Workshop Directors
Linda Herrera
University of Illinois, USA
lherrera@illinois.edu
Peter Mayo
University of Malta, Malta
peter.mayo@um.edu.mt
Abstract
This workshop will tackle challenging questions about changing relationships between education, youth cultural politics, and citizenship in a digital era. There is a growing rift between the citizenship education young people learn in schools versus those they learn in youth driven communication spaces. In authoritarian states and unsteady democracies in the Middle East, North Africa and southern Europe the differences are especially acute. Education systems tend to perpetuate notions of citizenship that are highly formalistic and based on acceptance of a political culture that is hierarchical, paternalistic, and risk averse. Aided by tools of new media and digital communication technologies, youth cultures are developing alternative notions and practices of citizenship. They are becoming more active and involved citizens, rejecting the status quo, and more oriented towards rights, equity, and collective action. Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have shown that the internet generation will not accommodate the perennial political system of autocratic government. They have been demanding the ousting of despotic leaders and corrupt political systems and institutions. Their action could easily have the desired domino effect in the region and governments are trying to pre-empt such action in their homeland by making ‘democratic’ concessions. As youth experience new forms of learning, sociability, civic and political engagement, they embark on new changing ways of “learning citizenship” and “doing politics”. This workshop will review how the largest and most schooled cohort of young people (12-24) in the history of the region are learning and propagating citizenship dispositions inside and outside educational institutions and in so doing changing the cultural and political landscape of their societies.
Description
Ever since 2008 when two 20-somethings Egyptian college students used the social networking site to coordinate mass support for the 6 of April 2008 strike of textile workers in Al Mahalla al-Kubra, and more recently with the actual revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been little doubt that young people in the region are engaging in political and social behavior very different from previous generations. It is also evident that they are learning about how to be active citizens in youth communication spaces. Youth in the region, whether in Tunisia, Iran, Palestine, Egypt have led the way globally in how to utilize communication tools and social networking sites for citizen journalism, political agitation, social movements, and revolution. It is no coincidence that these youth have come of age in authoritarian political systems marked by high degrees of corruption, lack of accountability, disrespect of civil liberties and an economic regime of neoliberalism. They have witnessed the dismantling of welfare states, job insecurity, growing social disparities, and highly uncertain futures.
Youth are simultaneously the amateur producers, consumers, and transmitters of information of a public and personal nature on a large and growing scale. In some ways they share many attributes with their global generational contemporaries and can be called the “E”[electronic] generation, the “i” [internet or i-pod] generation, Generation txt, “Facebook and Twitter Generation,” the Google Generation, the “We Generation.” All these terms point to ways this global generation is functioning in a more collective, non-hierarchical, collaborative, interactive, and transparent ways. Since technology remains unevenly distributed and there remain digital inequalities, new social cleavages are emerging around access to ICT. But even in contexts where high portions of youth do not have access to digital media, the ones who do influence and drive generational change in the realms of citizenship and politics with far reaching pedagogic and political consequences.
Among the issues to be explored are the following:
- What is the role of Facebook and other social networking sites on youth civic and political engagement?
- Does on-line behavior translate to “on the street” movements, and if so, how? In what ways, if any, is the political culture of schools changing in response to the communications revolution?
- Is non-formal education playing an important part in the education of youths in the region?
A subset of questions in this context would include:
- Is digitally mediated non-formal education playing a part here?
- What effect is cyber-education having on gender relations among youth?
- Is this serving as a means of liberating women or domesticating them by encouraging them to study inside their homes rather than in the more public educational spaces?
- With migration being a big issue in this region, how are digital connections being forged among Arab youth in the country of origin and the country of settlement and what effect is this having on their social and political agency ?
- What type of repositioning of youth is occurring in both contexts?
The foregoing discussion for the most part centres on the struggle of youth for greater social and political rights. This is interesting and most of the western media coverage foregrounds this aspect of the revolutions taking place. Unfortunately western concepts of democracy are brought to bear on the discussions regarding the future of Arab countries and most specifically Egypt and Tunisia, What other forms of democracy are Arab youths clamoring for? Do alternative forms of democracy, including ‘direct’ as opposed to ‘representative’ democracy, make their presence felt in the digitally mediated technologies of learning in which Arab youths are engaged on both sides of the Mediterranean divide?
Economic Considerations – Schooling, Employment and Distribution
Public discontent with the education system may be at an all time high and stem from many factors but one main issue can be highlighted. Global educational reforms since the 1990s have been oriented towards a human capital model of schooling which more directly connects learning with the demands of a global job market and economic growth. Education policies are thus tailored to prepare youth for the “knowledge economy.” Despite these market oriented changes, youth unemployment and underemployment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are among the highest in the world, only Sub-Saharan Africa has higher rates. Among youth who find employment, the overwhelming majority of them labor in insecure circumstances with no formal contract or in temporary jobs not related to their desired careers. Unemployment rates are highest among educated youth. This situation stands as an indictment that the education system which is not upholding the implicit social contract that participation in formal schooling—with all the sacrifices, investments, and commitment it entails—will lead to employment, a livelihood, and full membership to societies.
Both countries in which the revolutions seem to be taking place are characterised by huge disparities in wealth and unemployment. Issues concerning economic engagement and distribution are at the heart of the struggles involved. It remains to be seen whether the democratic changes that are being promised will be deep rooted or simply serve as a cosmetic exercise with other members of the ruling oligarchy simply replacing the man (they rulers have invariably been men) at the helm. One wonders whether the aspiration is for a radical change which provides for an expanding economy that incorporates large amounts of youth in meaningful employment and which provides greater and meaningful educational expansion at all levels - the kind of economy complemented by a greater democratic politics of redistribution that is believed to be capable of addressing the deep rooted social and economic inequalities in the countries concerned. Or is this simply a digitally mediated revolution intended to allow a greater middle class sector, extending beyond the confines of the present oligarchy, to gain a greater share of the cake? As for the Northern Mediterranean, home to a number of migrants from the South, is there a call for an economic system that does not segregate the labour market on ethnic lines? These economic and social considerations raise a set of important questions:
- How is digital technology enabling youths to acquire skills for greater participation in a broader and more meaningful labour market?
- What alternative economic policies are necessary to accommodate these skills?
- What alternative proposals are being put forward for a different economic approach that counters the situation of mass unemployment among youth in the area?
- What role does digital technology play in this regard?
- Is the increase in use of digital technology contributing to a further brain drain among youth?
- On the contrary, would a greater democratic liberalization of the country lead to a re-draining of digitally savvy Arab youth who can now work from the comfort of their home in Egypt and eschew the kind of post-9/11 anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments prevailing in the countries to which they emigrated?
- Could the democratization of Arab states lead to more digitally mediated cross-border economic ventures involving youths of different Arab countries?
- How does one bridge the digital divide with these economic considerations in mind?
These are among the questions to be tackled in the proposed workshop and related activities that can take a variety of forms such as online discussions including webcasts and podcasts, publications and follow up seminars.
Application
The application deadline is July 15, 2011
Click here to access the online application form. Be sure to selection Workshop #1 to submit a proposal to this particular workshop.
Click here to access the general call for papers and see a list of all conference workshops.