The role of lifelong learning in building citizenship: European Union approaches in the light of British and colonial experience

Abstract

This article considers European Union measures to strengthen ‘citizenship’ through the use of lifelong learning in the light of two twentieth‐century British initiatives. European citizenship is discussed, and current EU initiatives to harness lifelong learning to the development of citizenship are briefly outlined. Aspects of British and colonial experienced are then explored. The particular cases studied are: attempts to develop enhanced citizenship in 1940s Britain; and community dvelopment for citizenship learning in the British colonial empire after 1945. EU policies share a ‘thick’ conception of citizenship with both these historical cases; ‘thick’ conceptions may be necessary in order to mobilise educational movements. In the historical cases examined, this approach was constantly challenged by demands for economic efficiency, and proved insufficiently strongly‐embedded in official thinking. In the contemporary EU, comparable tensions exist; though the outcome remains unclear.

Notes

1. Legally, European Citizenship comprises: freedom of movement and residence within the Union; the right to vote and stand for election in local government and European Parliament elections in one’s country of residence; the right to diplomatic and consular protection from authorities of any member state; and the right to access the European Ombudsman (Preuss et al. 2003: 5).

2. When, in a typically British way at the EU seminar, I questioned whether a ‘European identity’ was possible, I recall one participant’s reprimand: ‘wait for the Euro’, she said.

3. I have explored these developments elsewhere (cf. Holford 1988, 1995).

4. The position in relation to trade union participation was, however, complicated by a shift from branch to workplace activism, linked to the growing role of shop stewards.

5. In fact, they were by no means universally held within the WEA either. As Field (2003) and Holford (2003) have argued, the WEA’s radicalism was always tempered by a commitment to high intellectualism – the ‘gold standard’ of the ‘tutorial class’: active citizens’ participation, perhaps, but of a superior, elitist, kind.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Holford

John Holford is Professor of Political Education and Head of the Division of Law & Politics at the University of Surrey.