Educating Active Citizenship: the case of adolescents in the Greek

Parliament (1995-2010)

VAMVAKIDOU IF.Sotiropoulou El.

PISMISI EL.

University of Western Macedonia

• The teenagers are high school students who participate as members in the educational program of the Youth Parliament and elected by lot to speak at plenary sessions. Their discourse is experiential and reveals the students’ views.

• We focus on the characteristics of the political discourse, delivered as part of a program that aims to mobilize young people's interest in public affairs and to exercise their political thought and political discourse of democracy. We select the written discourses of students as they have been edited by the parliament. These proceedings are to be analysed as a linguistic material in order to deconstruct the students’ discourse

We focus on the thematic/ the contradictions/the narrative schema that is chosen by students in order to formulate their

active citizenship. We also focus on the procedure for the active citizenship. Using the canonical narrative schema (CNS) we can organize the elements of an action into a structure consisting of

five components: • (1) The action component can be broken down into two

components itself: (2) competence, which results from the factors that are required in order to accomplish the action (wanting-to-do, having-to-do, knowing-how-to-do, and being-able-to-do) and (3) performance, the actual realization of the action, made possible by the acquisition of competence.

• (4) Manipulation is the component that deals specifically with wanting-to-do and having-to-do.

• (5) The last component, sanction, has to do with evaluating whether the action was truly realized, and the corresponding retribution that the performing subject has incurred (Hébert, 2007)

Theoretical frame, Citizenship and education

• Citizenship education has become an increasingly important means for human beings to learn about their rights and responsibilities. Education help teenagers to understand their role as citizens, to develop a commitment to his role in practice and ultimately to engage in critical reflection on the rights and responsibilities associated with this role.

• The value of an experience is to be judged by the effect that it has on the individual’s present, future, and the extent to which the individual is able to contribute to society (Dewey, 1938).

Students’ and representatives’ identities-

the common elements Through the process of Education Active Citizenship, students at the Youth Parliament learn about the role of adult-politicians: • Teenagers who participate in the Youth Parliament,

are selected according to the number of local representatives

• Students represent their locality and they may transfer the local problems

• Students discourse in the Parliament acquires the characteristics of a purely political speech.

Students’ and representatives’ identities-

the common elements • The topics discussed by teens in the Youth

Parliament, are the same as those discussed by the members of the Greek Parliament.

• During the presentations of adolescents only the chairman of the Commission may speak first. Similarly, during the presentations of adult-Members only the minister or the prime minister may speak first.

• The resolution of the proposals to the plenary of the Youth Parliamnet, is carried by show of the hand.

• Teenagers through this process are 'elected' and they can judge, criticize, propose and envisage.

The data- Students’ discourse

• The Youth Parliament in Greece is an example of Educating Active Citizenship. It is an educational program of the Greek Parliament started in 1995.

• The program aims to foster positive attitudes towards the value of citizenship and the initiation into the values, rules and practices of democracy.

• At the Youth Parliament, students from secondary school in Greek Parliament, freely and responsibly express their opinion and their objections to what is happening around them and they also express their visions, seeking to implement their proposals by those who legislate.

The aim

• We select the written discourses of students as they have been edited by the parliament.

• These proceedings are to be analyzed as a linguistic material in order to deconstruct the students’ discourse.

• We focus on the thematic/ the contradictions/the narrative schema that is chosen by students in order to formulate their active citizenship.

The data as the procedureactive citizenship

The program of the Youth Parliament concerns students of The program of the Youth Parliament concerns students of all class Ball class B::

• high scools (public, private, special, evening), and technical schools in country

• students of Greek high schools abroad• students of the B class of high and technical schools of

Cyprus

Teenagers who participate in the program must be up to 20 Teenagers who participate in the program must be up to 20 yearsyears oldold

Youth Parliament concerns students

of all class B

Greek schools

Cyprusschools

Greek schoolsabroad

Specialschools

Technicalschool

Highschool

Highschool

Technicalschool

Greece (2010)Greece (2010)Territory 8 Dodecanece 4 Kavala 4 Lesvos 3 Samos 1

A’ Athens 15 Evros 4 Karditsa 4 Lefkada 1 Serres 6

B’ Athens 36 Evia 5 Kastoria 2 Magnesia 4 Trikala 4

Aitoloakarnania 6 Evritania 1 Corfu 3 Messinia 4 Fthiotida 4

Argolis 3 Zakynthos 1 Kefalonia 1 Xanthi 3 Florina 2

Arcadia 3 Ilia 5 Kilkis 3 A’ Piraeus 5 Fokida 1

Arta 3 Imathia 4 Kozani 4 B’ Piraeus 6 Chalkidiki 3

Attica 10 Heraklion 6 Korinthia 4 Pella 4 Chania 4

Achaia 7 Thesportias 1 Cyclades 3 Pieria 4 Chios 2

Viotia 4 A’ Thessaloniki 14

Laconia 3 Preveza 2

Grevena 1 B’ Thessaloniki 5 Larissa 6 Rethymno 2

Drama 3 Ioannina 4 Lassithi 2 Rodopi 3

Cyprus(20)

