A concerted collective effort is currently underway to define non-formal education and non-formal learning.

It is exciting and informative, but at times, it almost seems like a catch-22…

Defining the meaning of words is essential to begin to understand the different contexts and connotations. Definitions, though, must be universal: they must apply to all aspects and meanings of the definiendum…

Definitions in European—let alone global—contexts can, therefore, not be normative (in the philosophical meaning of the word), but can only attempt to be descriptive and explanatory – while avoiding ambiguity through getting lost in details.

If definitions are understood as explanatory statements that capture the meaning, the use, the function and the essence of a term or a concept – how can definitions of non-formal education and learning be produced that hold true for so many heterogeneous contexts?

Defining NFE – Catch-22?
Photo by buriednexttoyou

One way or the other, it seems necessary and adequate to not cling to any of the established classes of definitions – such as, say, stipulative, or ostensive.

Most of the elements of definitions for non-formal education and non-formal learning variedly include several elements: some are more reportive (i.e. attempting to capture the essence of a concept as in use today), others are more stipulative (i.e. give a term a new or expanding meaning in a European or global context), and most are a combination of these two.

I am quite curious what definitions will be constructed from this collective undertaking of TALE and TOT and NONFORMALITY.

Join the fray if you like!

Their upcoming Conference “Vision not Division – Learning for all in the 21st Century,” jointly organised amongst others with Futurelab – Innovation in Education, focuses on

“the increasingly significant contribution that non-formal learning is likely to have to play in the future provision of education and learning in the 21st Century.”

The conference brings together seminal figures from the British sphere of non-formal learning – researchers, practitioners and policy makers alike.

In preparation and anticipation of the conference, their consultation planning group looked at recent definitions of non-formal learning to identify some common ground through characteristics of non-formal learning spanning across several definitions:

• a commitment to the ‘agency of the learner’
• purposeful and intentional learning but most often a voluntary commitment by the learner
• reliant on a set of values/beliefs about learning rather than an organizational setting
• learner-centred
• requiring a flexibility in learning styles, tending towards experiential and reflective
• provides for accreditation of learning if required by the learner
• takes place in a wide range of environments and settings covering a broad range of subjects and activities
• delivers an integral aspect of Life Long Learning

They also say that, in their view,

“non-formal learning occupies the space that separates formal and informal learning and permeates both these arenas, when utilised by skilled and expert practitioners.” [Source]

The definitions considered are well-known and widely referred to – including the European Commission’s Communication “Making a European Area of Lifeling Learning a Reality (2001),” the shared Commission & Council Working Paper “Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training & learning in the youth field (2004)” and the Salto Report “Promoting recognition of youth work across Europe (2005).”

(Sidenote of interest: the people behind the definitions in these reports are no other than Lynne Chisholm and Peter Lauritzen. Andreas)

What do you think about this common ground?

Something missing, something wrong?

At first sight, the famous circle of chairs pretends that non-formal education is an orderly system, full of predictable harmony. What an illusion!

» Non-formal education is chaos at its best.

The contrast between the image and the core of nonformal learning is a wonderful illustration of the dialectics between order and chaos, harmony and disorder. And indeed, educators have much to gain from chaos theory.

In Greek mythology, the world wide web reveals to us, khaos meant “gaping void” or “nothingness” and was — at least by some — thought to be the primary source of all things.

In contemporary mathematics, chaos describes dynamical systems with a sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

More commonly, this is described as the butterfly effect, a term coined by mathematician and meterologist Edward Lorenz:

«Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?»

Lorenz described how small changes in the variables of his computer weather model grossly changed the predicted weather patterns and developed a model to calculate how even the tiniest variations of initial conditions can amplify and induce large variations in a system’s behaviour.

With his discovery he — according to the committee that awarded him the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences —

«profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind’s view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton.»

Discovered by Henri Poincaré in 1890, chaos boomed after Lorenz stumbled over it with his attempts at weather prediction in the 1960-ies. Chaos is now believed to have been observed in fluid dynamics, in magnetic fields, in molecular vibrations, and the solar system.

» Nonformal education needs to added to the list.

What makes a system chaotic?

To be classified as chaotic, a system needs to be not only sensitive to initial conditions, but also nonlinear. What is a nonlinear system you ask?

That might be understood easiest by looking at linear systems, so by looking at what nonlinear systems are not. A linear system always responds predictably: at a given place and time, several independent impulses always trigger the same reaction — whether they were applied separately or jointly. The sum of the responses is equal to the sum of the stimuli.

In nonlinear systems, this is not the case. The response of a system largely depends on the timing, order and combination of inputs. Clearly, for nonformal education this is the case.

Another way to approach the differentiation between linear and nonlinear systems is by their appearance. Linear systems appear the same, no matter how they are looked at. Nonlinear systems look different depending on your perspective. Again, this is true for any learning situation — how close or distant you are, or how involved or excluded in the proceedings, greatly determines how it all looks.

Nonlinear dynamical systems often behave in ways that seem completely random and are (seemingly) unpredictable — at least we cannot predict their behaviour with what we know. This unpredictability is called chaos.

To the day, weather systems remain a perfect example for such dynamics. Weather forecasts also help to clarify a common misperception of chaotic systems: chaos can, many people believe, not be determined. After all, how often has it rained when Mr Weatherman told us it wouldn’t?

But chaos can be understood. Or could be — if we knew enough about initial conditions, stimuli and responses; and if our knowledge was precise enough. Theoretically, chaotic systems are completely deterministic!

