Citizenship Education in a Fragile State: NGO Programs for Democratic Development and Youth Participation in Haiti

Gary Pluim

doi:10.5206/cie-eci.v46i2.9319

Abstract

This research centres on NGO citizenship education programs in Haiti to better understand youth experiences, outcomes, and perceptions of democracy. The findings from this study illustrate how programs from Western-based NGOs with liberal democratic traditions typically construct citizenship education in relation to the individual agency of the learners, whereas youth living in the context of fragility note the prerequisite for stable social structures as a foundation for citizenship. Through multi-dimensional analyses, this article highlights the importance of historical perspectives, the value of comparing disparate societies, and the necessity to explicate social locations in cross-cultural research. The concluding proposition states that not only does context matter in international research, but illustrates specifically how context affects youth participants subject to curriculum emanating from competing ideological environments. The issues explored here are among the key concerns for the future of comparative and international research in a globalizing and diverse world.

Highlights

Citizenship education programs have proliferated across North America in formal and nonformal education settings and a subsequent body of research on these programs has thrived within the fields of comparative and international education, citizenship education, youth studies, and other sub-disciplines across education (Andreotti, 2006; Banks, 2017; Bixby & Pace, 2014; DeJaeghere, 2009; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004)
The youth chosen for each program was selected based on their ability to represent the experiences of numerous other participants in the program, and how they articulated their perspectives with richness and complexity
Rich and rigorous frameworks have been developed to theorize these approaches. Most of these frameworks have been applied to Western settings against the backdrop of liberal democratic political structures, capitalist neo-liberal economic environments, and politically stable social environments

Summary

Introduction

Citizenship education programs have proliferated across North America in formal and nonformal education settings and a subsequent body of research on these programs has thrived within the fields of comparative and international education, citizenship education, youth studies, and other sub-disciplines across education (Andreotti, 2006; Banks, 2017; Bixby & Pace, 2014; DeJaeghere, 2009; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). Many citizenship education programs are constructed for young people who possess a presumed degree of access, opportunity and privilege, and who enjoy sufficient forms of capital to benefit from these initiatives. In these cases, citizenship education emanating from the stable states of the Global North are often created with the assumption that youth beneficiaries have enough access to social, political, and economic resources that the program goals, in combination with the youths’ individual agency, will enable the desired outcomes and expressions of citizenship. Citizenship education programming and research needs to serve youth with social and structural advantages, but all youth across socio-economic spectrums, regardless of their social position, and across cultural, regional, and national spheres.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion