Co-designing a civics curriculum: young people,democratic deficit and political renewal in the EU

Contemporary discussion of the ‘crisis in democracy’ displays a tendency to see young people as the problem because they are ‘apolitical’, ‘apathetic’ and ‘disengaged’, or point to deficiencies in institutions deemed responsible for civic education. This discussion normally comes as a prelude to calls for more civics education. This article points to a renewal of politics at the hands of young people relying on new media, and draws on evidence like survey research, case studies and action research projects. This political renewal is occurring largely in response to the assumption of political elites that a ‘politics-as-usual’ will suffice to address the major political challenges of our time. Against the assumption that teachers, curriculum experts and policy-makers already know what kinds of knowledge and skills students need to become good citizens, we make a case for co-designing a contemporary citizenship curriculum with young people to be used for the professional development of policy-makers. We argue that such an intervention is likely to have a salutary educational effect on policy-makers, influence how they see young people’s political engagement and how they set policy agendas. The article also canvasses the protocols such a project might observe.     

Conservative force or contradictory resource? Education and affirmative action in Jharkhand,India

This article explores the combination of education and affirmative action in challenging historic inequalities faced by adivasis, or indigenous peoples, living in a remote region of Eastern India. We show how the combined effects of education and affirmative action can act as a ‘contradictory resource’. On the one hand, policies of affirmative action are enabling young educated adivasis – the children of subsistence farmers and manual labourers – to benefit from the creation of new, rural state jobs. We show how without affirmative action, such jobs may well have been monopolised by a local elite of higher castes. On the other hand, we argue several conservative processes have accompanied these changes. First, the reserved jobs secured by adivasis are relatively badly paid and insecure. Second, these jobs have not enabled relative progress for adivasis vis-à-vis traditional elites who are moving out of rural areas and diversifying their livelihoods. Third, young educated adivasis have begun to emulate the norms, values and ways of life of the local elite. This ‘culture of emulation’ is fostering new inequalities between educated adivasis and their poorer kin, who face increasing proletarianisation. The contradictory resource, we argue, concerns not only inequalities in accessing certain jobs, but also the creation of new forms of differentiation among historically marginalised people. We conclude by setting these findings within the wider complex relations emerging between caste, ethnicity and class in contemporary India.     

Research agenda for social and collaborative information seeking

Scholars in diverse fields of inquiry have identified the need to expand individual-based information seeking and behavior models and systems to incorporate social as well as collaborative dimensions. However, the research areas of Social Information Seeking (SIS) and Collaborative Information Seeking (CIS) have been largely disconnected from one another despite a few notable attempts to study them under one umbrella. Researchers in these communities have recently realized the value of bringing SIS and CIS together for two main reasons: often it is impossible to separate social and collaborative dimensions in a project; and by considering these two aspects of information seeking, we may be able to support human information behavior in ways not previously possible. A brief synthesis of work in the domains of SIS and CIS is presented here. Then, an integrated view is presented to consider Social and Collaborative Information Seeking (SCIS) as an intersection and extension of SIS and CIS. Benefits of this approach are discussed and the integrated view is used as the basis to present a research agenda that outlines opportunities and challenges unique to SCIS.