Again, this holds true for non-formal education. If we knew enough about the people in advance — say about their history, their patterns of behaviour, and their ways of thinking, to name but a few aspects of relevance — we might be able to determine how a learning situation evolves.

To a certain extent we try this, of course: we ask particular questions in application forms, we develop pre-course questionnaires, we build curricula in certain ways and run complex, challenging activities not on the first day of an activity.

As in mathematics, we are not trying to find precise solutions or perfect responses (how hopeless would that be!), but rather to determine how the system depends on (which) initial conditions and whether the system can be transformed to a steady state, whatever that may look.

If we knew exactly the personalities and behavorial patterns of participants AND the entire range of external influences AND the complete diversity of deterministic factors, we might be able to predict better how a learning situation evolves.

But how silly would that be? Nobody wants that. And even if we ever knew all these things, we would still only know the starting point — approximately. Our knowledge of the complete set of influential conditions for a learning system will never be exact enough; the complexity is simply too large.

I am not complaining: one of the principles of non-formal education is anyway to not control, but facilitate; to not demand, but offer; to not enforce, but enable.

In other words: prediction is, in our work, not only theoretically impossible, it is also philosophically not wanted. Nonformal education is deliberately fortuitous. But while things may be chaotic, they are certainly not random.

What can we learn from all this?

First thoughts go to the attempts of defining quality factors of non-formal education.

Seeing the wide range of factors that influence any learning situation — and there is not even agreement on what these factors are, not to speak of what their influence may be — it seems almost silly (and certainly vain) trying to define an endless list of quality criteria.

Can this be done at all?

Some people, for example, pay great attention to the quality of the venue. But haven’t we all experienced shitty courses in gritty places, and witty courses in shitty places?

Second thoughts go to toolboxes and the attempt to standardise educational methodology.

Keeping the unpredictability of learning systems in mind: can our response really be to have a limited set of tools at the ready?

I think not. A criteria for quality — returning to the previous question — emerging from this discussion may well be the ability of teams to develop new methodological approaches in response to a particular situation.

Third thoughts go to attitudes of educators.

What we do, at all times, is chaos control — no more, no less. Don’t we too often pretend we control the entire situation? We do not; we merely influence some aspects of a learning system’s chaotic behaviour.

A new, appreciative openness to surprises is needed. But being open to the unexpected is not enough: the unexpected is part of any learning system’s inherent logic — it makes these complex systems functional.

Final thoughts go to evaluation.

A defining characteristic of chaos is that the sum of the total is not equal to the sum of its different parts and their interaction. There is more to chaos than the naked eye can see.

Why then, do I ask, do we continue
to dissect educational activities?

Why then do we continue to look at the different aspects of a training — aims, objectives, outcomes, competences, methodology, support — and pretend that all of this taken together fully captures the activity?

It doesn’t; and according to chaos theory it never can.

It is the chaos of learning that makes our work so difficult and beautiful, and it is the ability to deal with chaos, complexity and ambiguity that makes for a good educator.

Chaos is a multidisciplinary science — it has been useful in such diverse disciplines as biology, economics, chemistry, physics, and more — and I believe that education has much to learn from (and give to) chaos theory.

How do you approach and experience chaos in learning?

We have been waiting for this moment for a long time… And it’s great that — finally — we are here in Tallinn; coming together to explore synergies, potentials, challenges and problems of the marriage between nonformal education and the worldwideweb.

So let’s make these days as special as possible — let’s rock’n'roll!

On May 30 and 31, the Estonian National Agency of the Youth in Action Programme is hosting a networking seminar for people who bring non-formal education and the world wide web together (or are planning to do so) in Tallinn.

It is, we believe, an exciting opportunity to dream about and shape the online future of non-formal education… And we want to keep this invitation as open as possible!

Here is the application form – shorter and sweeter than most, it’s almost enjoyable! After only a few minutes you will be ready to return it to us… Not bad eh?

Here comes some more info…

The people – for who?

You have a website, a portal, a network, a photoblog, a journal, a vlog or any other form of internet-based expression on non-formal education? You are welcome to apply.

You are from a team, a group, a project, a non-governmental organisation, an institu-tion, something in between or even on your own? You are welcome to apply.

As long as you are doing something to bring non-formal education and the world wide web together – or are planning to do so – you really are most welcome at this seminar.

The context – why?

Non-formal education is an exciting way to learn: full of opportunities to be discovered – but not very well recognised at times. The internet is an exciting place to learn, too: full of different opportunities to be discovered – but also quite lonely and confusing at times. Imagine the power unfolding when the two come together!

This networking seminar wants to offer time and space to people, groups, teams, initiatives, projects, and organisations who bring together non-formal education and the world wide web. There is surely something we can learn from each other! And there might be something we could do together, too…

The timing – why now?

In recent weeks and months, more and more websites have emerged about and around non-formal education and learning. It seems to be the right time for bringing them together for an exchange of experience and some dreams about the future!

The aims – what for?

The networking seminar aims to offer space and time

• to get acquainted with different web-projects and -initiatives about or for (raising awareness on) non-formal education and learning,
• to discuss the role and potential of these projects and initatives for the recognition and valorisation of non-formal education and learning, and
• to explore needs, potentials and strategies for co-operation between such initiatives and projects in the future.

The people – who with and by who?

