I have been testing a few mics for everyday video conferences – as one does these days.
There are a few decent microphones in my tech pool, but it’s not always convenient to fire up all the gear for a 15-minute video call. In the past months, I have used Airpods Pro for those shorter calls, but the material Apple is using on their in-ear headphones has, over time, made my ears itch and groan in resistance. So I was quite happy when the over-ear Airpods Max were released – not so much because I need another pair of good headphones, but because I was hoping to replace my itchy Airpods Pro. The mic array of the Airpods Max is technically quite impressive: eight microphones for active noise cancellation, three microphones for voice pickup, two of which are shared with active noise cancellation –all according to Apple’s tech spec sheet. Those specs were the reason I bought them, hoping they can replace my Airpods Pro as a hassle-free, reliable, decent enough headset for quick calls. And yes, they can! Below are voice samples, in German and English, for the Airpods Pro, the Airpod Max, and for comparison a Røde Lavalier Mic. The samples were all recorded using Rogue Amoeba’s excellent Audio Hijack, because to this day Apple’s own app Logic Pro will not recognise the mics in Apple’s own headsets as inputs. The Røde mic runs through an Evo 4 preamp. I haven’t used any filters, equalizers or noise cancellations filters on any of the recordings (even though Audio Hijack has a few excellent filters that work very well to enhance mic inputs). The two text samples are a short excerpt from Hannah Arendt’s essay “Die Lüge in der Politik” from 1971 and the first few sentences from Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” – both still and again quite fitting during these days and times. For the Airpods Max, there are two samples – the first one sounds like a tin can, utterly terrible; whereas the second one sounds quite decent (to my ears, in any case). Turns out it makes a difference which way around you wear them: with the digital crown and button on your right-hand side, you get decent mic performance. At first, I wasn’t able to discover any markers for what is left or right with the Airpods Max – and just put them on the wrong way around. If you are looking for these markers yourself: they are imprinted in the mesh of the earpads, and also on the case behind the magnetic earpads, so that if you remove them, you can return each pad correctly. Quite obvious once you see it – ups :) In any case: if you are interested in a full review of the Airpods Max, dive into Marques Brownlee excellent in-depth review. And yes, the case really is as ugly as everyone says. But still: my ears will have a much easier time from now on, and that is more than good enough for me. Airpods Pro German sample English sample Airpods Max 1 German sample English sample Airpods Max 2 German sample English sample Røde Lavalier German sample English sample
11 things I am reading for and about Wikimedia
Yes it might turn out to be mad, why are you asking?
It’s somehow the same story every year: the amount of reading climbs up with every month. And so I find myself reading 11 things in parallel, connected to the madness, and excitement, of running for an elected, voluntary position in an NGO (Wikimedia Germany) again after many years of exercising restraint. Most of my personal choices this year turned out to be slightly goofy, so we’ll see how this one turns out – the General Assembly of Wikimedia Germany is on November 29, so I will know very soon. Setting aside caution and reserve, here is my commented reading list: <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="620" height="407" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/reading-620x407.jpg" alt="This is how I feel: small and curious" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-6816" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/reading-620x407.jpg 620w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/reading-440x289.jpg 440w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/reading.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" /> Wikimedia Germany’s mailing list. I have been strongly encouraged to post to the mailing list, but I am cheerfully ignoring that recommendation. This is not a mailing list, it’s a slaughterhouse. I am reading every message, never sure whether I will get a headache from shaking my head or laughing madly. The list is public, so if you want to, dive into a pretty stunning spectacle. Konflikte Zwischen Vorstand und Geschäftsführer in Nonprofit-Organisationen: Eine Analyse der Spannungsfelder und deren Ursachen. A great book by Sara Bürgisser, already because it makes clear that the kind of conflicts Wikimedia Germany is struggling with right now are actually quite common. Chapters Dialogue Insights & Summary. While