Introduction

Since the 1990s both the Council of Europe and the European Union (EU) have contributed to fostering democratic change in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by, among others, defining and promoting new forms of education for citizenship (Huddleston, 2005, p 51; Olafsdottir, 2008, p 129). Though both European organizations are constrained in their legal capacity to enforce educational policies at national levels, they rely on informational and, to some extent, financial and organizational tools to influence national policies (Abs, 2021, p 330). As a consequence, educational policies and curricula in European countries increasingly include translations and implementations of supranational European policy initiatives on education for citizenship (Neubauer, 2012, p 82).

Considering that Europeanization has an impact on how citizenship education is conceived and carried out (Keating, 2014), in this chapter I investigate the concepts of citizenship promoted at the European supranational level within their educational documents and materials.1 My methodology consists of a qualitative analysis of teaching materials and implementation reports produced by the Council of Europe and the EU and is complemented by insights from the academic literature.

Given the ideological sensitivity of the concept of citizenship, reaching consensus on the aims and approach of citizenship education is challenging (Veugelers, 2021, p 25). In these supranational approaches, I question whether one model of citizenship imposes itself upon others or if we can detect influences from several models.

Introduction

In recent years, curriculum has become a fiercely debated issue in the systems of many countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The rise of so-called culture wars, fuelled by a polarized political climate and the rise of identarian populist parties (Sata and Karolewski, 2022; Zimmerman, 2022), has led to intense scrutiny of the role that school programmes play in shaping the values and beliefs of young people. These conflicts are contoured by a new importance attributed to knowledge for the transmission or disruption of political and cultural repertoires in contemporary societies. The social sciences and especially civic education as a field are traditionally concerned by these pressures (Bobbitt, 2019). Views on what civic values and history should be taught in schools have thus become highly polarized (Carretero, 2011; Taylor and Guyver, 2012; Karolewski, 2019). Haste et al (2017) argue that this is due not only to the modalities of populist politics but also to the expansive inherent dynamics of the field of civic education, which has fanned out in plural ways and therefore encompasses much more than preparing young citizens for conventional democratic participation (Haste et al, 2017). Issues of national identity and history, sexual citizenship, immigration, and secularism/religion and the debates that ensue are salient in many civic education systems. Thus, in numerous societies, civic and citizenship education have emerged as a pivotal battleground, seen in the controversial attempts to delineate which national values and historical narratives should be accentuated or de-emphasized when shaping the minds of young citizens (Evans, 2004).

Introduction

The book Rethinking Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe examines how citizenship is practised in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from an interdisciplinary perspective. Through the lenses of interdisciplinary citizenship studies, scholars from the fields of educational and political science provide insights into how citizenship interacts with political engagement and interrelates with practices of citizenship. The volume adopts a pluralist approach, acknowledging that citizenship can have different connotations depending on the theoretical context, methodological approaches, and specific research interests across the subdisciplines of educational and social sciences.

While the focus on the broader region allows for a comprehensive examination of shared challenges and trends, the decision to limit individual country analyses was intentional, aimed at highlighting overarching patterns and fostering comparative discussions within CEE. However, this choice also opens avenues for future research that could delve deeper into specific national contexts regarding citizenship education and youth citizenship.

This volume expands on prior research, including Treviño et al (2021), to deepen the discussion on citizenship. While that book provides a rich theoretical analysis of youth citizenship across diverse cultures, Rethinking Citizenship extends the discussion specifically within the CEE context, emphasizing unique historical, political, and social dynamics. It situates youth citizenship within local frameworks, allowing for a deeper understanding of how practices differ from those in a more generalized global context.

Introduction

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has long attracted citizenship scholars due to the post-1989 profound changes affecting state borders, constitutional frameworks, migration flows, and the statuses of nations and national minorities. The fall of communist regimes, the resurgence of nationalism, and the dissolution of formerly federated states, most notably the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, reignited fundamental questions about citizenship, including ‘who is in and who is out’ (Walzer, 1993, p 55) and ‘what binds citizens together into a shared political community’ (Beiner, 1995, p 3). Unsurprisingly, much of this scholarship has concentrated on citizenship as a ‘top-down’ mechanism that regulates the statuses and rights of citizens and defines the legal structures of newly established political communities. Notable works include Brubaker's (1992, 1994, 2000) analysis of citizenship changes in the new Baltic and post-Soviet states, Shaw and Štiks's (2013) exploration of the pivotal role of new citizenship regimes in post-Yugoslav state consolidation, and Baubock's (Baubock et al, 2009; Baubock, 2010) research highlighting the connections between transnational citizenship, migration, and minorities within ‘citizenship constellations’ in CEE, among others.