We hope to bring together a variety of different actors – people behind webportals or blogs, networks or vlogs – from projects, groups, individual initiatives, non-governmental organisations, and institutions.

We run mitteformaalne.ee and nonformality.org, and our own work has a strong focus in youth work and youth training based on intercultural learning and non-formal education, which is not meant to limit the seminar to that. But to be fair, you can expect the majority of participants to have a background in youth work – be that training, research, policy, community work or a mixture of these.

The seminar is hosted by the Estonian National Agency of the «Youth in Action» Programme of the European Union. While quite a few people invest some work for this seminar to happen, it is coordinated and will be facilitated by these three:

(Kristiina Pernits, Andreas Karsten, Marit Kannelmäe)

The time and place – where and when?

The seminar will take place in Tallinn, Estonia on May 30 and 31, 2008. You are expected to arrive on May 29 and to depart on June 1.

The conditions – which restrictions?

There are only three simple conditions:

• You are doing something with non-formal education and the internet,
• You are able and willing to work in English during the seminar,
• You have time to attend both working days fully.

The financial conditions – who pays?

We are covering board and lodging during your stay in Estonia, as long as you arrive not earlier than May 29 and don’t leave later than June 1. Anything beyond these dates is on your own budget.

Regarding your travel expenses, we kindly ask that you get in touch with your National Agency of the “Youth in Action” programme. They are aware of this seminar, and might be willing to cover your travel. This is subject to negotiation, of course, and you might be asked for a participation fee or to prepare a report on the seminar for the agency.

If you are not from one of the 31 programme countries of the “Youth in Action” pro-gramme, we hope that you will find some clever way of covering your travel expenses. Should you have trouble with that, and think you really should be at this seminar, get in touch by email.

The application – how does it work?

It’s quite simple, really, and pretty normal as well – we have thought of a couple of questions to help us choose from the applications and select a group with a constellation that reflects the variety of approaches and experiences that are around.

We will make the selection of participants at our preparatory meeting in the beginning of April, and let you know before April 15. Should you not be selected, please don’t misinterpret this as a quality judgement of your work – because it isn’t.

Ok, here are our questions – hope to see you soon!

The shortest and sweetest application form ever…

In 2005, a discussion document on intercultural learning was published in follow-up to the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sports Long Term Training Course “Intercultural Learning” — LTTC ICL (the paper is available here).

In this document, Dr Gavan Titley argues that, while intercultural learning has become a key work area in European youth training during the last fifteen years, approaches that have been consolidated and widely reproduced during this period are no longer adequate to the realities in which young people live and practice youth work.

At the occasion of the DYS seminar entitled «Intercultural learning – which ways forward?», Gavan was invited to revisit the paper and its main conclusions and bring it in relation to the current educational practice of intercultural learning. Again, we recorded his intervention as a podcast for the world out there.

Download the podcast below to find out why using culture as a concept is dangerous and often inherently racist, why Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay has an intercultural policy and what this means for intercultural learning in non-formal education (and probably elsewhere, too!).

standard version | mp3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link

Enjoy listening, and stay tuned!

In case you need some help with what to do:

A podcast is nothing else than a digital recording of a radio broadcast or a similar programme which is then made available on the internet. While the name is coming from both broadcasting and iPod, a podcast is not restricted to an iPod or any other media player, in fact. You can listen to it easily, using one of many different ways.

If you wanna know more about podcasting, head over to Wikipedia.

The only thing that you need is a computer which can play mp3-files. Millions of programmes do that for you – Windows Media Player (or Jetaudio if you are on the outlook for a better and free alternative) on PC computers or Quicktime on MAC machines or iTunes on both.

Normally your computer knows very well what to do anyway, so just go ahead and download the mp3 file — your machine will take it from there, most likely. If not, ask a geeky character in your vicinity.

Just be aware that audio podcasts are usually not the smallest files (also true for ours: 21 Megabytes), so download might take a moment or two. The good news: It happens in the background, so you can continue to work away!

For you iTunes users out there, we have also included the iTunes link. For you nerdy friends of ours, we also have a more modern version of the soundfile available. And for all friends of RSS and feed readers, we also have a link especially for our podcasts.

» An attempt to develop project characteristics

Some words of caution

European Citizenship is a term cherished by many and is being used in a wide range of contexts – to an extent that it probably qualifies as one of the discursive impossibilities of our times.

Much is done with, for and about European Citizenship. Youth work is only one part of the larger picture (arguably an important one), and so is community work in non-formal education contexts. At European level, they come together in a number of settings, some of which are institutionalised and others provided by civil society. The «Youth in Action» programme of the European Union certainly is a key scheme in support of non-formal youth work on European Citizenship, and is the reference framework for this text.

Back in 1998, the EU partnered with the Council of Europe to run a series of pilot courses and modules on European Citizenship. It is from this experience that we try to highlight some basic characteristics of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship.

Obviously, much more could be said on such projects than we can say on these pages. We had to make choices, and warmly invite you to challenge our preferences. Other selections could be made, and we are not only open to discuss alternatives but also encourage you to explore these in practice.

We know that no generalisation we can make will ever apply perfectly: the richness of youth work is elaborate beyond imagining. Yet, the discourse on recognition and valorisation of non-formal learning and youth work remains a political priority and continues with or without practitioners. Hence we better start discussing characteristics of youth work within the community of practitioners and contribute our own experiences from reality, before others define criteria for our work on our behalf without our voice being heard.

