Politeia is much more than a mere newsletter or webmagazine. It is also a network that enables organisations for active citizenship to exchange ideas and find partners. Half a year ago, a meeting in Amsterdam was organised to give this network a new impulse. Apart from being an inspiration in itself, this meeting brought together a number of organisations that would later re-unite for two different international projects. At the end of this issue, you can read about the first results. Five partner organisations exchanged ideas and methods with respect to citizenship and participation of underrepresented groups. And four organisations from the Balkan were introduced to a Dutch project for youth participation. Other people and organisations within the network have been active as well. Thus, our main editor Ivo Hartman has been re-thinking the role of technology in citizenship education and Ian Hughes from Ireland has been pondering migration within the European Union. And those are but two of the many contributions that this issue of Politeia has to offer.
Krijn Peter Hesselink, Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, Amsterdam
In the fifties, I witnessed the introduction of school radio in my primary school. The class listened once or twice a week to radio documentaries, educational radio plays, dialogues, interviews. Occasionally we watched an educational film - for which, to our great excitement, the classroom was darkened - on topics of geography, history, biology. Once I heard two of my teachers talk about how film and radio in school would change education and thus their work as teachers. They said to be afraid that their main task would soon just be surveillance and marking tests. Information, the stories, the explanations, the exercises would come to us through the new media. They deplored - though at that time I thought they were joking - that they would lose what they obviously regarded as the most interesting and stimulating part of their work: the business of raising and feeding the inquisitiveness of young people and of dealing in the classroom with subjects they themselves were interested in.
t is close to impossible to give a succinct summary of everything that is being done in Europe with respect to civic education. There is a great variety in forms and aims. Even the names of the subject vary from aktivt medborgerskap (in Norway), citizenship (in Great Britain) or politische Bildung (in Austria and Germany) to social studies (in Cyprus) or éducation civique (in France). In this article, I will indicate some of the most interesting developments.
n the previous Politeia Newsletter, it was said that the European Commission adopted in April 2005 the proposal for a new programme ‘Citizens for Europe’ 2007 – 2013 to promote active European Citizenship. On the 5th of April 2006, the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament presented its report on the proposal, and it was approved by the European Parliament with 437 votes for, 92 against and 51 abstentions.
It is well recognised that there is a strong relationship between economic performance and migration. Ireland knows this first hand, perhaps better than most. At times of recession, such as during the 1950s, and again in the 1980s, Ireland experienced sharp rises in unemployment and accompanying rises in the numbers of Irish people seeking jobs abroad. The economic decline in the 1950s was in fact so severe, and the numbers leaving our shores so high, that Ireland’s population fell to its lowest ever level in 1961. The economic recovery of the 1970s saw many Irish people return, making the numbers arriving much greater than those leaving and resulting in Ireland’s population growing once again.
How can young people participate politically? What impacts do decisions by the European Union have on adolescents? How can we teach Democracy, Tolerance and Human Rights interactively and how can we involve the younger generation in political life? Which information do young people need in order to come to a deeper and sustainable understanding of Active European Citizenship and the European Union itself? The Research Group Youth and Europe at the Centre for Applied Policy Research (CAP), part of the Political Department of the University of Munich, is trying to answer these questions.
The European Association of Campaign Consultants (EACC) issued a third in a series of European yearbooks of political campaigning, which summarize the advertising campaigns of elections at national, regional and local level in Europe and make it available to a wider audience. Election Time 05 was presented by Mr. José Manuel Talero García, a member of the Managing Board of EACC, on the 27th of April at the GONG office.
n the framework of the project promoted by the Active Citizenship Network and the Foundation for Active Citizenship on European civic participation, CAN and Fondaca organised a conference in Vienna on May 22 and 23. The aim of the event was to present and discuss the European Charter of Active Citizenship. This document is the result of a transversal research on documentation and concrete experiences regarding this issue. The feedback of the nine civic organisations that were partners in the project and of the 22 entities (such as civic organisations, public institutions and researchers) that participated in the open consultation in April was also included.
While most countries in Western Europe worry about the aging of their population, many states in Eastern Europe are mainly inhabited by young people. This leads to concerns about youth employment, but it also makes investment in youth participation even more legitimate and necessary than ever before. Besides educating the young to become society-oriented citizens, we need to listen to their complex problems and to the creative solutions they come up with. Generally, politicians do not see young people as partners to do business with; they do not have money and often cannot vote. Plus, politicians sometimes think that young people are too naive or simply too young to understand complex problems.
May 2006
Within the framework of the renewed Politeia Network for Citizenship and Democracy in Europe, the IPP organises an exchange programme with partner organisations from Ireland, Romania and Slovenia. During four study visits and a concluding seminar, representatives of the participating organisations exchange knowledge and methods for involving underrepresented groups in politics and society.
Editors:
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Next issue: October 2006