Europe, my conclusion is that citizenship education in that sense should contribute to a deepening and recreation of democracy in Europe at all levels. But I think this conclusion also holds some truth in a global perspective, and I am eager to hear your views.

The ‘democracy deficit’ in Brussels is just one of many, I am sure.

That is why we have a growing number of protest movements in many European countries, calls for more participation by citizen initiatives and emerging transnational initiatives. Our citizens want to be in charge again; and if established democratic institutions can no longer guarantee they ultimately have the power to shape our future, they will have to change, too.

It is this de facto as well as the perceived powerlessness of political institutions that also creates a fertile ground for radical parties all over Europe. I continue to believe that citizenship education is the right answer to limit their success and to stop them from using the democratic system as their stage of politics – but it needs to be political and challenging of the ways our democracies currently operate.

The ‘NECE’ Network of European Citizenship Educators

I am grateful that the organizers invited me to address IACSEE as an international network of educational professionals, academics and members of the wider community. I strongly believe in such networks as places of exchange, intellectual controversy and joint action to tackle the challenges I have briefly described. After all, we can learn from each other’s experiences and jointly place our energy and resources where they are most needed.

I understand this is your 11th conference since the founding of IACSEE. What I can bring to the table is the experience of the bpb with exactly 11 rounds of NECE by the end of 2015. Some of you might already be familiar with this network.

So, what is NECE? In a nutshell, NECE is an initiative by and for educators in Europe. NECE promotes exchange and learning about approaches and stakeholders in citizenship education, and fosters co-operation. By choice, NECE is a forum rather than an institutionalized body. NECE is open to new ideas of practitioners of various backgrounds, of academics, activists and officials from national and EU levels. A number of partners from Europe, including the bpb, have been facilitators of the forum’s activities over the past decade. The bigger idea is to help create a space for European debate on citizenship education and to contribute to a Europeanization of the field.

In its annual conferences, NECE brings together up to 300 participants from about 30 countries to discuss challenges in citizenship education. Over the past years, many of our conversations have focussed on what you are discussing here at IACSEE. To give you a few examples: In 2012, NECE convened in Córdoba in Andalusia to discuss ‘citizenship in times of crises’, bringing together Europeans with colleagues from North Africa and the Middle East. In 2013, we convened in The Hague to discuss the challenge of democracy to the EU ahead of the European elections – in the midst of the EU’s most severe crisis. In Vienna in 2014, NECE looked back at the legacy of World War I as well as today’s conflicts in Europe. Later this year, we will gather in Thessaloniki, Greece, to discuss under the heading ‘Them and us: Citizenship education in an interdependent world’.

In addition, throughout the year, there are further activities of the so-called ‘focus groups’ that run joint projects. These include focus groups on hard-to-reach learners, participatory budgeting and VoteMatch Europe, the online voting tool that I mentioned earlier in my speech.

What makes NECE an exciting experience is that I believe we all benefit from an atmosphere of curiosity and a passion for the power of citizenship education – and increasingly from a shared experience as citizens of the EU, and wider Europe.

However, today we have to address a shared European experience of citizens that is increasingly negative: The promise of the EU of freedom and prosperity, once powerful especially among Europe’s youth, for many has become a false promise. Massive youth unemployment, growing inequalities within and between member states and the feeling of powerlessness have meant that already many young people in Europe have not only turned their back on the EU, but have started to speak and vote against it.

We must take these developments very seriously, and I am sure they have already played a role in your discussions earlier today and yesterday. If we fail to address these sentiments, we will be losing major parts of our societies in Europe. I am convinced that apart from the openness that we try to practise within NECE, we need to embrace controversy more vigorously in European citizenship education. Fears about social in justice and unemployment, worries about the non-democratic power structures in ‘Brussels’, ‘Angst’ about the undermining of ‘national traditions’, culture, identity – this complex mix of discontent, insecurities and emotional issues should become part of our debates and curricula.

It is in these areas that we must think more deeply and strategically, as we continue to further develop our approaches and instruments with our partners. I am looking forward to finding further inspiration on these questions with you today.

Some concluding thoughts on the future of citizenship education

To me, civic education remains an indispensable instrument for the political participation of all citizens. By providing knowledge and competencies, it empowers people to participate in political debates and decisions, and to engage in the political process. People who are politically educated, and who are able to make up their opinion, to judge on the basis of a reasonable argumentation, are the sine qua non of a true democracy. Communicating, debating, struggling, using fantasy and prudence, people – and only they – are able to influence their fate and the development of their society. These people are the main pillars of democratic traditions and as such of a vivid democratic culture.

But in a time of growing tensions and conflicts, we should consider more thoroughly the very foundation of politics: that is, the conflicts of interests and their ideological and political justifications. Citizenship education has to be political, and it also has to be daring: The point is not to challenge the notion of democracy as such, but to question the ways our democracies currently operate.

In our rejuvenated democracies, we then need to keep on supporting competencies for a democratic contention on every level and in every situation. There are a lot of instruments for a democratic, political participation in addition to elections; there are plenty of opportunities to argue out controversial ideas and plans. We have to raise awareness for the relevance of democratic exchange in everyday situations as well as in cultural performances or in social debates and economic decision-making processes.

And we have to raise awareness among our citizens that our democratic values are vulnerable, and that we have to continue to protect, practise and strengthen them. If we start to be lazy with regard to our fundamental values on which our liberal democracies have once been built, we risk losing the battle of ideas against those who do not believe that fundamentally, liberal democracy is the best model to guarantee freedom, peace and prosperity for our citizens.

To conclude: We urgently need places like this conference to come together, fret and challenge each other; to passionately disagree; and to unite in the joint aim of giving citizens a say again in the ways our future is being shaped. We all have a lot to lose.

I shared with you some reflections on what I see as the major challenges of citizenship education today, and in the years to come. I came up with some paths that from my point of view might lead us to answers to these challenges. Now I am much looking forward to hearing your views.

Thank you for your attention!