However, relatively less attention has been devoted to the transformation of citizenship as a lived experience and a bottom-up practice of enacting statuses and rights (Vasiljević, 2018). Without attempting to overstretch the concept (Heisler, 2005), we want to emphasize that citizenship is also an embedded identity or, better yet, a social practice that unfolds and is performed in one's local or national community alongside one's fellow citizens.

Introduction

Making up more than 80 per cent of the total territory of the European Union (EU) and constituting 30 per cent of its population, rural areas are a prime focus of EU policy (European Commission, 2018). In its endeavours to promote rural development, the involvement of the local population is particularly emphasized. This orientation is predicated on the idea that top-down approaches fail when they overlook the in situ communities while their involvement may further the success of rural development.

Whereas the role of citizens in rural development is widely discussed, another aspect has entered the agenda: the adoption of ICT in rural areas is considered as being beneficial in several respects. With regard to the challenges of rural areas, it is expected that digital applications can help to counteract the declining provision of public services and communal activities, to build social networks, and to improve the quality of life in general (Ko et al, 2019; Meyn, 2020). However, because the challenges differ from region to region, it is important to adequately address the diversity of rural areas in terms of both civic participation and ICT rollout. In this context, digital technologies are growing in importance, but so are activities aimed at improving the peculiar living conditions of rural residents.

Thus, the advent of digital applications has been welcomed to promote opportunities for actively involving citizens so to implement demand-driven rural development. Consequently, within the EU's financial framework, a number of initiatives have been brought forward geared towards actively promoting this approach, LEADER being one of the most robust and long-standing of such schemes.

This volume of the Bristol Studies in Comparative and International Education is the first in the series to focus upon Central and Eastern Europe. The key theme of the book concerns the interplay between citizenship and education; and the contributors document and critically examine the role of education and participation in shaping citizenship practices throughout the region.

The book draws upon extensive experience and collective expertise in educational research and political science. This is informed by the findings of a range of recent, externally funded research projects in tune with our series rationale, that emphasize the importance of context-specific approaches for research and for ‘cultivating responsible and engaged citizens’. This, as the Editors emphasize, addresses a gap in the current literature and a lack of systematic, interdisciplinary research on citizenship practices in Central and Eastern Europe.

Citizenship is understood as a complex and contested concept and this pluralist orientation ‘recognizes that citizenship can assume different connotations depending on the context … and the diverse practices of citizenship that are evident in patterns of education, political participation and civil society’.

Together, the chapters cover a wide range of specific issues, in formal, non-formal, and informal education contexts, and reflect upon citizenship practices in organizational and political settings across a revealing mix of micro, meso, and macro levels. This generates comparative insights into the challenges and opportunities facing citizenship and democracy and, in doing so, provides a ‘nuanced understanding of the complex and contested nature of citizenship in the region’.

Introduction

Extremism, climate change, political polarization – how can societies counter these developments? In the search for answers, the call for citizenship and civic education has been playing an increasing role for several years (Kolleck, 2022). At the same time, it has become clear that citizenship and civic education cannot be generalized and encounter different social traditions and conditions depending on the country and region. This chapter turns to this challenge and asks for the conceptual meaning of citizenship and civic education in CEE. Due to the specific contexts of civic and citizenship education in post-communist states, the countries of CEE are defined less by strict geographical boundaries than by their shared history and societal similarities (for example, regarding dictatorship and social transformation).

The development in CEE is particularly exciting. In the course of the post-communist transformation and the efforts towards Europeanization, the topics of citizenship and civic education gained increasing relevance. At the same time, ambivalences and dilemmas emerged that can be attributed to the specific situation in these countries. Since the end of the Cold War, however, citizenship education and civic education have been promoted not only by the countries themselves but also by the European Union (EU) and the European Council in particular, in order to support processes of democratization and the establishment of a market economy. However, it is apparent that this external promotion of citizenship and civic education, for instance in the European Partnership programme of the EU, led to actions that marginalized important goals inherent in the concepts of citizenship and civic education such as the development of democratic and responsible citizens and the integration of individuals into civil society, which are inherent in the concepts (Segert, 2016).