This article offers a critical examination of the transformative approach to education for political citizenship. The argument offered here is that the transformative approaches lacks the capacity to fully acknowledge the asymmetries of political power and as a consequence, it promotes an idealised construct of political citizenship which does not…

In Ireland family learning and active citizenship has not been linked together until 2006. It was while the Clare Family Learning Project was involved in a family learning EU learning network project, that a suggestion to create a new partnership project linking both areas was made and FACE IT! was born (Families and Active Citizenship…

Two decades ago an adult who was innumerate and illiterate was considered to be at a great disadvantage in terms of navigating the challenges of individual personal growth and in terms of being able to participate actively in public life. However, today adults who are computer illiterate are considered to be at a similar disadvantage. The sad…

This article explores the global dimensions of citizenship. By way of contextualising the discussion, the authors describe a component of a course that was designed to introduce students to the lives of people they may otherwise never have had an opportunity to encounter. The authors' challenge, as they saw it, was to reveal the humanity,…

The independent Democracy Commission was established in June 2003 as a result of two think-tanks, Action for Social Change (TASC) in Dublin and Democratic Dialogue in Belfast. It was set up to consider the capacity of Irish Democracy to be inclusive, participatory and egalitarian in the twenty first century. Seeking to engage with a broad cross…

Research in Canada on the learning needs of older people looked at such issues as how to cope with changes in society, the need to make a contribution and the need to be influential. The White Paper on Adult Education "Learning for Life" notes that strategies for active ageing stress the critical importance of access to learning as a key tool in…