Wikipedia is co-produced by an immense decentralised network, much of the control sits with the Wikimedia Foundation. A lot of people are unhappy with that, and though I am familiar with the Chapters Dialogue, reading through it once more helps. Burnout in Free Software Communities. A great blog post by Siobhan McKeown that resonates strongly with my own experience. “Free software, by its nature, attracts self-driven people who like to be involved in diverse and challenging projects.” Yes indeed. Twenty-two power laws of the emerging social economy. An oldie but goodie by Dion Hinchcliffe who explores a good number of theories, which, he argues, are shaping the business world as the “post-industrial knowledge economy becomes more social.” Lots of meta discussions. Meta is the space where everything is discussed, well almost, and so there are discussions around the annual plan of Wikimedia Germany for 2015. Both the discussions and the the annual plan itself are interesting reads, with a lot more nuance than the mailing list. Motions for the General Assembly. About the only link that is password-protected. Most motions seem fair enough, but there are some that just continue the trench warfare madness between those who believe the ousting of the executive director was completely absurd, and those who believe it was the only way ahead. Wikipedia and Encyclopaedism: A genre analysis of epistemological values (pdf). Master thesis of Steve Jankowski (no, not the trumpeter of Blood, Sweat, and Tears), in which he considers how Wikipedia justifies, structures, and legitimizes its production of knowledge. An Epistemological Critique of Wikipedia. Summary by Steve’s supervisor, Pierre Lévy, who asks “How can we integrate the different point of views on a given subject in a perspectivist way instead of imposing a “neutrality” or “objectivity” that reflects inevitably the dominating consensus?” Proposal to replace Neutral Point of View (NPOV) with Every Point of View (EPOV). The entire research newsletter is always worth a read, a fantastic rabbit hole every single time, but this succinct summary of an interesting research paper stood out to me. Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia. Written by Dariusz Jemielniak, academic and Wikipedian, who seeks to illuminate how Wikipedia functions and, in doing so, claims and aims to deliver the first ethnography of Wikipedia. The list could of course be much longer, but I try to never read more things in parallel than the month of the year commands. The photo by Captain Piper on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0) captures beautifully how I feel about this endeavour.
Some things are enormously more difficult than they seem at the beginning. Choosing colours for your living room, for example. For weeks now, we have been trying out dozens of colours – on plywood boards, on the wall, on our hands. We think we have finally settled on colours for two rooms: pea green for our Berliner Zimmer and Carmine for our hallway. Uff. Other things are enormously more simply than they seem at the beginning. Understanding conflicts in NGOs, for example. For weeks now, I have closely followed extensive exchanges between two bitterly fighting fractions inside Wikimedia Germany. I find it fascinating that the two sides continue debating as if they, and only they, must be completely right, and the other side must be completely wrong. Uff. Black and white never helps. Here are some of our colour samples (yeah yeah we know). <img decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IMG_6164-620x465.jpg" alt="Just a few of our colour samples" width="620" height="465" class="size-large alignright wp-image-6790" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IMG_6164-620x465.jpg 620w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IMG_6164-440x330.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" />
A potpourri of participation models – Updated
An updated chase through the maze of participation models, frameworks & theories
For years now I have been collecting information on and tracing the origins of different models, schemata and theories of participation. Enticed by a project in 2011, I put together a selection of models with their original imagery and, in excerpt, original introductions and explanations. Another project in 2012 provided motivation and momentum to review and extend the selection, and update the pdf-file (Version November 2012, 13 MB). These are the (currently: 36) models covered: Those added in 2012 are in bold: 1969 Ladder of citizen participation Sherry Arnstein 1992 Ladder of children participation Roger Hart 1996 Typology of participation Sarah White 1997 Degrees of participation Phil Treseder 1998 Wheel of participation Scott Davidson 2000 Spectrum of public participation IAP2 [latest version from 2007, see comments below] 2001 