Participation and the Playground Democracy: When Does It Work?

• In Event: The Future of Research on Moral Education: Desires and Possibilities for How Moral Education Can Contribute to a Culture of Social Justice

Abstract

In this presentation I explain under which conditions the concept of political and moral participation has an influence on students growth. Political philosophers (Bourdieu, 2001, 115; Habermas, 1996, 154) believe that perceived forms of participation have a substantial influence on the political identity of (young) people or at least on their pre-political skills such as personal and social competencies. But participation in itself is not a magic bullet; it is – pedagogically seen - rather a mean to engage children and adolescents in producing justice in critical situations. It must be connected with justice goals and political decision-making skills. There are three beautiful education occasion for learning real participation a) the Just Community approach, b) stop and change effect of moral learning, and c) the round table situation eliciting the teachers’ ethos. How does it work there? I will show that so many false hopes in participation end in chaos and felt social helplessness.

Research and methods
The implementation of participation depends – in the three mentioned fields - on more or less intense, more or less deep and more or less effective power sharing (x & xx, 2013). The empirical evidence comes from different studies demonstrating that there is nearly no transfer of participation experiences from context to context. Participation with respect to social issues for instance are not correlated with citizenship activities (r=0.01 to 0.08). Only if participation relies on political issues directly, these experiences stay stable and have a long-term effect in respect to citizenship activities as we can empirical prove in just community schools (r=0.76).
The first two empirical evidences are based on the Swiss national samples of the IEA studies Civic Education (CIVED [2146 students] and ICCS [1270 students]). In comparison with the other countries in both studies we see that Switzerland is at the lower end with respect of the belief in participation. Furthermore findings for the Swiss sample show that participation is related with social- and self-competencies but not with aspects of political identity.
In a third study we compare possibilities of participation in school, job, leisure places and family. Based on case studies we show that participation is well desired and student would like to share more participational activities. But in a fourth developmental study (N=240) findings show that students believe less in participative authenticity, as they get older. We also present some data on relationship of high participation in a Just Community setting and the respective teachers’ professional satisfaction.

Educational significance
In spite participation has a positive word load it makes it difficult to apply it seriously in classrooms, in schools and in communities. Participation means sharing decision making power on one hand and sharing responsibility on the other. In Just Community schools one participative criterion is also the dealing with minorities in voting procedures. The ones who loose a ballot have to be integrated into the further political and community live; this is a complex endeavor.

Author

• Fritz K. Oser, University of Fribourg