Competences for Democratic Citizenship and Intercultural Dialogue: The Education of Globalized Citizens in a Digitalized World

Transcription

1 Competences for Democratic Citizenship and Intercultural Dialogue: The Education of Globalized Citizens in a Digitalized World Martyn Barrett School of Psychology, University of Surrey, UK Keynote address presented to the Nasjonale Retningslinjer for Lærerutdanning Konferanse 2015 [National Guidelines for Education Conference 2015], Educating for Global Citizenship in a Digital Society, organised by the National Council for Teacher Education (Norway), Centre for ICT in Education and the European Wergeland Centre, Oslo, Norway, March 12 th -13 th 2015

2 Introduction Education has many purposes these include: Supporting the personal development of children and young people Preparing individuals for the labour market The development and maintenance of a broad, advanced knowledge base within society However, education also has a further vital role to play: Preparing children and young people for life as active citizens in culturally diverse democratic societies In this talk, I want to tell you about a new initiative by the Education Department of the Council of Europe which is aimed at supporting educators to achieve precisely this goal

3 The Council of Europe initiative This initiative is developing a new framework of reference of the competences which learners require in order to participate effectively in democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue The framework is being explicitly developed to assist educational planning There are three main aspects of the framework

4 Three aspects of the framework A conceptual model of the competences which citizens require to participate effectively in democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue Behavioural descriptors for each individual competence that is specified in the model These descriptors will eventually be scaled, that is, assigned to different levels of proficiency (e.g., basic, intermediate, advanced) Supporting documentation to explain how the competence model and the scaled descriptors can be used to assist curriculum design, the design of instructional methods, and the development of new forms of assessment

5 The conceptual model The competences included in the model fall into four broad categories: Values Attitudes Skills Knowledge and critical understanding

6 Values Values are general beliefs that individuals hold about the desirable goals that should be striven for in life Values serve as guiding principles for deciding how to act, and they have a prescriptive quality about what ought to be done or thought across many different situations We identified three sets of values that are necessary for democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue: Valuing other human beings, human dignity and human rights Valuing cultural difference, diversity and cultural otherness Valuing democracy, justice, fairness, equality and the rule of law

7 Attitudes An attitude is the overall mental orientation which an individual adopts towards someone or something (e.g., a person, a group, an institution, an issue, an event, a symbol, etc.) Attitudes usually consist of four components: a belief or opinion about the object of the attitude an emotion or feeling towards the object an evaluation (either positive or negative) of the object a tendency to behave in a particular way towards that object

8 We identified six attitudes as being necessary for democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue: Openness to cultural otherness and to other beliefs, world views and practices Respect and tolerance for other people and for other beliefs, world views and practices Civic-mindedness Responsibility Self-efficacy and self-confidence Tolerance for ambiguity

9 Skills A skill is the capacity for carrying out complex, well-organised patterns of either thinking or behaviour in an adaptive manner in order to achieve a particular end or goal We identified eight sets of skills as being important for democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue: Autonomous learning skills Analytical and critical thinking skills Skills of listening and observing Empathy and decentring Flexibility and adaptability Linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills Cooperation skills Conflict-resolution skills

10 Knowledge and critical understanding Knowledge is the body of information that is possessed by a person, while understanding is the comprehension and appreciation of meanings We used the term critical understanding to emphasise the need for the comprehension and appreciation of meanings in the context of democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue to involve active reflection on and critical evaluation of that which is being understood and interpreted (as opposed to automatic, habitual and unreflective interpretation). We identified three main forms of knowledge and critical understanding required for democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue: Knowledge and critical understanding of the self Knowledge and critical understanding of language and communication Knowledge and critical understanding of the world (including politics, law, human rights, culture, cultures, history, media, economies, the environment and sustainability)

11 Using competences A presupposition of the model is that, in real-life situations, competences are rarely mobilised and deployed individually Instead, they are usually applied to specific situations in clusters An example of how competences are applied in clusters is provided by cooperative learning activities within the classroom For students to cooperate effectively together on any kind of learning task, they need to draw upon an entire cluster of competences which includes: Cooperation skills Civic-mindedness Responsibility Skills of listening and observing Empathy and decentring Linguistic and communicative skills

12 Another example where competences are applied in clusters to specific situations is provided by interpersonal mediation This is the capacity to resolve disputes and conflicts between other individuals by acting as a neutral third party who helps those other individuals to negotiate a settlement of the dispute or conflict For students to engage in interpersonal mediation, they again need to draw on an entire cluster of competences, including: Skills of listening and observing Empathy and decentring Analytical and critical thinking skills Linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills Conflict-resolution skills

13 The role of education in developing competences For some teachers, the development of at least some of these competences is probably central to their concerns and planning already because of the subject matter which they teach This is likely to apply to teachers of history, geography, language and literature, foreign languages, media studies, civics, sociology, psychology and philosophy For other teachers, democratic and intercultural competences may appear to be distant from their focus because they teach about the natural world However, the physical and life sciences can still be used to develop at least some of the competences in our model for example, autonomous learning skills, analytical and critical thinking skills, and the ability to see phenomena from multiple perspectives (i.e., to decentre) when observing and analysing the natural world In other words, a cross-curricular approach can be adopted for the development of students competences