Active participation framework OECD 2001 Pathways to participation Harry Shier 2001 Clarity model of participation Clare Lardner 2001 Strategic approach to participation UNICEF 2002 Triangle of youth participation Jans & de Backer 2002 Youth participation in society Jans & de Backer 2002 Dimensions of youth participation David Driskell 2002 Seven realms of participation Francis & Lorenzo 2003 Ladder of volunteer participation Adam Fletcher 2003 Youth engagement continuum FCYO 2006 Four Cs of online participation Derek Wenmoth 2006 Power law of participation Ross Mayfield 2006 Levels, spaces and forms of power John Gaventa 2006 The CLEAR Participation Model Lawndes & Pratchett 2006 Four L Engagement Model Tony Karrer 2007 Participation 2.0 Model New Zealand 2007 Spectrum of public participation IAP2 [first version from 2000, see comments below] 2007 Engagement in the policy cycle Diane Warburton 2007 Online Participation Behaviour Chain Fogg & Eckles 2009 Key dimensions of participation Driskell & Neema 2009 Matrix of participation Tim Davies 2009 Pathways through participation NCVO & IVR 2010 Changing views on participation Pedro Martín 2010 Ladder of online participation Bernoff & Li 2010 Online participation across age Rick Wicklin 2010 Three-lens approach to participation DFID-CSO 2010 Behavior Grid BJ Fogg 2010 The Participation Tree Harry Shier 2011 Typology of Youth Participation Wong et al. 2011 Six principles of online participation Tim Davies 2012 The Yinyang Model Shier et al.
A very real question: when will Europe begin to respect human rights at its borders?
At a training course on European Citizenship, my colleague Elena Kasko and I developed a simulation around the truly disgusting and disturbing way in which Europe treats refugees at its borders, in particular at the Schengen borders. One of my personal heroes, Gabriele del Grande, the unflinching Italian human rights journalist, has documented on http://www.fortresseurope.blogspot.com/ that at least 18.567 people have died since 1988 in their attempt to reach the Fortress Europe. <img decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/the_european_independent-620x149.png" alt="A very real question: when will Europe begin to respect human rights at its borders?" title="A very real question: when will Europe begin to respect human rights at its borders?" width="620" height="149" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-2325" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/the_european_independent-620x149.png 620w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/the_european_independent-440x105.png 440w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/the_european_independent.png 1678w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" /> This was our scenario: Europe in 2015: Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland are bankrupt. The major banks of Germany, France and the UK have been nationalised and operate under government control. Luxembourg and Austria have given up on their offshore banking strategies, and the City of London has been placed under common legislation. Economic perspectives are depressing. Russia, China and Brazil have offered to lend money to the Europeans. Meanwhile, the citizens of Europe have lost their last bit of trust in European institutions. The majority is convinced that neither the European Union nor the Council of Europe will survive this fundamental crisis. In this atmosphere of hopelessness, the Parliament of the European Union and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have decided to meet, for the first time, in joint session to discuss and shape the future of Europe. Each political party has tabled 2 proposals (called motions) about the future of Europe for this joint session. These motions are discussed in joint committees, with members from both Parliaments attending. One of the most controversial motions comes from the Pirate Party: They suggest to extend the Schengen area to include all member states of the Council of Europe and to change the external border policies to comply with human right principles. Here are the materials we developed – feel free to download, adapt and use to your liking: the scenario: docx | pdf the motion: docx | pdf the roles: docx | pdf a newspaper we used to spice things up: indesign | pdf an intro movie we made – careful, the movie clocks in with 210 MB: avi There were a few things we’d do differently next time around, most importantly probably (1) leave more time (we ran the entire simulation in one morning, including the debriefing, while it could easily consume a day) and (2) prepare fact-sheets as briefing material for the experts in the simulation, to allow them to argue evidence-based rather than invention-based.
What makes e-learning in non-formal education good, great, spectacular, impactful & powerful?
