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The civil society debate is raging, but adult educators are not there. Civic education used to be at the heart of our field. But, at the very moment when education for democracy is most needed, we have allowed our focus to be narrowed to workforce development. This paper argues that adult education needs to push out its shrinking borders, join in the civil society debate, and reclaim civic education as our focus of attraction. But in order to do this, we need to re-examine what citizenship means in this changing world, and how adult education might best support and encourage it. As a starting point, the paper reports briefly on research on civic participation and citizenship conducted recently in two regions of the United States. The research paints a compelling picture of citizenship as a way of living-in-community.
'I guess I'll start off saying that I learned how to stand on my two feet from a school event. We had five children. During the time when they all started to school, we lived on a blacktopped road and the bus was coming through. And then we bought and built on a dirt road. This particular road had quite a few kids, walking from one end to the other out to the blacktop to catch the bus. So I decided that my husband and I would go and ask the superintendent if he could put a bus through there. This was a black community. He told me no, we didn't have enough kids [in the neighbourhood]. I asked how many does it take. I told him I had 40. He didn't believe me.
'So my husband and I got a list of the kids and I carried it back to the superintendent. Then he thought I had made up the names. I had to go back and get the addresses and their parents' names. I went door to door, walking, and asking the parents if they would go over there in a group. Some people were scared, they had never done this before, and they didn't want to do it. So I said, we've started and we're not going to stop. I got all the information and carried it back. I had to make seven trips. I had to convince him.
'Finally we got a bus it was still a dirt road. When it was dry, the bus would come through, but when it rained, it didn't, I would have to walk out to the blacktop with coats and boots to meet the bus after school. That's when [the] JONAH [organisation] came through, and we went to fighting for a road, and we got a road.
'I have learned to stand up and fight for anything in the community and anywhere. Cause all you've got to do is ask. And if they say no, don't take no for an answer. Because they're going to say no but keep going back. You'll get something done when they know that you're a person that sticks. (A citizen activist from west Tennessee, talking to the Civic Participation Project about acting as a citizen, Centre for Literacy Studies 1996).
Adult education on both sides of the Atlantic has historically seen itself as part of the road toward a democratic society. In the United States, adult civic education dates back to the nineteenth century 'chatauquas' and Mechanics Institutes. In Britain, a similar tradition runs through the Workers Education Associations, Settlements, miners' libraries and similar institutions. While much of this adult education history has been primarily about civic 'talk', there has also been a strong tradition of educational involvement in citizen action.
However, public policy is re-casting adult education in a narrower mould. Paul Miller's review for Adult Education Quarterly of the mission of adult education concludes:
This glance across two centuries suggests the long and inexorable shift that education has made, encouraged and demanded by constituents and funders alike, from education for citizenship toward preparing people for occupational success. (Miller 1995, 46).
In the United States and most industrialised countries, the main concern of adult education in the last few years has been the global economy, economic competitiveness, and the production of skilled workers. There has been a secondary (and much smaller) focus on parents as teachers of their children and again, the main intent is for children to become successful in school, and in turn, in employment. In Britain these constraints have been perhaps especially apparent in the Further Education sector which has primary responsibility for adult literacy and basic skills, but also in Continuing Education within the Higher Education sector.
At the same time that adult education is accepting a narrower remit, there is evidence of new interest in issues of citizenship and the civil society. In the United States in particular, but also in Britain, the last few years have seen a lively debate outside the net of adult education, among social researchers and even politicians about the civic underpinnings of successful communities and societies.
'Civil society' is not about being polite to each other. The civil society is that sector of public life that is outside the political and economic spheres: 'the sphere of voluntary associations and informal networks in which individuals and groups engage in activities of public consequence.' (Friedland and Sirianni 1995, 15) It is how we live together in communities, and work together for the common good.
Civic associations are the heart of the civil society (though the term also includes informal networks, not just formal organisations). In Harry Boyte's words, these create an 'everyday scaffolding for politics'. (Boyte 1995, 14) In these associations, whether overtly 'political' or not, citizens learn the practical arts of public life negotiation, accountability, exercise of authority, the granting of public recognition.
Social capital is what gets created when individuals participate in civic associations and informal networks. It is, as Robert Putnam says, the 'features of social organisation such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate co-ordination and co-operation for mutual benefit'. (Putnam 1995, 67) Putnam's research in Italy (1993 and elsewhere) claims that social capital should take its place alongside physical (or economic) capital and human capital in successful and sustainable communities. Social capital, in fact, enhances the benefits of investment in physical and human capital, by making it easier to work together for the common good.
Putnam, and others, argue that civic engagement, or participation in the civil society, is in decline in America, and similar findings have been reported in the UK. People join less, trust less, vote less, go to church less, read newspapers less, volunteer less. (Putnam 1996) It can be argued that Putnam is measuring the wrong things while some organisations, like the scouts, the League of Women Voters, PTAs, churches are in decline, others, like environmental groups, women's circles, community service groups and self-help health groups, are not declining but have experienced significant growth. Nevertheless, there is sufficient cause for concern.