14 More than this, however, the development of students competences also benefits from a whole-school approach The Council of Europe s Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) project has always advocated a whole-school approach, based on the argument that citizenship learning occurs: Through the formal curriculum Through democratic participation and discussion within the classroom Through giving children and young people a voice in school decisionmaking Through the school ethos, culture and environment more generally The EDC project therefore maintains that effective citizenship learning requires the cooperation of all of these learning environments that together make up the school context (Bîrzéa, 2000)

15 Global citizenship So far in this talk, I have only spoken about the competences required for citizenship I have not spoken explicitly about global citizenship However, the model that we have developed in this project is inherently a global citizenship perspective This is because of the systems of values that have been incorporated into the model There are two sets of values which are especially relevant here First, we have placed the valuing of other human beings, human rights and human dignity at the very heart of the competence model In other words, we are proposing that a truly competent democratic citizen is someone who believes that every individual human being (irrespective of their specific cultural affiliations) is of equal worth, is entitled to equal respect, is entitled to exactly the same set of human rights, and has equal dignity, and ought to be treated accordingly

16 Second, we have also placed the valuing of cultural difference, diversity and cultural otherness at the heart of the model In other words, we are proposing that a truly competent democratic citizen is someone who believes that other cultural affiliations, cultural variability, difference and diversity, and pluralism of perspectives, views and practices ought to be positively regarded and appreciated Our claim is that, without these two values, an individual cannot be considered to be democratically and interculturally competent In other words, our approach is inherently tied to a global or cosmopolitan citizenship perspective this perspective emphasises the need for people to view themselves as citizens of a world community based on common human values and human dignity who respect other people s cultural affiliations (Appiah, 2008; Israel, 2012; Osler & Starkey 2005)

17 Digital competence The other topic which I have not yet spoken about in this talk is digital competence Digital competence is in fact highly relevant to democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue This relevance has become apparent from many different studies which have now been conducted into young people s political and civic behaviour These studies have revealed significant shifts in young people s political and civic behaviour in recent years

18 Shifts in the political and civic behaviour of young people There is now very good evidence that a shift has taken place among youth away from conventional forms of political participation (e.g., voting, political party membership) towards non-conventional forms of participation (e.g., demonstrations, consumer activism, and voluntary and charitable activities) (Barrett & Zani, 2015; Forbrig, 2005; Zukin et al., 2006) The focus of young people s political concerns has also moved away from a concern with national political issues towards a greater concern with local issues (e.g., recycling facilities, litter, local amenities) and global issues (e.g., the environment, climate change, human rights and global social justice) (Barrett, 2012; Pleyers, 2005; Weller, 2007) And both of these two shifts have been accompanied by the growing use of digital media by young people for obtaining information about political and civic issues, for sharing their views, for supporting causes, and for organising protests and demonstrations (Herra & Sakr, 2014; Loader, 2007)

19 Relating digital competences to democratic and intercultural competences If we break digital competence down into some of its core components (Ferrari, 2013), we can see that some aspects of digital competence are extremely important to some of the democratic and intercultural competences which we have included in our model For example, nowadays, autonomous learning skills require the ability to browse, search and filter information on the web, and the ability to store and retrieve information digitally Likewise, cooperation skills require the ability to use digital technology for interacting and communicating with others, for sharing information and content with others, and for co-creating digital resources and content In other words, there are several aspects of democratic and intercultural competence that require students to have digital competence

20 In addition, the responsible and appropriate use of digital technologies requires various aspects of democratic and intercultural competence For example, avoiding inappropriate digital behaviours (e.g., sexting, cyberbullying) requires the individual to value the dignity of others, to have respect for other people, and to have a sense of responsibility and civic-mindedness Likewise, communicating appropriately through digital media with people who have different cultural affiliations from oneself requires openness, empathy, flexibility, and linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills In other words, there are some aspects of democratic and intercultural competence that have direct relevance and applicability to what may be called socially responsible digital citizenship (Shariff, 2014)

21 There is clearly a need for a detailed mapping of the relationship between democratic and intercultural competences on the one hand and digital competences on the other hand As we now have a detailed specification of democratic and intercultural competences (from our work) and a detailed specification of digital competence (from the work of, for example, Ferrari, 2013), the time is ripe for such a mapping to be conducted The relationship between these two competence domains, however, also has implications for the education of children and young people Given that young people today are highly motivated not only to engage with global citizenship issues but also to engage with digital technologies, they represent ideal fields to yoke together in educational practice, using digital technologies in citizenship education and using democratic and intercultural activities in digital education

22 Some useful Council of Europe resources for educators (available freely online and through the European Wergeland Centre website)

23 For further information, please see: or me at: Thank you for listening!