In the context of the Council of Europe’s seminar “Using E-Learning in Intercultural Non-formal Education” I gave a presentation today [Nov 30, 2011] to (1) briefly introduce approaches to quality standards, benchmarks and criteria in e-learning and to (2) exemplify how e-learning changes learners, learning and learning environments and how this impacts non-formal education. Without a voice-over some aspects of the presentation will likely be hard to follow, but there are many links to sources for further reading in there so it might be useful anyway. Click on the image or this link to download the pdf of the presentation (12 MB). <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/elearningseminar.jpg" alt="E-Learning in Intercultural Non-formal Education" title="E-Learning in Intercultural Non-formal Education" width="615" height="434" class="alignright size-full wp-image-2257" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/elearningseminar.jpg 715w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/elearningseminar-440x310.jpg 440w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/elearningseminar-620x437.jpg 620w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />
Methods: refreshing obsession or undeserved fetish?
A thousand methods in Salto's toolbox: Is there a method in all the madness?
This article was commissioned by and written for the Estonian Youth Work Magazine «MIHUS». More than a thousand methods are listed in Europe’s largest toolbox for training and youth work at www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/. More than a thousand tools, with new ones being added constantly. More than a thousand! They stand for a growing dilemma and an increasingly frustrating conflict in our work as youth trainers and youth workers – the demand that methods must always be effective, evidence-based, creative, participatory, empowering, stimulating, exciting, new, crazy, surprising, powerful… Is there a method in the madness? Photo by Tim Chaborski Is there a method in the madness? The more methods you know the better you are. Methods have become a marketing tool, a part of our identities as youth trainers and youth workers. Some of these methods may even become our trademark – when you think of Madzinga, with how many trainers do you associate it? And yet, at the same time, it almost seems as if only a new method is a good method. We are afraid of repeating ourselves. We don’t want to bore ourselves with what we do. But more importantly: frequent seminar-goers might recognise a method and consider us boring as well… Oh no! Are we afraid of the medicine? Photo by Winona Wilhelm Why are we so afraid of repeating ourselves? Have you ever heard anyone say that you shouldn’t take Aspirin to fight off your headache because, you know, you took it last time already? Nobody gets excited about taking Aspirin twice. Why then are we so often afraid of using the same energiser twice? On the other hand, when in need of more complex medical treatments nobody receives the exact same dose and mix of medication, operation and/or therapy – too much depends on the situation, its circumstances, possible side-effects… It’s too complex to be simplistically repeated. Why then are we so often afraid of adapting a complex simulation exercise to our needs? The comparison is both far-fetched and lopsided – after all, we are not trying to cure a disease through our youth work and youth training. But both the Methods Fatigue Syndrome (MFS) and the Methods Obsession Syndrome (MOS) appear to be growing stronger among youth trainers and youth workers across Europe. In the wake of these two syndromes, methods are often fetishized and given fancy names and undeserved status. Over time, their original contexts, meanings and purposes get lost and are replaced by common beliefs and shallow clichés. Open Space and World Café, Appreciative Inquiry and The Art of Hosting have not only become synonyms of processes for discussions that matter, they have also become catchwords with an almost exclusive focus on their possibilities, power and potential and little to no awareness of their preconditions, limits and weaknesses. Peter Senge, in his afterword to the World Café Community‘s book “The World Café. Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter,” observed that “the World Café is not a technique. It is an invitation into a way of being with one another that is already part of our nature.” And yet, a technique is what the World Café is often downgraded to. We like the atmosphere, we like the idea, we like the potential of the approach – but we do not spend enough time on considering context and contents, on developing excellent questions and connecting diverse perspectives. And so, instead of discovering collective wisdom, we discover how boring and uninspiring the mechanical process of people talking and moving and reporting back can be, even when arranged in a café setting. The World Café is only one of many examples of potentially great approaches, which require plenty of hard work to make them powerful, being reduced to a technique