Greece(260)

Greek Diaspora(20)

Nicosia (7)

Limmasol (4)

Karpas (1)

Famagusta (3)

Larnaca (2)

Paphos (2)

Kyrenia (1)

German (6)

Belgium (1)

U.S.A. (2)

England (1)

Libya (1)

Australia (2)

Israel (1) Jordan (1)

Canada (2)

Egypt (2)

Ethiopia (1)

Greek Youth Parliament 2010

Territory (8)

Schools that have

demonstrated distinct social / cultural actions

(4)

Special and EveningSchools

(4)

All schools(252)

The procedure for participation • teachers are aware of the program and inform their

students • after about a month, the written work of the students

is delivered on the links by their school teachers • the teachers send the homework to the special

assessment centers, organized in Athens• the ones graded as ‘excellent’ are demonstrated by e-

lottery and are published by the Parliament • those, whose texts are selected, are invited to

participate for three days in the Greek Parliament

The procedure for participation

• the proposals of all students have been sent to the assessment center, included and summarized in documents in order to be discussed by the teenagers

• the 300 selected teenagers form a body divided into 6 committees

• the debate in committees is following the Rules of the Greek Parliament

Students informed by teachers

Teachers sendthe homeworks to the special

assessment centers

300 texts fromadolescents

selected

Greek YouthParliament

260 as the number

of deputies elected to national elections

20 fromCyprus

20 fromGreek

Diaspora

Students dividedinto six Committees

All proposals included and summarized

in a document for each

committee

Proposals in the debate,

put to the vote

Written workmust be interesting

and have completeness,documentation,

support for the arguments,logic of consistency,

originality conception,creative imagination,

etc.

Greek Youth Parliament

teenagers members divided into

committees/based to written work

Committee onDefense

and Foreign Affairs

Committe onAdministrationPublic Order and Justice

Committee on Cultural Affairs

Committee on Social Affairs

Committee on

Economic Affairs

Committee on

Production Commerce

Youth Parliament – During a committee session

Results-canonical narrative schema

The action • Teenagers, after being informed about the

institution of the Youth Parliament, deposit their work on an issue which have experienced as a significant social problem

• The teacher of the school sends all the papers to the Assessment Center in Athens

• This center selects the 300 best works and invite the teenagers Members who will participate in Youth Parliament

• Teenagers travel and gather in Athens at the Hellenic Parliament

Results-canonical narrative schema

• They are separated into six committees depending on the subject for which they have written or they are interesred

• Each committee meets separately, discuss and vote for the proposals

• Finally, all the teenagers participate in plenary session, following the protocol of the Hellenic Parliament.

• the project of the Youth Parliament is also accompanied by a program of cultural events, in which they partcipate.

Results Competence

• During the plenary session only the 10% of the teenagers, who are selected by e-lottery, are entitled to speak

• Although the e-lottery selection of the speakers does not allow us to get a clear picture of the school and social life of adolescents, we notice that young people think and make proposals on all aspects and deal with contemporary issues such as environment, people with disabilities, education or more general issues relating to foreign policy, economy and development.

At Youth Parliament during a plenary session

Results Performance• the youngs’ speech of freedom, adopts

elements of political discourse, that means the elements of militancy, the rivalry of dialectical opposition

• the teenagers’ speech may be described as democratic / verbs, such as "despair", "indignant", "we have been disappointed" "want", "seek", "demand" from the state

ResultsManipulation• the program of the Youth Parliament is

essentially an educational training program in democratic processes

• the purpose of the program is not to highlight some requests directly and find their solution. However, their participation in Youth Parliament, teach teenagers that problems should be discussed and that through the fermentation of any of these products may eventually find their solution

evaluationEvaluation• we believe that through this experiences students show that

they have maturity of thinking and judging• young students as ‘new citizens’ express frankly what they

believe, express their suggestions and they demand their implementation

• these concerns and ideas of teenagers, are interesting not only for those who record the history of education but rather for those interested in the present and future

• we would like to argue that this informal education for active citizenship has the potential to create a dynamism that might have a number of positive effects on the overall development of a culture of cooperation and cohesion in and beyond the school .

The Youth Parliament

• Thank you