Citizenship for the Learning Society: Europe, Subjectivity, and Educational Research

In the transition of Europe to a learning society, citizenship has been recast. Fostering a European identity has required mobilisation of a narrative of shared European history and promotion of a common language of permanent investment in skills and competences. This notion of citizenship entails a different self-understanding than was present during the modern period, marked so decisively by the rise of the nation-state.

In the light of the notion of governmentality, this book maps this self-understanding of citizenship for the learning society through analysis of education and cultural policy discourses. The exploration of prevalent ideas of narrative and voice reveals how governance now operates through particular ways of accounting for ourselves. With reference to key philosophical texts in the European narrative, notions of voice, heritage, and accountability are subjected to critical reconsideration in order to ask what citizenship means in the learning society and what role educational research plays in it.