You are currently reading a contribution of Frankly Speaking to the many discourses and discussions on quality, recognition and validation of non-formal education and learning.

If you prefer to read a paper version, please download the pdf-version [500 kb].

The starting point

The European Union youth programme «Youth in Action» has just entered its third generation and spans over 7 years from 2007 to 2013.

Under its Priority 1 «European Citizenship» it brings together four spheres or fields in a specific constellation, namely youth work, non-formal education, intercultural learning, and European citizenship. All of these four areas can evidently stand on their own and in themselves are huge and diverse themes to explore.

In other words: When we speak of basic characteristics of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, we only mean projects combining all four areas in their approach – not to discredit any other kind of youth work or non-formal education, but rather to remain in the realm of the «Youth in Action» programme. That said, we believe our thinking and the suggested model deriving from our thoughts could easily be applied to other contexts and constellations, but this is for the future.

On importance, relevance and antagonism

We believe that in a non-formal youth work project on European Citizenship, none of the four spheres is more important than the others and that the fields of youth work, non-formal education, intercultural learning, and European citizenship are related to one another (and indeed, to a certain extent also overlapping) and therefore are not in antagonistic competition but rather complementary. We have chosen to visualise this by means of a wheel (or ring or circle):

This graphic and the underlying assumption both imply that only when all four aspects are considered equally and brought together successfully, can a project be considered a non-formal youth work project on European Citizenship – in this particular framework.

Again, this is not a set of quality criteria suggesting that any other youth work, non-formal activity, or community work on European Citizenship is not high-quality. It merely is a set of characteristics operationalising the principles and foundations of the «Youth in Action» programme and its first priority.

Most importantly we want to underline and acknowledge that there are too many situations in which people are trapped in realities so restrictive, so despairing, that applying our ideal-case scenario does not arise at all.

That our model excludes youth work under such desperate circumstances, does not de-value the courageous work done there – on the contrary, it simply shows the limits of this particular approach (some of which we look at in more detail later).

On principles and values

It is often suggested that non-formal youth work on European Citizenship is based on a shared belief in common principles and values – in fact, that non-formal education and youth work as a whole are based on such commonalities. We argue that this, if you so want, collective philosophy does indeed exist and can best be described by the notions of human rights (as the main foundational principle of the Council of Europe), democracy (as the voluntarily chosen form of government in respect of human rights within and beyond the European Union) and peace (as the main initial motivation for the co-operation in Europe since 1945).

Clearly, all three notions are associated with different histories and carry diverse connotations in particular contexts. But while, to take but one example, the value of a singular human right might be under scrutiny, the principle of human rights as both a system of belief and a set of legal instruments is not questioned fundamentally – and therefore can be considered an essential element of what could be called the collective philosophy (or the common principles and values) of non-formal youth work on European Citizenship.

Hence, the wheel looks now like this, exemplifying that human rights, democracy and peace are not only the principles of our work, but also inform its implementation and practice and are, at the same time, also aim of our work in the sense that all three notions need constant renewal and reaffirmation, to which non-formal youth work on European Citizenship contributes:

On European Citizenship

In a nutshell, we consider European Citizenship a notion based on shared values (which we argued before can be subsumed under human rights, democracy and peace); disassociated from belonging to a particular territory and connected with voluntarily chosen belongings to value-based communities of practice; a complementary rather than an exclusive identity; an ongoing process of re-negotiating power structures and relations (rights and responsibilities, theories and practices) among and between citizens themselves as well as citizens and institutions; an active role of citizens in their different communities across social, cultural, economic and political domains; locally rooted practice and collective work in progress.

In our context (in particular Priority 1 of the «Youth in Action» programme), European Citizenship is not only part of the practice we look at; it also is an aim. The projects we consider here aim at actively and collaboratively constructing and developing European Citizenship through non-formal youth work.

Thus, to begin with, the wheel should be adjusted accordingly to reflect this double meaning (see the graphic on the right).

From our understanding of European Citizenship as a conceptual notion (see our specific paper on European Citizenship), five basic characteristics can be drawn. On that basis, non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should (in no specific order of priority):

• be collective (encourage and work with European communities of practice),
• be inclusive (take up and take in diverse forms of active, democratic citizenship),
• be holistic (address values and beliefs as well as attitudes, knowledge and skills),
• be multi-dimensional (include several dimensions of identity, belonging, practice),
• be power-conscious (locate interactions with larger frameworks of power).

Evidently, more characteristics could be thought of, significantly that non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should lead to action and transformation – how could youth work projects otherwise construct European Citizenship at the same time as exploring European Citizenship?

Some of these characteristics (also this specific one) we do take up in other areas, and we usually have done so by informed choice (for example, not only youth work on European Citizenship, but all youth work should be transformative). As we have emphasized before, the areas and the characteristics are related and therefore necessarily intersect.

On non-formal education

The working paper «Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training and learning in the youth field», a joint discussion document by the European Commission’s Youth Unit and the Council of Europe’s Youth Department commissioned in early 2004, states that:

“Principles in the field of non-formal and informal learning in youth activities are manifold:

• the voluntary and often self-organised character of learning, the intrinsic motivation of participants;
• the close link to young people’s aspirations and interests, the participative and learner-centred approach;
• the open character and structure, the transparency and flexibility of the underlying curricular construction;
• the evaluation of success and failure in a collective process and without judgement on individual success or failure, the ‘right to make mistakes’;
• a supportive learning environment;
• a preparation and staging of activities with a professional attitude, regardless of whether the activity is run by professional or voluntary youth workers and trainers;
• the sharing of results with the interested public and a planned follow-up.”

Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training and learning in the youth field. Working paper by the Youth Unit of the Directorate ‘Youth, Civil Society, Communication’ in the Directorate General ‘Education and Culture’ of the European Commission and the Youth Department of the Directorate ‘Youth and Sport’ in the Directorate General ‘Education, Culture and Heritage, Youth and Sport’ of the Council of Europe. Strasbourg and Brussels, February 2004: p. 6.

We suggest to derive five characteristics from this and argue that non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should be (in no specific order of priority):

• be accessible (make results available, have a planned follow-up, valorise outcome),
• be learner-centred (based on participants’ needs and co-constructed with them),
• be evaluated (assessed in a collective process without judgement on individuals),
• be voluntary (based on the intrinsic motivation and self-responsibility of learners),
• be experiential (based on collective and individual experiences of people).

On youth work

In a discussion paper written in May 2006, Peter Lauritzen described youth work like this:

“The main objective of youth work is to provide opportunities for young people to shape their own futures.

Youth work is a summary expression for activities with and for young people of a social, cultural, educational or political nature. Increasingly, youth work activities also include sports and services for young people. Youth work belongs to the domain of ‘out-of-school’ education, most commonly referred to as either non-formal or informal learning.

The general aims of youth work are the integration and inclusion of young people in society. It may also aim towards the personal and social emancipation of young people from dependency and exploitation.

Youth Work belongs both to the social welfare and to the educational systems. In some countries it is regulated by law and administered by state civil servants, in particular at local level. However, there exists an important relation between these professional and voluntary workers, which is at times antagonistic, and at others, cooperative.

The definition of youth work is diverse. While it is recognised, promoted and financed by public authorities in many European countries, it has only a marginal status in others where it remains of an entirely voluntary nature. What is considered in one country to be the work of traditional ‘youth workers’ – be it professionals or volunteers – may be carried out by consultants in another, or by neighbourhoods and families in yet another country or, indeed, not at all in many places.

Today, the difficulty within state systems to adequately ensure global access to education and the labour market, means that youth work increasingly deals with unemployment, educational failure, marginalisation and social exclusion.

Increasingly, youth work overlaps with the area of social services previously undertaken by the Welfare State. It, therefore, includes work on aspects such as education, employment, assistance and guidance, housing, mobility, criminal justice and health, as well as the more traditional areas of participation, youth politics, cultural activities, scouting, leisure and sports.

Youth work often seeks to reach out to particular groups of young people such as disadvantaged youth in socially deprived neighbourhoods, or immigrant youth including refugees and asylum seekers. Youth work may at times be organised around a particular religious tradition.”

On the basis of that description, we suggest the following set of five characteristics for non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, which should (in no specific order of priority):

• be contextualised (rooted in local, authentic situations, communities and needs),
• be transformative (improving life situations of people, leading to action and change),
• be participatory (with progressive involvement and empowerment of young people),
• be informed (by relating to current discourses and research on issues related to the project),
• be informing (providing information and feedback to policy, practice and research).

On intercultural learning

In a 2005 discussion paper on culture and intercultural learning, Gavan Titley argues that

“[while] intercultural learning has become a key work area in European youth training during the last fifteen years, [...] approaches that have been consolidated and widely reproduced during this period are no longer adequate to the realities in which young people live and practice youth work.”

The paper “contends that widely-utilised notions of culture, and the methodologies that propagate them, are both analytically and politically inadequate,” and puts forward a number of recommendations for educational practice.

Based on the considerations discussed there and elsewhere, we suggest that non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should (in no specific order of priority):

• be plastic (exploring cultural realities and conceptual understandings of culture),
• be political (conscious of contesting discourses on culture and their political relevance),
• be contingent (aware of the contexts and purposes of intercultural dialogue processes),
• be sensitive (to culture as a ubiquitous, de-politicised concept in need of re-calibration),
• be complex (explore identity and connectivity beyond culture, individuals and Europe).

On open questions

This is a first version of the «Wheel of European Citizenship». Clearly, the jury is still out on whether the approach developed here is relevant and useful at all: discussions with trainers will validate our experiences against a wider spectrum; training courses will show whether the model holds up in dialogue with practitioners. Beyond these foreseeable fora for exchange we invite everyone to share their thoughts, concerns, questions and critiques with us. Two questions, to get you started:

1) Have we captured the essence of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship?

2) If you are inclined to follow our approach of characterising projects descriptively by using adjectives: what about features like being concrete, diverse, relevant, empowering, interactive, critical, reflexive – to name but a few…?

The Wheel of European Citizenship

Bringing the different parts of the wheel together gives you this overview of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, which should combine:

and in doing so, have the following characteristics (in no specific order of priority):

The final «Wheel of European Citizenship» is bringing the different thoughts and characteristics together in one coherent, visual model:

Conclusion
C O N C L U S I O N

This article contends that non-formal youth work in the framework of the «Youth in Action» programme actively constructs European Citizenship for, with and through value-based European communities of practice by facilitating intercultural learning and dialogue through projects based on the principles of youth work and non-formal education.

For each of the four spheres (youth work, non-formal education, intercultural learning, and European citizenship) we present five basic project characteristics (some of which are as intersecting and interrelated as the four themes necessarily are) and hence put forward a set of twenty features for non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, visualised as the «Wheel of European Citizenship».