of seven quick steps. It’s a symptom of a spreading weakness in youth work and youth training; a widening gap between our ambitions and claims, on the one hand, and our practice and authenticity, on the other hand. Strongly overshadowed by the much-demanded efforts to document and validate learning outcomes, we are increasingly reverting to fixed curricula and reproducible sequences, to known recipes and documented techniques. On the pathway to the recognition of youth work and non-formal learning, the pressure grows to make our work recognisable. We are writing down what we do more than ever before, and the resulting wealth of material available fuels our temptation to revert to what is already there. In doing so, we quietly open the doors for myths about training and learning to take hold. The most prominent example is quite likely the learning style myth. Ruth Clark summarises this in her book “Evidence-based training methods: a guide for training professionals:” “Learning styles represent one of the more wasteful and misleading pervasive learning myths of the past 20 years. From audio learners to visual learners or from ‘sensors’ to ‘intuitive,’ learning styles come in many flavors. (…) For some reason, the idea of a learning style has a kind of cosmic intuitive appeal that is very compelling. (…) The learning style myth leads to some very unproductive training ap-proaches (…) The time and energy spent perpetuating the various learning style myths can be more wisely invested in supporting individual differences that are proven to make a difference—namely, prior knowledge of the learner.” Ruth Clark makes, beyond her efforts to debunk learning styles as a myth, a fundamentally important observation: what makes most difference to the impact of learning – and should, therefore, make most difference to our design of learning processes – is the prior knowledge of learners. What is the prior knowledge of our learners? Photo by Tobias Mittmann We know this, of course – there is a reason why we are, often intuitively, a little afraid of people joining our workshops, seminars and training courses who (believe to) know a lot about what we do and what we talk about. And indeed, this often complicates our work tremendously, because those participants are way beyond the reasonable variety of levels of prior knowledge that our methodology usually caters for. This observation – that there is a limit to the deviation of prior knowledge that our methodology can typically handle – is also not exactly new. There are reasons why we normally publish a profile of participants with the announcement of a seminar or training course. One of those reasons is to limit the heterogeneity of the group, also in terms of prior knowledge and experience. But the connection of cause and action usually stops one step too early in our educational practice as youth trainers and youth workers: if we know that prior experience plays such an important role, why do we still assume that methods, tools and techniques can be universally effective? They never are. Methods are developed for a specific reason, in a specific context, for a specific group of people and a specific purpose. Within limits, they can be transferred and applied elsewhere. With creativity, their usefulness can be extended by mashing and remixing them. But none is ever universally effective. Here are the good news: methods are usually not even developed to be universally effective. Their feverish transformation into half religion, half occult happens much after they have proven to be powerful tools. Methods are usually developed in response to a set of questions such as: What are our political and educational aims and objectives? Who are our learners, what are their needs and their experiences? What are our, and their, expected and desired learning outcomes? These questions stand representatively for the fourfold, progressive sequence of planning and delivering educational experiences: (1) shared learning aims and objectives (2) learners’ needs and prior experiences (3) expected and desired learning outcomes (4) methodology and methods. Will the cake become stale? Photo by Livia Kpunkt There is no reason to be afraid of devising your own method, whether or not it has been used and written down elsewhere: we know what makes a good ice-breaker or energiser; we have learnt how do develop and run a simulation exercise; we are familiar with theatre methods in their various forms… Our collective knowledge, even in small teams of two or three youth workers and youth trainers, is amazing. Let’s use it! And let’s put methods back to where they belong: at the end of our learning design process. Only a method that serves an objective, responds to a need, takes into account prior experience and works towards a learning outcome can be what it should be: the jewel in our crown of non-formal education, the dot in the i, the icing on the cake. If methods become all there is to our cake, it will start tasting mouldy and stale in no time at all.
Europe according to...? Stereotypes! A mapping project by Yanko Tsvetkov.
