The Journal of Philosophy of Education Book Series publishes titles that represent a wide variety of philosophical traditions. They vary from examination of fundamental philosophical issues in their connection with education, to detailed critical engagement with current educational practice or policy from a philosophical point of view. Books in this series promote rigorous thinking on educational matters and identify and criticise the ideological forces shaping education.
Titles in the series include:
Citizenship for the Learning Society: Europe, Subjectivity, and Educational Research
Naomi Hodgson
Philosophy East/West: Exploring Intersections between Educational and Contemplative Practices
Edited by Oren Ergas and Sharon Todd
The Ways We Think: From the Straits of Reason to the Possibilities of Thought
Emma Williams
Philosophical Perspectives on Teacher Education
Edited by Ruth Heilbronn and Lorraine Forman-Peck
Re-Imagining Relationships In Education: Ethics, Politics And Practices
Edited by Morwenna Griffiths, Marit Honerød Hoveid, Sharon Todd and Christine Winter
Vygotsky: Philosophy and Education
Jan Derry
Education and the Growth of Knowledge: Perspectives from Social and Virtue Epistemology
Edited by Ben Kotzee
Education Policy: Philosophical Critique
Edited by Richard Smith
Levinas, Subjectivity, Education: Towards an Ethics of Radical Responsibility
Anna Strhan
Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects
Edited by Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy
The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice
Chris Higgins
Reading R. S. Peters Today: Analysis, Ethics, and the Aims of Education
Edited by Stefaan E. Cuypers and Christopher Martin
The Formation of Reason
David Bakhurst
What do Philosophers of Education do? (And how do they do it?)
Edited by Claudia Ruitenberg
Evidence-Based Education Policy: What Evidence? What Basis? Whose Policy?
Edited by David Bridges, Paul Smeyers and Richard Smith
New Philosophies of Learning
Edited by Ruth Cigman and Andrew Davis
The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays
Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon
Philosophy, Methodology and Educational Research
Edited by David Bridges and Richard D Smith
Philosophy of the Teacher
By Nigel Tubbs
Conformism and Critique in Liberal Society
Edited by Frieda Heyting and Christopher Winch
Retrieving Nature: Education for a Post-Humanist Age
By Michael Bonnett
Education and Practice: Upholding the Integrity of Teaching and Learning
Edited by Joseph Dunne and Pádraig Hogan
Educating Humanity: Bildung in Postmodernity
Edited by Lars Lovlie, Klaus Peter Mortensen and Sven Erik Nordenbo
The Ethics of Educational Research
Edited by Michael Mcnamee and David Bridges
In Defence of High Culture
Edited by John Gingell and Ed Brandon
Enquiries at the Interface: Philosophical Problems of On-Line Education
Edited by Paul Standish and Nigel Blake
The Limits of Educational Assessment
Edited by Andrew Davis
Illusory Freedoms: Liberalism, Education and the Market
Edited by Ruth Jonathan
Quality and Education
Edited by Christopher Winch
This edition first published 2016
© 2016 Naomi Hodgson.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hodgson, Naomi, author.
Title: Citizenship for the learning society : Europe, subjectivity, and educational research / Naomi Hodgson.
Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015045048 (print) | LCCN 2015047236 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119152064 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781119152071 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119152088 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Citizenship–Study and teaching–Europe. | Education–Research.
Classification: LCC LC1091 .H63 2016 (print) | LCC LC1091 (ebook) | DDC 370.11/5094–dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045048
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Kandinsky, Delicate Tension, 1923. © Peter Horree / Alamy
The topic of citizenship education in Europe has rightly received much attention, both at the national level and at that of the European Union itself. The changing status of the Union reflects both its deep history (in effect, the origins of Western thought) and a significant facet of the flux of contemporary global politics. The self-understanding of those who live and work within the Union, as well, no doubt, as the perspectives of many who do not, are profoundly affected by these changes.
There can be no doubt that in the time since Naomi Hodgson first conceived of Citizenship for the Learning Society, its pertinence has steadily increased. The European Union, habitually struggling with its identity, now finds itself challenged on two fronts. The strength of its internal cohesion, and indeed of the scale of the project, has been a source of continual self-examination – involving doubts about the viability of its formidable bureaucracy, contestation over the reach of its legislation, and differences over how far a common identity is desirable. Among its member states, the United Kingdom has been the most consistently quarrelsome, with its commitment to the Union newly in question. The new nationalisms that beset the wider Europe in the 1990s have shown a minor resurgence, albeit in more peaceful and democratic forms. At the same time, and in a darker and altogether more threatening way, the growing economic disparities within the Union have raised the prospect of the effective expulsion of some of its members. On another front, Europe finds itself newly challenged by global unrest. War, political upheaval, and economic desperation outside the Union have led to new and critical pressures in terms of immigration, while the ongoing realignment of superpowers has created a dynamic whose implications are real enough, however hard they may be to assess. It is difficult to fathom the massive challenges these matters raise in terms of human rights and international law, or the tensions they cause along borders, within and around the Union, literal and metaphorical, even as it is hard to credit the petty anomalies that also arise, in, for example, puffed-up notions of national identity and the absurdities of citizenship tests.
Amidst these practical changes, the significance of citizenship comes more fully to the fore, in both legal and notional terms. The efforts of the Union over at least the past two decades actively to promote a sense of belonging and identity among citizens have inevitably turned to educational institutions as a means to put this into effect. But they have not just done this, for the vision has been one that has embraced the new age as that of the learning society. The rhetorical force of this expression, aligned no doubt with ‘the knowledge economy’ and a range of neoliberal assumptions, has not been lost on policy-makers and planners, and the reiteration of the term has become de rigueur.
The present book comes to the market, so it would seem, alongside a range of other worthy studies of these developments. Indeed the prestige of the study of citizenship education has earned it a respectable share of European funding research, just as it has been the focus of innumerable, often earnest, doctoral projects. But appearances can be deceptive. In fact, the book you are now reading is altogether more original and important. Let me explain why.
Hodgson leads the reader through a convincing demonstration of the ways in which research in citizenship education has itself become an agent in the construction of European citizenship – an agent that is, for the most part, unrecognised, hiding as it does behind the cloak of objectivity and detachment. Given the scale of research funding and of the extent of European university education, this is a matter of wide-ranging importance. It is a major achievement of this book that it shows the significance of this surreptitious construction of subjectivity in the person of the researcher. The attentive reader will find here no simple, formulaic solution to this problem but rather a patient revealing of ways in which things might be done otherwise, with benefits to research and education, and ultimately to society as a whole.
The critique of research and research methods training embedded in the book is complemented by its innovative and experimental approach to its central topic – that is, to the nature of Europe, to its self-understanding and constitution, as manifested in notions of citizenship and the learning society. The book provides a series of vantage points that, in combination, offer the reader not only new ways of understanding what is at stake here but also new prospects for realising their own positioning in relation to the project of such research. Indeed, the implications of the argument are wider than these remarks indicate because appreciation of what is said in this text should lead to a radical reassessment of so many of the taken-for-granted assumptions in educational and social science research. It is a conscientious contribution to the renewal of that practice.
Hodgson brings to these complex matters a clarity of style and approach, as well as an unwavering personal commitment, that are exemplary for rigorous thought about philosophical questions regarding education. It is an invaluable addition to the series.
Much of what is presented in the chapters that follow has been developed from articles or conference presentations.
Chapter 2 draws in part on the following publication:
Chapter 4 is a reworking of the following papers:
Chapter 6 draws in part on:
Chapter 7 is a reworking of the following publications:
I would like to thank the publishers of the above for permission to reuse this material here.