We suggest that the wheel may well be used as a tool for project planning and, potentially, project management as well as an indicative instrument for the valorisation of project results.

But the model presented here also has clear limitations: Firstly, characteristics are descriptive and not measurable; they are neither quality criteria nor project indicators. It will require substantial effort to develop our approach further before it can become a meaningful tool for the recognition and validation of non-formal learning. Secondly, there is an entire range of other youth and community work out there that the model disregards; though we believe it would be possible with manageable effort to adapt the wheel accordingly.

Our thoughts and proposals are mainly based on the extensive experiences from a range of activities on European Citizenship run by the Council of Europe and the European Commission in partnership between 1998 and 2006. Clearly, there is more relevant experience available, and – being aware of this – we warmly invite you to share your comments and considerations on what we have developed here.

Note on the context of this paper

This text was put together by Andreas Karsten inspired by discussions with Paola Bortini, Florian Cescon, Rui Gomes, Erzsebet Kovacs and Tatiana State in the framework of the development of a new network training course on European Citizenship for the «Youth in Action» programme. Please consider it as what it is: a working document and the personal opinion of the author.

The graphics contained in this document are all self-made by the author specifically for this text and can be used unchanged, given that the source is quoted.

Sources and resources
Sources and resources

All documentations, reports and evaluations in relation to pilot courses and training modules on European Citizenship between 1998 and 2006, and in addition:

Brocke, Hartmut and Karsten, Andreas (eds) (2007): Towards a common culture of co-operation between civil society and local authorities. Human Rights Education and youth participation. Centre Francais de Berlin, Berlin.

Castells, Manuel (1997): The Power of Identity. Blackwell, London.

Chisholm, Lynne and Hoskins, Bryony (2005): Trading up. Potential and performance in non-formal learning. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Colley, Helen et al (2003): Informality and formality in learning. Learning and Skills Research Centre, London.

Cummings, Andrew (2003): Youth work’s contribution to non-formal education. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

DG EAC (2007): Youth in Action Programme 2007-2013. Users Guide. European Commission, Brussels.

Erle, Jacob (2005): Multilayered Democracy and European Citizenship. International Academy for Education and Democracy, Copenhagen.

Freire, Paulo (1972): Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Freire, Paulo and Shor, Ira (1987): A Pedagogy for Liberation. Dialogues on transforming education. Greenwood Press, Westport.

Holder, Sharon and Titley, Gavan (2004): Resituating culture – seminar reflections. In Coyote Vol 8 2004. Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg and Brussels.

Jeffs, Tony and Smith, Mark (2005): Informal education: conversation, democracy and learning. Educational Heretics Press, Nottingham.

Karsten, Andreas (2007): 12 characteristics of successful co-operation projects. In: Brocke and Karsten (ibid).

Karsten, Andreas (2003): Better youth workers? Better citizens? The impact of the pilot courses on European Citizenship. Partnership, Strasbourg.

Karsten, Andreas (2000): Staying alive: the non-formal education domain in Europe. European Youth Forum, Brussels.

Kovacs, Erzsebet (2007): European Citizenship. Unpublished working document.

Küntzel, Bastian and Karsten, Andreas (2007): Forum on Intercultural Dialogue. Discussion paper based on the Forum. INGO Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Lauritzen, Peter (2006): Defining youth work. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Lauritzen, Peter (2006): The role of research. Podcast, Youth Debate and Nonformality.

Lauritzen, Peter et al (2004): Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training and learning in the youth field. Working paper. Council of Europe, Strasbourg and European Union, Brussels.

Martinelli, Silvio and Taylor, Mark (eds) (2000): Intercultural Learning T-Kit. Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg and Brussels.

Merry, Peter (ed) (2003): Under construction. European Citizenship T-Kit. Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg and Brussels.

Otten, Hendrik (2006): Quality on European youth work and youth policy. Conference conclusions. Bonn, 2006.

Otten, Hendrik (ed) (2004): Interkulturelles Lernen in Theorie und Praxis. Ein Handbuch für Jugendarbeit und Weiterbildung. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden.

Otten, Hendrik and Lauritzen, Peter (eds) (2004): Jugendarbeit und Jugendpolitik in Europa. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden.

Rogers, Alan (2003): Inside youth work. YMCA College, London.

Sahlberg, Pali (1999): Bridges for learning: conceptualising non-formal education. European Youth Forum, Brussels.

Smith, Linda and McNeil, Bethia (2004): Success factors in informal learning. Learning and Skills Research Centre, London.

Smith, Mark J. (2001): Culture. Reinventing the Social Sciences. Open University Press, Buckingham.

Titley, Gavan (2005): Plastic, Political and Contingent. Culture and Intercultural Learning in DYS activities. Discussion document based on the evaluation of the LTTC Intercultural Learning and recent research activities. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Titley, Gavan (ed) (2004): Resituating Culture. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Tucket, Allan (2004): Recognising and recording progress and achievement in non-accredited learning. Learning and Skills Development Agency, London.

Welsch, Wolfgang (1999): Transculturality: the puzzling forms of cultures today. In: Featherstone and Lash (eds): Space of Culture. Sage, London.

Dr. Peter Scott from the Centre for New Media, Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University, UK predicts that “the future will show that formal and informal models of learning will start to combine powerfully into a joint strand which is some way between both; something like ‘non-formal’ learning.”

Something like, eh?!