It’s a long time since the map section has seen any additions, but having stumbled over the excellent “Mapping Stereotypes Project” by Yanko Tsvetkov aka alphadesigner I couldn’t resist to amend the collection. In an interview with the Telegraph, Yanko explained: “I created the first one in 2009 because at that time there was an energy crisis in Europe. I just created it to amuse my friends but when I put it up on my website so many people liked it that I decided to really focus on the project of mapping the stereotypes based on different places in Europe. I was surprised by the reaction because I never really expected it to take off like this.” Here are, in alphabetical order, Europe according to Britain and, after the jump, Europe according to Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, the United States and the Vatican. As Yanko put it: “Sense of humor highly recommended.” Indeed :) Enjoy! Europe according to Britain | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-britain.jpg" alt="Europe According to Britain" title="Europe According to Britain" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2195" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-britain.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-britain-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe according to Bulgaria | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-bulgaria.jpg" alt="Europe According to Bulgaria" title="Europe According to Bulgaria" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2200" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-bulgaria.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-bulgaria-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe according to France | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-france.jpg" alt="Europe According to France" title="Europe According to France" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2207" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-france.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-france-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to Germany | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-germany.jpg" alt="Europe According to Germany" title="Europe According to Germany" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2210" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-germany.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-germany-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to Greece | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-greece.jpg" alt="Europe According to Greece" title="Europe According to Greece" width="615" height="409" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2219" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-greece.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-greece-440x292.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to Italy | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-italy.jpg" alt="Europe According to Italy" title="Europe According to Italy" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2220" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-italy.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-italy-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to Poland | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-poland.jpg" alt="Europe According to Poland" title="Europe According to Poland" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2221" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-poland.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-poland-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to Russia | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-russia.jpg" alt="Europe According to Russia" title="Europe According to Russia" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2222" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-russia.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-russia-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to Spain | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-spain.jpg" alt="Europe According to Spain" title="Europe According to Spain" width="615" height="409" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2223" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-spain.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-spain-440x292.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to the United States | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-usa.jpg" alt="Europe According to the United States of America" title="Europe According to the United States of America" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2224" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-usa.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-usa-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /> Europe According to the Vatican | Mapping Stereotypes Project | Source <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-vatican.jpg" alt="Europe According to The Vatican" title="Europe According to The Vatican" width="615" height="461" class="no-hang size-full wp-image-2225" srcset="https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-vatican.jpg 615w, https://www.nonformality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/europe-according-to-vatican-440x329.jpg 440w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />
From revolutions and protests to riots and unrests: young people are taking their fight for the future to the streets. Intergenerational contracts have become obsolete, with many young people feeling robbed of their future in the light of the employment crisis, a damaged environment and social inequality. Observers and activists describe a world awakening with rage, and a revolt of the young that has only just begun. But what will happen next?
