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This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G. Phd, Mphil, Dclinpsychol) at the University of Edinburgh This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. How Did Young Left Wing Political Activists Learn to Become Active and Critical Citizens? Stuart Moir A Thesis SuBmitted in Fulfilment of Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education (EdD) The University of Edinburgh 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. ABSTRACT 6 1.2. Lay Summary 8 1.3. Acknowledgments 10 2. INTRODUCTION 12 2.1. Setting the Scene 12 2.2. The Contested Nature of Citizenship and Citizenship Education 13 2.3. Thesis Inspiration and Motivation: Professional Experience and Political Activity 14 2.4. Framing the Key ProBlem 18 2.5. Research Questions and Approach 22 2.6. Summary of Findings 25 2.7. Overview of Thesis Chapters 29 3. UNDERSTANDING EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL ACTIVISTS: CONCEPTS, THEORIES & POLICY CONTEXT 32 3.1. Introduction 32 3.2. Explaining Political Activism: Some Key Concepts 34 3.2.1. Political Socialisation 35 3.2.2. Political Efficacy 38 3.2.3. Critical Moments 39 3.3. Policy Context: Explanations for the Prominence of Citizenship Education 40 3.3.1. Citizenship Education: Main Developments in the UK & Scottish Policy Context 43 3.3.2. Criticism of the Scottish Approach 47 3.4. Theorising Citizenship: Minimal and Maximal Interpretations 48 3.4.1. Reproduction or Transformation: Citizenship Education and the Tension it Creates in Liberal Democracy 50 3.4.2. A Typology of Citizens: Strengths and Limitations for Citizenship Education & Democracy 52 3.5. Explaining the Dominance of the Personally ResponsiBle Citizen: NeoliBeralism and its Impact on Citizenship Education 54 3.5.1. Democracy, the Economy and Citizenship Education: Personally Responsible Citizenship as ‘Merely’ Useful knowledge 58 3.6. Resisting Personally ResponsiBle Citizenship: Radical Education for Critical Citizenship and Social Justice 62 3.6.1. Education, Democracy and Political Participation 63 3.6.2. Schools as Sites of Social Reproduction and Sites of Struggle 66 2 3.6.3. Hegemony: An Explanation of Capitalist Domination and the Reproduction of Uncritical Consciousness 68 3.6.4. The Concept of Praxis and Critical Agency 73 3.6.5. Approaches to Pedagogy: Banking and Problem Posing 76 3.7. Conclusion 77 4. RESEARCH DESIGN 79 4.1. Introduction 79 4.2. My Theoretical Orientation and Methodology 81 4.2.1. Critical Research: An Overview 81 4.2.2. Criticisms of Critical Research 84 4.2.3. Asserting the Necessity and Value of Critical Research 86 4.3. Approach to Ethics in Critical Social Research 91 4.4. Introducing the Young Activists: Why and How They Were Selected 95 4.4.1. Recruiting the Research Participants: Snowball & Convenience Sampling 101 4.4.2. Some Limitations of My Recruitment Method 107 4.5. Biographical Overview of Research Participants 108 4.5.1. Rationale for Participant Pseudonyms 109 4.5.2. Participant Biographical Overview 110 4.6. Data Collection: The Semi-Structured Qualitative Interview 116 4.6.1. Introduction 116 4.6.2. Collecting the Dialogical Data 117 4.6.3. Conceptualising the Semi-Structured Qualitative Interview in Critical Research. 120 4.7. Analysing the Data: Using Thematic Analysis 128 4.7.1. My Approach to Analysing the Data 131 5. POLITICAL SOCIALISATION: DEVELOPING POLITICAL IDENTITY AND POLITICAL LITERACY 135 5.1. Introduction 135 5.2. The Political Family: Transmitting Political Identity and Nurturing Activism 136 5.3. Peer Group Socialisation: The Importance of Friendships in Supporting Activism 146 5.4. The Formative Power of Music: A Catalyst for Political Socialisation 151 5.5. Political Socialisation as Praxis: Young People as Active Agents Not Passive OBjects 158 5.6. Conclusion 163 6. BECOMING ACTIVE AND CRITICAL: FROM POLITICAL INTEREST TO POLITICAL ACTIVISM 165 6.1. Introduction 165 3 6.2. Political Efficacy 166 6.2.1. Anger at the Way Things Are: The Fuel for Activism 175 6.2.2. It’s Not About Me! Solidarity and Activism for Social Justice 177 6.2.3. Beyond Political Efficacy: Critical Agency and Critical Consciousness 184 6.3. Critical Moments: “Oh, Jeremy CorByn” and Indyref 187 6.3.1. “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” 189 6.3.2. Indyref: A Victory for Participation 191 6.4. Conclusion 201 7. EDUCATION AND LEARNING FOR DEMOCRACY: THE RELEVANCE OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES 202 7.1. Introduction 202 7.2. The Role of Formal School Experiences: The Formal Curriculum 206 7.2.1. The Formal Curriculum as the Crucial Socialising Agent 206 7.2.2. School as a Support to Activism 207 7.2.3. School as a Negative Experience 213 7.2.4. Formal Schooling not Influential to Activism 