Emotional and critical citizens: Portuguese students’ engagement with wicked issues in contemporary EU policy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Democracies expect citizens to engage actively in public life by making decisions about political issues that are frequently ambiguous, with strong moral and emotional implications, and often subject to misinformation and manipulation. Strong critical thinking (CT) appears therefore as a crucial component of a reflective democratic citizenship. This study identifies sociopolitical topics that are relevant to secondary Portuguese students and explores the interplay between emotions and cognition in their moral-political decision-making. Participants in two rounds of focus group discussions were asked to choose one sociopolitical topic and to report their emotions about that topic; in the second round, they discussed an ethical-moral dilemma about the most selected topic. The students’ emotions selection and their verbal explanations revealed that topics related to refugees, animal rights and environmental issues were the most engaging ones. The dilemma about refugees showed that a strong emotional engagement can lead to higher levels of conflict and that emotional ambivalence can have positive effects on CT. We conclude that pedagogical activities to educate critical citizens should explore social, humanitarian, and environmental issues, encouraging the expression of emotional ambivalence as a precursor to cognitive-moral conflict that is important to a truly engaging and reflective democratic citizenship education.