Catherine Hartung - Böcker

Concerns with the nature of and relationship between responsibility and responsibilisation pervade contemporary social, political and moral life. This book turns the analytical lens on the ways in which responsibility and responsibilisation operate in diverse educational settings and relationships, and social, policy and geographical contexts in the USA, Europe, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Scholars have sought to explain the genealogy and the mélange of rationalities, technologies, bio-politics and modes of governmentality that bring responsibility and responsibilisation into being, how they act on and are taken up by individuals, groups and organisations, and the risks and possibilities they create and delimit for individuals, social collectives and their freedoms.Contributors to this collection have diverse views and perspectives on responsibility and responsibilisation. This disagreement is a strength. It underlines the importance of unravelling both the differences and similarities across scholars and contexts. It also issues a salutatory warning about assumptions that reduce the complex concepts of responsibility and responsibilisation to simplistic, fixed categories or to generalising and universalising single cases or experiences to all areas of education.This volume was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Concerns with the nature of and relationship between responsibility and responsibilisation pervade contemporary social, political and moral life. This book turns the analytical lens on the ways in which responsibility and responsibilisation operate in diverse educational settings and relationships, and social, policy and geographical contexts in the USA, Europe, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Scholars have sought to explain the genealogy and the mélange of rationalities, technologies, bio-politics and modes of governmentality that bring responsibility and responsibilisation into being, how they act on and are taken up by individuals, groups and organisations, and the risks and possibilities they create and delimit for individuals, social collectives and their freedoms.Contributors to this collection have diverse views and perspectives on responsibility and responsibilisation. This disagreement is a strength. It underlines the importance of unravelling both the differences and similarities across scholars and contexts. It also issues a salutatory warning about assumptions that reduce the complex concepts of responsibility and responsibilisation to simplistic, fixed categories or to generalising and universalising single cases or experiences to all areas of education.This volume was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Prominent studies and opinion polls often claim that young people are disengaged from political institutions, distrustful of politicians, and disillusioned about democracy. Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation challenges these political stereotypes by asking whether young people have been contributing to or rectifying our civic deficit. In particular, it examines the role of civics education in addressing the so-called crisis of democracy. Turning away from conventional suggestions often advocated by politicians and educators that offer civics education as the solution, the book advances an alternate approach to civics – one that acknowledges the increasingly diverse ways in which young people are both engaging and disengaging politically.

Prominent studies and opinion polls often claim that young people are disengaged from political institutions, distrustful of politicians, and disillusioned about democracy. Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation challenges these political stereotypes by asking whether young people have been contributing to or rectifying our civic deficit. In particular, it examines the role of civics education in addressing the so-called crisis of democracy. Turning away from conventional suggestions often advocated by politicians and educators that offer civics education as the solution, the book advances an alternate approach to civics – one that acknowledges the increasingly diverse ways in which young people are both engaging and disengaging politically.

This book challenges readers to recognise the conditions that underpin popular approaches to children and young people’s participation, as well as the key processes and institutions that have enabled its rise as a global force of social change in new times. The book draws on the vast international literature, as well as interviews with key practitioners, policy-makers, activists, delegates and academics from Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Nicaragua, Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, the United States and Italy to examine the emergence of the young citizen as a key global priority in the work of the UN, NGOs, government and academia. In so doing, the book engages contemporary and interdisciplinary debates around citizenship, rights, childhood and youth to examine the complex conditions through which children and young people are governed and invited to govern themselves.The book argues that much of what is considered ‘children and young people’s participation’ todayis part of a wider neoliberal project that emphasises an ideal young citizen who is responsible and rational while simultaneously downplaying the role of systemic inequality and potentially reinforcing rather than overcoming children and young people’s subjugation. Yet the book also moves beyond mere critique and offers suggestive ways to broaden our understanding of children and young people’s participation by drawing on 15 international examples of empirical research from around the world, including the Philippines, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, North America, Finland, South Africa, Australia and Latin America. These examples provoke practitioners, policy-makers and academics to think differently about children and young people and the possibilities for their participatory citizenship beyond that which serves the political agendas of dominant interest groups.