Part of the «talking-point» article previously known as the address is a dialogue which I have encountered too many times in too many situations; I could immediately sympathise…

Here it is, slightly adjusted for our context:

People constantly ask me: «But what do you teach?»

I would reply that I did not actually teach but that I organised educational activities for people.

«What kind of activities?» they would ask.

«Things like a series of meetings, seminars and training courses on European Citizenship or Human Rights,» I would reply.

«Oh, you teach philosophy,» they would say.

A lot of my work has to do with capacity building in the world of NGOs: Programmes on recruiting and managing volunteers, organising workplaces, running meetings, speaking effectively, campaigning, funding and managing projects. I remember persons looking in horror at me and saying: «You don’t actually teach them to do that, do you?»

And when I started to train trainers and educators and people asked me what I did, I would reply: «I am training trainers and educators.»

«Oh,» they would say, «and what do you teach?»

«I train on youth and adult education.»

«No, I meant, what is your subject?»

«Well, I educate educators.»

«Yes, but you must have a subject like history, or maths, or science, or English literature?»

«I teach people about the processes of learning and organising learning.»

«Yes, of course you do,» they would say, «but what do you teach?»

Head over to infed to read the whole article which, admittedly, goes much beyond this dialogue to look at adult education and the role of adult educators.

It is an interesting read!

While Colley, Hodkinson and Malcom have pointed out in their 2003 research report «Informality and Formality in Learning» that the term may have been used in a Unesco report already in 1947 (at least Hamadache claimed so in 1991 without a clear reference), it is certainly true that Coombs delivered the first substantial and comprehensive description of non-formal education – and also the first plead to substantially strengthen non-formal education in the Western World, as you can see on the back side of his 1968 book:

Having said this, let’s consider — just for a brief moment — the history of education in a slightly longer perspective in the words of Helen Colley and her colleagues:

Non-formal education has its roots in practices which considerably pre-date state elementar education.

(Colley, Hodkinson and Malcom (2003): Informality and Formality in Learning. Lifelong Learning Institute, Leeds. Page 18).

In other words: Learning has, for the majority of human history, been informal and non-formal to begin with; the word education comes from the Latin educare meaning “to raise”, “to bring up”, “to train”. Obligatory schooling in formal education institutions is a concept which can be traced back to merely the 18th century and has gained decisive momentum with the industrial revolution and the arising need to train many people quickly. So let’s not forget that context when looking back at 1968!

(Btw: The first country to introduce formal and obligatory education was Liechtenstein. They introduced it at national level in 1805.)

Philip Hall Coombs died in February 2006, but his works on education remain provocative, challenging and relevant to date. Before you finally go on to read one of his writings, the historic chapter

«Nonformal Education: To Catch Up, Keep Up, and Get Ahead»

of his book ‘The World Educational Crisis: A Systems Perspective’, let’s just stick for another brief moment with the historical context of his thinking. At the time, the feeling grew that education was failing everywhere in the world – formal education systems did not prepare people for life-long learning in the Western world, and provided no quick solution to the problem of illiteracy in the developing world either.

The following quote of Coombs makes this clear:

The assumption is that the educational system will produce the kinds and amounts of human resources required for the economy’s growth, and that the economy will in fact make good use of these resources. But suppose the opposite happens? Suppose the educational system turns out the wrong ’mix’ of manpower? Or suppose it turns out the right mix, but the economy does not use it well? What then? Doubts then arise about education’s productivity and the efficacy of the investment made in it.

(Coombs, Philip (1968): The World Educational Crisis: A Systems Perspective. University Press, Oxford. Quoted in: UNESCO (1996): 50 years for Education. Unesco, Paris. Page 64)

And Coombs was not alone with his questions and concerns: Others like Ivan Illich also voiced fundamental criticism:

Many students (…) intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value.

(Illich, Ivan (1973): Deschooling Society. Penguin, Harmondsworth. Quoted in: Smith, M. K. (2001): Ivan Illich: deschooling, conviviality and the possibilities for informal education and lifelong learning. The encyclopedia of informal education.)

So it was in this phase of fundamental criticism and the hopeful belief that non-formal education would turn out to be a solution for many of schooling’s problems, that Philip Coombs wrote his book, of which we present you an excerpt of his chapter on non-formal education (The text is original but re-typed and any typos are exclusively mine. The quotes are ours to illustrate the text and make it more readable on screen):

Nonformal Education: To Catch Up, Keep Up, and Get Ahead

Up to this point we have made only occasional reference to that bewildering assortment of nonformal education and training activities that constitute – or should constitute – an important complement to formal education in any nation’s total education effort. These activities go by different names – ‘adult education,’ ‘continuing education,’ ‘on-the-job training,’ ‘accelerated training,’ ‘farmer or worker training,’ and ‘extension services.’ They touch the lives of many people and, when well aimed, have a high potential for contributing quickly and substantially to individual and national development. They can also contribute much to cultural enrichment and to individual self-realization.

There is, therefore, a wide general agreement that this shadowy ‘other system’ of education is important and warrants greater attention. Yet one gathers from the scanty evidence that the many bold words about the matter have seldom been matched by equally bold deeds. One evident reason for this is that in contrast to the relative neatness and coherence of the formal education system, Nonformal educational activities are an untidy mélange that defies simple description, or the diagnosis and measurement of systematic planning. Few nations have even a moderately good inventory of their present activities in this realm, much less an assessment of future needs and how best to meet them.