216 7.3. The Role Extra-Curricular School Opportunities 226 7.4. The Role of Non-formal and Informal Learning 234 7.5. Conclusion 237 8. WHAT CAN BE DONE? REALLY USEFUL KNOWLEDGE FOR A CRITICAL CITIZENSHIP CURRICULUM 240 8.1. Introduction 240 8.2. Influential Teachers and the Development of Critically Conscious Activists 241 8.3. A ‘Really Useful’ Pedagogy for Critical Citizenship Education 255 8.3.1. ‘Merely Useful’ Knowledge: Banking and Employability 263 8.4. ProBlematising Lived Experience: Critical Content for Critical Citizenship 265 8.5. Learning Activism By Being Active: The PossiBilities and Challenges of Youth Representative Structures 272 8.6. Conclusion 279 9. CONCLUDING SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS 281 9.1. Introduction 281 9.2. Research Question 1: What Factors Explain the Participants’ Activism? 283 9.2.1. The Political Family. 284 9.2.2. Peer Relationships 286 9.2.3. Music 288 9.2.4. Critical Political Efficacy, Agency and Praxis 289 9.2.5. Critical Political Moments. 290 4 9.3. Research Question 2 & 3: Role of Education 291 9.3.1. Role of Schooling: Formal and Extra-Curricular 292 9.3.2. Role of Citizenship Education 294 9.3.3. School as a Site of Reproduction 295 9.3.4. School as a Site of Struggle 295 9.4. Reflections on the Limitations of My Thesis and the Approach Adopted 297 9.5. Implications and Concluding Comments 305 10. REFERENCES 313 11. APPENDICES 350 Appendix 1: Draft Research Proposal for Labour Movement Gatekeepers 350 Appendix 2: Initial Email Invite to Potential Participants 351 Appendix 3: Research Information Sheet 352 Appendix 4: Participant Information in Advance of Interview (Research Questions Consent form) 355 Appendix 5: Draft Interview Schedule 357 Appendix 6: Example of Reflections on Initial Reading of Interview Transcript 359 Appendix 7: Draft Coding Frame 361 5 1. ABstract This thesis explores the factors that inspired left wing young people to become politically active. In particular it examines their citizenship education experiences. It asserts a critical and maximal conception on citizenship education and offers insights into how it can be improved pedagogically to promote activism for social justice. This thesis draws on and contributes to the literature in three fields: political socialisation; citizenship education; Marxist analysis of education and critical pedagogy. Its central theme focuses on the contradiction evident in the citizenship education literature. Based on the perspective that young people are increasingly disengaged from formal political activity, citizenship education is fundamental in education policy in Scotland. Whilst the Scottish policy context suggest a maximal conception of citizenship education which aims to build young people’s capacity to engage actively and responsibly in political affairs and to encourage thoughtful action to achieve social justice, the evidence shows that the minimal conception is dominant. This produces ‘personally responsible citizens‘ who accept our unjust and unequal status quo, meaning that it is largely unchallenged and reproduced. By working with young activists who were already active, critically conscious citizens committed to social justice, this thesis uncovers the key reasons for their development as activists and highlights the pedagogical approaches that helped this process. It deployed a critical qualitative research approach and conducted 17 individual, in-depth interviews with political activists from the Communist, Labour and trade union movement. A theoretical thematic analysis method was used to analyse this interview data. 6 Growing up in a political family and peer relationships were identified as key political socialising agents. This is consistent with the literature. However, music, which is often ignored in the socialisation literature, was also cited as a key agent. Another significant contributing factor to activism was their sense of political efficacy. This was underpinned by critical agency linked to a firm commitment to social justice. The Scottish Independence referendum and the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party were also identified as ‘critical moments’ that prompted their move to activism. The role of the formal school curriculum was complex. It supported the activism of some of the respondents, but for others it played little part. A few activists could identify taking part in some form of citizenship education. The influential role of the teacher was particularly significant in this context. Interestingly, this was largely restricted to one subject area, Modern Studies. Nevertheless, most of these active and critical citizens struggled to recall undertaking any clearly identifiable citizenship education in school.
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