In Europe, there are similar concerns about the decline in civic participation, although the language of debate is different. A rising spiral of unemployment and insecure employment, and accompanying economic stresses, is accompanied by an increase in 'social exclusion' a term the European Union uses to identify a number of economic and social attributes which decrease civic, political and economic participation. Socially excluded populations include the long-term unemployed, disaffected youth, lone (single) parents, ethnic minorities and the disabled. In fact, if you add together all these excluded populations, there are probably not many included. Social exclusion is a reflection of the increasing polarisation of our societies into rich and poor, and into many different groups contending morality.
A review of the ways in which our world is fast changing suggests that a concentration on work as the sole lodestone for adult education is misplaced. It is true that our working lives have changed dramatically from manufacturing to service, from stable 'skilled hands' to temporary and short-term employment, from the production line to the 'learning organisation.' These changes demand more than simply a retooling of workers' skills, they involve knowledge, networks, cultural mores and discourses.
Our political lives are also changing: with sound bites, fewer decisions being made by elected bodies, and the intrusion of the market into those decisions that are left. The state is no longer the arbiter of core culture and a national order. Increasingly cultural differences within nations are dividing people against each other, and we are witnessing a renewal of civil wars and even genocide in many parts of the world.
Our sense of community is changing, as we all engage in multiple and many-layered communities of interest, of work, of where we live, of ethnicity, of sexual identity, and so on. These are in complex relationships with one another. And they are full of conflict and contradictions.
And our private lives are changing with the intrusion of both the market and government into what once were private spaces the global commodity culture, the regulation of how we live, and television soap operas which have more reality than their neighbourhoods for many people.
If we accept that the health of democracy depends in part, not completely on the fashioning of democratic attitudes and habits among all members of society then we have to ask where these are learned and nurtured. Where are the 'schools' in which citizens learn what Bellah (1985) called democratic 'habits of the heart' respect for others and self-respect, willingness to accept our own responsibility for the common good, willingness to welcome diversity and to approach others in openness?
This is where there may be a new and old role for adult education, a way to reclaim and reinvent our history. Yet what needs to be done, what civic education should look like, is not so clear as perhaps it once was. If we look at the Citizenship Schools of the US Civil Rights Movement, for example, it was clear that literacy was needed to bring about full participation in democracy. African-Americans needed to learn to read in order to pass the voting rights tests which existed in many Southern states. The Citizenship Schools, started by the Highlander Centre, took on that challenge, using community members as teachers, everyday texts (Sears and Roebuck catalogues, the bible, hymns and spirituals) as curriculum, and community centres as schools. Over a decade, thousands of southern blacks took part in the Citizenship Schools and gained, and exercised, their right to vote.
It is not so clear today, in the world of the global economy. What does it mean to be a citizen in this changing world? What do today's 'good citizens' do? And how should adult education think about its mission to contribute to a more democratic society? Adult educators have got used to thinking about human capital, and the role education plays in building it. We haven't thought nearly as much about social capital, and the role of education in building it. Nor have we looked closely at the complexities of civic life, and what knowledge and skills are now needed to participate fully or even what to participate means.
What is politics for? Is it talk? Is it social action? Is it electing the right people to office? Harry Boyte, long-time community activist and political scientist, sees politics as public work 'citizenship as effective, skilled, public-spirited work in solving our common problems' (Boyte 1995, 1). This view does not gloss over questions of unequal power, or conflicting values, as does deliberative democracy. Nor does it assign to the state the sole power to right wrongs. Instead, citizenship as public work focuses on the creation of public values through ongoing efforts of people with different interests and views to address common concerns (Boyte 1997).
Civic participation project
One of the ways to get clearer about what it means to be an active citizen today is to ask people. In a study in the US in which I was involved over the last couple of years, we did just that: we asked active citizens what citizenship means to them, what civic participation is all about, what a good citizen is, and how citizens learn to do what they do. This project was part of the National Institute for Literacy's (NIFL) Equipped for the Future initiative, developing a new vision for adult literacy education in the United States. (Stein 1995 and 1997) It started where such national projects hardly ever start with learners. In the project's first phase, NIFL invited adult learners to write about what Goal 6 of the national education goals means to them, the goal that states:
By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
Around 1500 adult learners from adult basic education and literacy programmes in 34 States responded to the invitation. They spoke eloquently of seeing the world changing, of the responsibilities they feel as parents, as workers, and as citizens, and of their purposes for learning. They said they want to learn in order:
to have access to information and orient themselves in the world;
to give voice to their ideas and opinions and to have the confidence that their voice will be heard and taken into account;
to solve problems and make decisions on their own, acting independently as a parent, citizen and worker, for the good of their families, their community, and their nation;
to be able to keep on learning in order to keep up with a rapidly changing world. (Stein 1995, 4)
The second phase of Equipped for the Future focused on the major roles which adults play, as workers, family members, and as citizens. Our Civic Participation Project carried out research on the citizen role in two regions Southern Appalachia, and New England. We convened focus groups and inquiry projects to explore what citizenship means to people, how active citizens practice and learn civic participation, and the skills and knowledge needed to participate actively in civic life.
