Participation
Paola Dusi
University of Verona

A polysemic concept, the term participation refers to complex and multi-faceted phenomena and involves different areas of knowledge, although it does engage the political and socio-educational sciences in particular.
Historically, there has been an emphasis on the political nature of act of participating in democratic societies: goods citizen are those who participate in the political life of the communities they belong to. Whether people participate in political processes to manage power, defend group interests or in the name of the common good, participation in the political arena is rooted in the awareness that relations of interdependence link their lives to those of others (with the meaning of these others understood as more or less broad).
Collective, universal participation in constructing the common world (Koinón) represents the great novelty of the democratic order (Zambrano, 2000) constituting the cornerstone of authentic citizenship, provided however that the social system offers all its members the conditions necessary to take part in the management of public spaces. Participation implies – by definition – stepping out of individual private life (ídion) and refers to the faculty of each person to act (Arendt, 2000). This faculty engages with the action and re-action of others (Dewey, 2004).
For some decades now, the crisis undermining political participation in Western democracies, especially by their youngest members and connected in part to the political class’ loss of credibility, has generated various phenomena. These include rethinking the concept of politics by moving towards civic and social engagement and the emergence of new forms of bottom-up participation enacted to influence decision-making processes through novel forms of sustainable production, consumption and living (urban planning, environmental planning, and volunteering). The development of the civic component of participation has also highlighted the fact that individuals who choose not to participate in political life or are excluded for legal reasons (Levinson, 2010) but are nonetheless part of civil society also contribute to community life.
Whether the emphasis is on the political or civic aspect of participation, it is evident that it is closely linked to a sense of belonging to the community (group, movement, or organization). On one hand, participation presupposes a sense of being part of a community; on the other hand, it expresses the desire to be a part of it. Thus, the analysis of the term “participation” explicitly conveys a two-way process: people participate because they feel they are a part and they feel they are a part because they participate.
In post-modern multicultural societies, it has become clear that belonging and civic and social engagement must be fostered through participation in its various forms and that one of the pressing reasons to do so is to reach minorities and groups facing structural inequalities (Young, 2000).
People are trained to participate through their experiences of participation in the family, at school, and in a society’s civil and political organizations. Such experiences foster the development and/or acquisition of those skills that allow individuals to take part in participatory processes. Education thus plays a crucial role in training young people to participate so that they can contribute to the regeneration processes taking place in every vital society. By investigating the reality of certain contexts (at the level of the school system and in its relations with local areas and institutions) and proposing training programs, the RE-SERVES project seeks to favor reflexivity on the part of the various actors involved, weave networks and make proposals aimed at encouraging the increase and spread of participatory processes among the new generations.

Selected references

Arendt, H. (2000). Vita Activa. La condizione umana. Bompiani.

Dewey, J. (2004). Educazione e Democrazia. Sansoni.

Levinson, M. (2010). The Civic empowerment Gap: Defining the Problem and Locating Solutions.

In L.R. Sherrod, J. Torney-Purta, & C.A. Flanagan, Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth (pp. 331-361). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

Young, I.M. (2001). Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford University Press.

Zambrano, M. (2000). Persona e democrazia. La storia sacrificale. Mondadori.