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.

Naomi Hodgson is a Visiting Research Associate in the Centre for Philosophy of Education at University College London. She is also an affiliate of the Laboratory for Education and Society, KU Leuven, Belgium and Visiting Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University, UK. Her research interests include the role of learning and research in current modes of governmentality, subjectivity, and technologies of accountability, on which she has published a number of journal articles and book chapters. She is currently Reviews Editor for the Journal of Philosophy of Education.