The cultural making of the citizen: a comparative analysis of school students’ civic and political participation in France and Wales

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the complex relationship between the state, civil society and education through comparative research with young people in France and the UK. Survey data derived from two cohorts of school students in South Wales and Lyon reveal strong differences in their levels of civic and political participation. While our Welsh students have higher levels of ‘civic participation’, as measured in terms of charitable work and volunteering, our French students have far higher levels of what might be considered ‘political engagement’, defined in terms of campaigning and demonstrating. We argue that these differences can be accounted for by the different cultural repertoires and priorities of citizenship education which themselves reflect the contrasting historical configurations of education, the state and civil society in these two countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• civic engagement
• political participation
• France
• Wales
• citzenship

Acknowledgments

We would also like to acknowledge our thanks to Fabienne Paulin and Esther Muddiman who assisted in the collection of data – as well as the young respondents themselves.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Wales is part of the United Kingdom, along with England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Although democratic devolution in 1999 has now given Wales greater control of its education, before that time it was subject to English legislation and policy. The systems have been so inter-twined that it was possible, until very recently, to talk about ‘England and Wales’ as having one system. For the purposes of this paper, when we are talking about the history of the relationship between the state, education and civil society, we can consider England and Wales, as being subject to the same historical trends. It is only towards the end of the paper, when we discuss developments in the promotion of citizenship that have taken place since democratic devolution, that is it important to distinguish Wales from England.

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on research supported two sources of funding. The UK-based research was supported by the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD). WISERD is a collaborative venture between the Universities of Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, South Wales and Swansea. The research that this publication relates to was undertaken through the WISERD/Civil Society Centre and was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Grant Number: ES/L009099/1. The research in France was supported through funding from a placement funded by the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (UMR 5206) [Visiting scholarship].