The aims of these activities are often unclear, their clienteles undefined, and responsibility for their management and funding scattered across dozens of public and private agencies. They spring up spontaneously, come and go, at times succeed brilliantly but just as often die unnoticed and unmourned. Nobody in particular is in charge of monitoring them, of keeping their evolving pattern in over-all perspective, of identifying gaps that need filling and projecting future requirements, or of suggesting priorities and better ways of harmonizing them and boosting their efficiency and effectiveness.

The matter is further beclouded if one fails to distinguish clearly between the needs for nonformal education of the more industrialized countries and those of the less advanced ones.

The industrialized countries of Europe and North America have increasingly come to recognize that formal education – to whatever level – must be followed by appropriate forms of ‘continuing education’ throughout each person’s life. Life-long education is essential in a rapidly progressing and changing society for three primary reasons: (1) to ensure the employment mobility of individuals, and to make unemployable ‘drop-outs’ of the past employable; (2) to keep already well-trained people abreast of new knowledge and technologies essential to their continued high productivity in their respective fields; and (3) to improve the quality and satisfaction of individual lives through culturally enriching their expanding leisure time. In this perspective, the continuing education of teachers, at all levels, is of special strategic significance; if they fail to keep up with the frontiers of knowledge they will be giving yesterday’s education to tomorrow’s citizens.

In response to these several requirements, there has evolved very rapidly in most industrialized countries an astonishing network of ‘continuing education’ programs. It is entirely possible that in some countries (e.g. the United States and the Soviet Union) the aggregate of economic resources and human energies already committed to these part-time programs approaches the total involved in full-time formal education.

The full truth of the matter here is unknown, but an effort by Professor Harold Clark of Columbia University to take stock of the situation in the United States led to some startling conclusions. He found that, in addition to the ‘formal’ education system, there were at least three ‘informal’ educational systems, largely hidden from view but extensively engaged in teaching many of the same things. One was run by private business, a second by the military establishment, and the third embraced a motley assortment of educational activities sponsored by private voluntary organizations.

Some giant industrial firms, as nearly as Professor Clark could calculate (the accounting records are never clear on these matters), were spending about as much on the high-level training of their employees and customers as the instructional budgets of some of the nation’s largest universities – often on the very same subjects. He found also that the amount of ‘Sunday school’ space in the churches of some communities equalled the classroom space of local public schools. An incidental discovery he made was that private yacht clubs were giving the same navigation courses as the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and that their students often did better than the future naval officers in the same examinations. The military services, on the other hand, were providing such good civilian technical training to military personnel that they were rapidly losing them to private employers.

Much the same phenomenon has occurred in Western Europe, though not yet to the same extent as in the United States. The accomplishments of the Scandinavian countries in the field of adult education have been noteworthy. The French government has lately given increased attention to special training and retraining programs for adults. Adult education in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom, largely through private auspices, has taken on new life since 1945. Industrial firms throughout Europe are stepping up their in-service training and career development programs (though apparently too slowly to keep pace with their needs). The military services are training computer programmers, electronics technicians, and the like, who end up in civilian jobs.

The U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries of Europe have all along attached high importance to ‘continuing education’ and have made impressive strides in pursuit of it. They appear to have gone farther than most Western nations in breaking down the artificial barriers that have perpetuated for too long an unwholesome separation between formal and nonformal education. As a result, there is a continuing dialogue in the socialist countries between the universities and technical schools, the industries they serve, and the pioneers of industrial research. Two questions are central to the dialogue: (1) the adequacy of the existing educational programs, and how they might be improved, and (2) what new types of manpower will be needed for new types of technologies still on the horizon, and hence what innovations are needed now in educational programs in order to meet these new needs. Beyond this, the educational systems in these countries have forged an unusually close relationship between work and study. Thus about half the students enrolled in university engineering programs in the Soviet Union are part-time students with regular jobs. They do much of their learning by correspondence, and more recently by television as well, along with periodic study periods at the university. There are numerous opportunities for an able and ambitious worker in the Soviet Union to advance himself by ‘going back to school,’ without heavy personal sacrifice. University professors, in turn, are obliged, and given time off, to keep pace with relevant new developments in their own fields, such as computer programming, in order to keep their research capabilities from growing obsolete. Other professionals, such as doctors, are obliged and enabled to keep pace with new knowledge and techniques in their respective fields.

This proliferation of shadow systems of education will surely continue apace in the industrialized countries. The need is evident, the motivation is strong, and the resources can be found. Besides keeping people up to date, these more flexible programs are compensating for the deficiencies of the formal educational system which stem from its failure to adapt rapidly enough to changing needs.

All this underscores the importance of evolving a more coherent view of the ‘nonformal educational system’ to facilitate a more effective co-ordination of its many parts with each other and with formal education.

The same conditions that created the need for ‘continuing education’ in these countries have also made necessary a fundamental redefinition of the role of formal education. In this new context of rapid change, the prime role of formal education – as we have several times stressed – must be to ‘teach people to learn for themselves’ so that they can later absorb new knowledge and skills efficiently on their own. Even the greatest universities cannot hope to turn out ‘educated’ people – in the sense that the have ‘completed’ their education. Their aim and hope must be to turn out educable people, well prepared for a life of learning – which is a quite different matter.

Alone the last paragraph of this chapter is worth the effort to re-type this all. Don’t you ask yourself like I do: Why is this statement still so true – and yet seemingly unheard – almost 40 years after it was written?!