In the course of the year-long project, we heard from experienced citizens: grassroots community activists, local and state civic and political leaders, teachers, programme directors and policy-makers in the field of adult literacy education, and from adult learners. They included women and men of all ages from a variety of ethnic and class backgrounds, including immigrants to the US from all over the world.
Analysing the rich data from these discussions, it is clear that the heart of good citizenship is action. People told us that being a citizen is not a passive status, it is active involvement in the community, however community is constituted. A citizen tries to make a difference. In Appalachia, an experienced community activist said,
Bridge to the future ... one of the ways I interpret that, each one of us is working to try to make this world a better place, and that's really a key to being a good citizen.
In New England, a politician said,
This is their government, they can make a difference, and have a right to get involved.
One person in Tennessee said,
If you just sit back and do nothing, I don't think you're a good citizen.
When asked to think of a time when they had been acting as a citizen, people in the Appalachian and New England focus groups and inquiry projects gave a wide range of examples taking food to an elderly or sick neighbour, getting involved in neighbourhood watches, teaching children to pick up litter and keep the neighbourhood clean, volunteering in schools. People spoke about contacting politicians to advocate more funding for adult education programmes, to get roads built, or roads stopped, to support or to change pieces of legislation or state/national policy. They told about organising to stop toxic waste dumps, for more considerate procedures in social services offices, to persuade police to crack down on drug dealing. Their participation in the political arena went far beyond voting.
Citizen participation seems to have two major dimensions: that of impact, from personal to societal; and that of agency, from individuals acting on their own to groups and organisations acting together (see Figure 1).
Civic participation, then, encompasses many kinds of action, which in turn require a variety of skills and knowledge. Each individual citizen does not necessarily carry out actions in all four areas of the quadrant. But a community with active civic participation will have activities of many kinds going on.
In order to act effectively, citizens need to become proficient in other areas: to be informed, to have a voice, and to work together:
To be informed includes the ability to pose questions and identify problems, to find information from a variety of sources libraries and written documents of course, but also oral sources, like going to meetings. People told us you have to learn to 'read between the lines', to understand the realities of how political decisions are made, not just the theory, to know who your allies are and how to influence people.
To have a voice includes both being willing to speak out, but also to have something to say, so it builds on being informed. To have a voice means developing your sense of self, as well as speaking so that others can hear and understand you.
To work together includes getting involved with others in formal and informal ways, and learning to participate in groups, dealing with difference and conflict.
How can adult education support and encourage this vision of citizenship and civic participation? Most learning about civic participation takes place outside of educational settings: people learn by doing, and especially learn through the opportunities provided by taking part in community organisations (well documented in British research by Elsdon et al. 1995). What our role as adult educators should be, and how we should get to play it, needs more work and more people's thinking. In fact, we need as a field to practice Harry Boyte's concept of politics as 'public work' problem solving around common concerns (Boyte 1997).
It is clear to all of us, I think, that some people feel excluded from full participation, especially in the political arena, by various factors, including their sense that they do not know enough and that they will not be heard. Adult education has an important role to play in promoting civic participation and supporting the involvement of people who have felt excluded. Adult education can help people with the practical skills and knowledge of citizenship, which will help them be informed, form a thoughtful opinion on important issues, use their voice to speak out, work together with others, and take action.
There are many ways we might start working on some of these ideas, even within a national and international framework which does not explicitly support education for citizenship. We can create safe spaces in our classrooms for people to practice the civic arts, and gain the confidence and skills to be more active outside. We can create more networks and connections between our classrooms and the broader community, and build our own and our students' social capital. Our programs can become a place to construct together and to live out a vision of what society might become, a better world.
Bellah, Robert et al. (1985) Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
Boyte, Harry (1995) 'Beyond deliberation: citizenship as public work. Paper presented at the Conference on Citizen Competence and the Design of Democratic Institutes, Committee on the Political Economy of the Good Society, February 10-11.
Boyte, Harry (1997) The meaning of citizenship. Kettering Review (Winter), 55-62.
Center for Literacy Studies (1996) Report to the National Institute for Literacy from Southern Appalachian and New England Civic Participation Project. University of Tennessee, Center for Literacy Studies.
Elsdon, K. T., with Reynolds, John and Stewart, Susan (1995) Voluntary organisations: citizenship, learning and change. Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.
Friedland, Lewis and Sirianni, Carmen (1995) Critical concepts in the new citizenship. A report prepared for the Pew Charitable Trusts, December.
Miller, Paul A. (1995) Adult education's mislaid mission. Adult Education Quarterly, 46 (1) 43-5.
Putnam, Robert D. (1993) The prosperous community: social capital and public life. The American Prospect, 35-42.
Putnam, Robert D. (1995) Bowling alone: America's declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6 (1), 65-78.
Putnam, Robert D. (1996) The strange disappearance of civic America. The American Prospect, 34 (Winter).
Stein, Sondra Gayle (1995) Equipped for the future: a customer-driven vision for adult literacy and lifelong learning. Washington, D.C.: National Institute for Literacy.
Stein, Sondra Gayle (1997) Equipped for the future: a reform agenda for adult literacy and lifelong learning. Washington, D.C.: National Institute for Literacy.