Citizenship Democracy And Higher Education In Europe Canada And The Usa

Citizenship, democracy and human rights have always been central to higher education and increasing globalization has amplified their urgency and complexity. This volume explores conceptual, theoretical and policy implications for post-secondary education engaging with these topics, comparing the USA, Canada, Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

In this book, university teachers provide case studies illustrating methods employed to prepare citizens for meaningful participation in democracies, whether long-standing, young or emerging. Examples of practice from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and North America are included, along with reflections and advice for practice.

What are the obligations of the university to society and its communities? What are the virtues of university education? What are the university's ethical responsibilities to its students? The role of citizenship and civic responsibility in higher education is a highly contested yet crucial element of any consideration of the role of university in society. This book offers thoughtful insights into this role, outlining the intellectual and practical tensions and pressures which come to bear upon higher education institutions. Wide ranging in scope, it offers perspectives from British, European, Canadian and North American educational environments. Citizenship and Higher Education will prove stimulating reading for anyone concerned with the ethics of education and the university's place in society - including educationalists, researchers, sociologists and policy-makers.

This guide examines how schools and universities can work together with their local communities to promote democracy in society based on the principles of Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC), a concept developed by the Council of Europe. Partnerships based on this idea foster civic skills and values in citizens and build the civic capacity of communities through the pursuit of collective solutions to local problems. The guide explores the mechanics of such partnerships in practice, describing how they are built and sustained, and what makes them work. Drawing on examples from Europe and the United States of America, the guide is intended for policy makers and practitioners in schools and universities, civil society and community groups, and representatives of public authorities and government bodies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Higher education has been presented as a solution to a host of local and global problems, despite the fact that learning and assessment can also be used as mechanisms for exclusion and social control. Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education: Learning to Transgress demonstrates that even when knowledge may appear to be the solution, it can be partial and disempowering to all but the dominant groups. The book shows the need to contest such knowledge claims and to learn to transgress, rather than to conform. It argues that transformative spaces need to be found and that these should be about the creation of new opportunities, ways of knowing and ways of being. Working in and through spaces of transgression, the contributors to this volume develop frameworks for the possibilities of transformative spaces in learning and teaching in higher education. The book critiques the ways in which Western higher education culture determines the academic agenda in relation to dialogue on social differences, minority groups and hierarchical structures, including issues of representation among different groups in the population. It also explores the personal and political costs of transgression and outlines ways in which transitions can be transformative. The book should be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of higher education, education studies, teacher training, social justice and transformation. It should also be essential reading for practitioners working in post-compulsory education.

Democracy, sustainability and social justice: the leading role that higher education must play in maintaining these three principles This publication, Higher education leadership for democracy, sustainability and social justice, arises from the global forum that the Council of Europe, the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy, the Organization of American States and the International Association of Universities organised at Dublin City University in June 2022. It also arises from the challenges of Covid-19, which both highlighted and contributed to the fragility of democracy, with the increasing erosion of democratic participation, the deepening of extreme inequities, the strengthening of identity and nationalistic politics and the promotion of populist anti-intellectualism, involving attacks on science and knowledge itself. In this book, authors from Europe, the United States and Latin America argue that democracy, sustainability and social justice are inextricably linked, and that we can impact none of them unless higher education plays an important role in identifying the issues and helping society devise a viable and robust response. The book argues that higher education must do more than develop and disseminate knowledge and understanding. Higher education must influence the way individuals and societies behave. Higher education must lead. The importance of this leadership is illustrated by the inclusion of the Dublin Global Forum in the programme of the Irish Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and will be borne out by the positions and actions of the higher education community.

Civic and citizenship education have emerged as major areas of discussion, debate and action regarding their place in the school curriculum in many nations. This text sets out to show the importance of citizenship education with examples and contributions from around the world.