Beyond the Classroom: Civil Society's Impact on Public Education Through Mentorship Programs

• In Event: The Role of Civil Society in Educational Systems

Abstract

What is the role of civil society in the provision of public education? This question is becoming ever more important given the crisis in the educational sector and with general the shift to new modes of public governance, involving civil society organizations and civic engagement as partners in policy-making and the provision of public goods (e.g. Osborne 2010). The latter trend can also be seen in the changing relationship between the state and civil society in the field of public education and the promotion of civil society organizations active in this field (Koleck 2019). Developments in Germany are an illustrative case, with numerous and diverse new civil society organizations emerging and increasingly shaping the public education system (Priemer 2022). However, systematic empirical research on this plethora of newly emerging organizations and their role in education governance remains scarce.
The present paper adds important empirical insights to the scholarly debate by focusing on an important but rather overlooked type of actor, namely civil society organizations involved in volunteer programs for mentoring, tutoring, and coaching. Through these mentoring programs, volunteers are recruited, trained, placed, and supervised for the duration of their involvement. Given the increasing popularity of such organizations, the question arises as to why this type of civil society is successful and under what structural conditions it operates. The question becomes particularly relevant in the context of a shortage of volunteers in many other areas of engagement.
Empirically, the paper builds on an original organizational survey of more than 1,200 civil society organizations involved in public education. The survey was conducted in the summer of 2023 and includes around 450 civil society organizations that offer such mentoring programs. Our exploratory analyses reveal a crucial distinction, identifying two types of organizations offering mentoring programs that differ significantly from one another. The first group – we call them mentoring CSOs – provide only volunteers as mentors or coaches. These organizations are comparatively young, have rather few financial resources, are quite independent of state funding, and operate mostly on a purely voluntary basis. By contrast, the second group – we call them mentoring hosts – also offer mentoring programs, but do that in addition to other activities. These organizations are on average well-funded, rely on paid stuff, and are heavily dependent on state funding as a resource for sustaining their work.
The paper will examine in more detail how the two types of civil society organizations that offer mentoring programs differ from each other and from the larger set of organizations surveyed that are active in the field of education. Most importantly, we are interested in what kind of contribution they make to the provision of public education and how they build lasting relationships with their volunteers. Overall, we can thus contribute to the broader scholarly debates about new public governance and structural changes in civil society.

References

Kolleck, Nina (2019): The power of third sector organizations in public education. In: Journal of Educational Administration 57 (4), 411–425.
Osborne, Stephen P. (Hg.) (2010): The new public governance? Emerging perspectives on the theory and practice of public governance. London, New York: Routledge.
Priemer, Jana (2022): Educational Governance – veränderte Schulpolitik als Ermöglichungsrahmen für NPOs. In: Voluntaris 10 (2), 209-223.

Authors

• Jana Priemer, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Center for Civil Society Research

• Charlotte Roessler-Prokhorenko, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Center for Civil Society Research