From youthpolicy.org, where I will be blogging at The Beat about how policy affects young people: Whatever intergenerational contracts may have been in place – spoken or unspoken, real or perceived – are largely gone. The promise and hope of previous generations—in the Western world at least, the majority of young people around the world could never dream of such things to begin with—to lead a better life than their parents is a flickering image of the past. But it’s not the lack of economic prosperity alone that infuriates young people. Not that it wouldn’t be reason enough: close to 90 million young people are unemployed, constituting about half of all unemployed people – and also roughly half of all young people interested in working. And that’s the average – in Syria, to quote but one example, the unemployed young people make up nearly 80% of the working-age unemployed population. The growing youth employment crisis, earmarked by these ballpark figures, has been largely ignored. Add the unsustainability of the current growth-and-screw-the-environment-mantra and the massively rising social injustice to the colossal employment mess, and you get a highly explosive mix, which keeps bubbling to the surface on the streets across the planet. Young people have to watch how the world as we know it, its economic, social and political fabric, disintegrates, day by day. They don’t like the mélange of the cocktail of political, economic and social disfranchisement, and have begun to show their anger about being robbed of their own future with what Heribert Prantl calls “the sacred rage of the young.” A global youth revolt in the making. The exploding and imploding inequalities are one of the most impactful consequences of a well-known dilemma: what Zygmunt Bauman calls the tripod of economic, military and cultural sovereignities has long lost its stability. Economic globalisation and the deterritorialisation of capital and labour leave current political structures crumbling and humbled. As Bauman puts it in his newest book “Collateral Damage. Social inequalities in a global age (2011)”: “…the exclusive compound of growing social inequality and the rising volume of human suffering relegated to the status of ‘collaterality’ (marginality, externality, disposability, not a legitimate part of the political agenda) has all the markings of being potentially the most disastrous among the many problems humanity may be forced to confront, deal with and resolve in the current century.” (Bauman 2011:9) Current events only seem to underline Bauman’s grim analysis: whether it’s the civil unrests in 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois, in 2007 in Villiers-le-Bel or in 2011 in London; the England riots and the United Kingdom anti-austerity protests; the grassroots protests in 2009 in Iceland, 2010 and 2011 in Greece, 2011 in Portugal and Spain; the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; the civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen; the protests in Algeria, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Oman; – and the list doesn’t end here! The calls for change—various kinds of change, for different sets of reasons, caused by different triggers, each unique and standing in their own right—have a decisively amplified tone, scale and intensity. Much has been written and said about all of these events, from different, diverse and disputed opinions on the London riots to the role of young people and the role of social media in the Arab spring, from the Spanish grassroots protests including nolesvotes.org, the Democracia Real Ya collective and the acampadas to the clash of generations in Greece. Probably Slavoj Žižek has, with this observation: “Opposition to the system can no longer articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative,” offered an analysis widely shared across countries and contexts. Without wanting to or claiming to offer a definite understanding for the various protests and movements across the globe, Manuel Castells summarises more drastically what seems to be happening: “The disgust becomes a network.” The note says, in Catalan, "I want to grow up in a better world" There is a determined and unifying No! to the increasing inequality and a loud and clear Yes! to much-needed change and a different way of living, and living together. It’s obvious that young people, who are expressing their anger and frustration as much as their desire and hope for change so forcefully these days, are determined to shape our times. “Will it be revolution, evolution, or resignation?” – so wonder the minds behind One Young World, the global youth leadership summit, in their new 2011 White Paper Beyond the Long Spring of Dissent. It certainly doesn’t look too much like resignation right now… In his article The dead end of globalisation looms before our youth, Pankaj Mishra argues that we are witnessing a fresh political awakening, a world awakening with rage about “a condition of prosperity without equality, wealth without peace.” Wolfgang Gründiger of the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations makes an equally strong statement when he writes, and warns, that “all those who claim this generation is apathetic should know: the revolt of the young has only just begun.” Current events certainly suggest that Mishra and Gründiger are spot-on. Yet, the question remains: Where are we headed? Image credits: David Barrero, Maxi Failla, Muhammed Muheisen, Dominique Faget, Sara Noorbakhsh and Alex Ballesta.
A chase through the maze of participation models & theories
For years now I have been collecting information on and tracing the origins of different models, schemata and theories of participation. Enticed by a current project, I have put together a selection of models with their original imagery and, in excerpt, original introductions and explanations. I will review and extend the selection regularly, and update this post as well as the pdf-file (Version July 2011, 11 MB). These are the (currently: 30) models covered: 1969 Ladder of citizen participation Sherry Arnstein 1992 Ladder of children participation Roger Hart 1996 Typology of participation Sarah White 1997 Degrees of participation Phil Treseder 1998 Wheel of participation Scott Davidson 2001 Active participation framework OECD 2001 Pathways to participation Harry Shier 2001 Clarity model of participation Clare Lardner 2001 Strategic approach to participation UNICEF 2002 Triangle of youth participation Jans & de Backer 2002 Youth participation in society Jans & de Backer 2002 Dimensions of youth participation David Driskell 2003 Ladder of volunteer participation Adam Fletcher 2003 Youth engagement continuum FCYO 2006 Four Cs of online participation Derek Wenmoth 2006 Power law of participation Ross Mayfield 2006 Levels, spaces and forms of power John Gaventa 2006 Four L Engagement Model Tony Karrer 2007 Participation 2.0 Model New Zealand 2007 Spectrum of public participation IAP2 2007 Engagement in the policy cycle Diane Warburton 2007 Online Participation Behaviour Chain Fogg & Eckles 2009 Key dimensions of participation Driskell & Neema 2009 Matrix of participation Tim Davies 2009 Pathways through participation NCVO & IVR 2010 Changing views on participation Pedro Martín 2010 Ladder of online participation Bernoff & Li 2010 Online participation across age Rick Wicklin 2010 Three-lens approach to participation DFID-CSO 2010 Behavior Grid BJ Fogg