AI-Hyper-Connectivity: Challenges & Propositions for Education and Childhood & Youth Studies

The contemporary world is becoming increasingly hyperconnected through dynamic flows of media images and multimodal designs, which are sometimes even automatically produced by Other-than-human agents such as algorithm-based deep learning networks. Post-digital communication among young people takes place through interactive, mobile and online platforms that enable the speedy production and circulation of multimodal designs between school, home and community settings as well as across diverse geographical areas. Affordable immersive technologies are gradually enabling children and young people to play, learn, express themselves, socialise and participate in political activities in blurred on-/ offline, AI-/human- generated settings and communities – hereby referring not only to mobile audio- and video-based communication but also to games, Makerspaces, 3D printing and peer-to-peer economies.

In this frame, youth on/-offline communities are not only virtual communities in the widespread sense of virtual (i.e., made to appear to exist by software cf. Rheingold 2000) but integral parts of the youth’s on-life-living worlds (in German “Lebenswelt”). Children and young people, indeed, are nowadays indeed endlessly onlife i.e., surrounded by smart, responsive devices during they teach and learn, play, shop as well as entertain themselves – as Luciano Floridi described already in 2014 (Floridi 2014).

Much research has explored the role new digital technologies play in everyday lives of young people – inside and outside of school. The first wave of relevant scholarship mostly explored online and mobile learning and socialisation (cf. Jörissen 2007; Pachler/ Bachmair/ Cook/ Kress 2010; Selwyn 2013); A second wave of research argued that the boundaries between life online and life offline are increasingly blurred, to an extent that the original meanings of the words online and offline seem to be diffused, both in theory and in practice (Westphal & Jörissen 2013; Kontopodis/ Kumpulainen 2022). The Covid-19 pandemic and the emergence of ChatGPT have further accelerated relevant developments, with emerging novel forms of blended online and offline learning enabling multiple hyper-connections between different institutional spaces, across diverse cultural and socio-economic milieus, and through varied times and places (cf. Kontopodis 2019).

AI-hyper-connectivity enables the speedy formation and negotiation of political views, knowledge and beliefs across diverse, blended, onlife, virtual spaces. Our research shows that young people try, for example through the production of brief videos and digital micro-blogs, to bring to expression the political, economic, social, and emotional turmoil they often live through. In turn, multimodal representations and interpretations of the political situation are commonly intensified, reproduced by humans as well as by Other-than-human agents and proliferated in the virtual sphere, sometimes in agreement with and other times in opposition to mainstream media messages (cf. Kontopodis/ Varvantakis/ Wulf 2017).

In a process that entails risks as well as possibilities, the great variety of available ‘bottom-up’ hyper-connections and forms of expression may become obsolete and superfluous, though, if the prevailing way of being in the world is based on the overconsumption of images and digital messages. Relevant research has revealed that technological design privileges particular forms of communication while it constrains others. Mobile app design, for example, may affect differently young men and young women, while such effects are also dependent on the cultural and socio-economic backgrounds of young people. Implicit and unintended misrepresentation and discrimination against young women, non-Western cultures and forms of knowledge is often the result of this process (cf. Escobar 2018; Sanches/ Baitello-Jr 2018).

Child psychologists, youth scholars, educators as well as parents, children and young people have quite difficult tasks to fulfil in this frame; they should:

(a) safely transcend all hyper-connected online and offline spaces,

(b) critically engage with the processes of locating, creating, filtering, and/or reusing and remixing onlife AI-generated materials, multimodal designs, and multimedia products, and

(c) meaningfully position themselves while navigating the all-absorbing, contemporary flows of mediated information, digital images and multimodal designs.

Many challenges obviously may emerge in this frame, which should be addressed in and beyond formal educational settings – ideally beginning from early years and continuing all the way to secondary, post-secondary and higher education (cf. Kontopodis/ Kumpulainen 2020). Embracing the voices, preferences and views of diverse children and young people in this process is crucial. I am quite hopeful that the young people, who are growing up today, can indeed transform the world by using and further developing all new tools presently available, even if it may take some time to balance change in ways that are beneficial to all.

References

Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.

EEF (2022). The impact of COVID-19 on learning: A review of the evidence. Education Endowment Foundation. Published online: https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/documents/guidance-for-teachers/covid-19/Impact_of_Covid_on_Learning.pdf?v=1671490083.

Floridi, L. (2014). The fourth revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jörissen, B. (2007). Informelle Lernkulturen in online-communities: Mediale Rahmungen und rituelle Gestaltungweisen. In C. Wulf/ B. Althans/ G. Blaschke/ N. Ferrin/ M. Göhlich/ B. Jörissen/ R. Mattig/ I. Nentwig-Gesemann/ S. Schinkel/ A. Tervooren/ M. Wagner-Willi (Eds). Lernkulturen im Umbruch: Rituelle Praktiken in Schule, Medien, Familie und Jugend (pp. 184–219). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.

Kontopodis, M./ Varvantakis, C./ Wulf, C. (Eds.) (2017). Global youth in digital trajectories. London: Routledge.

Kontopodis, M. (2019). The fluid classroom: Book narratives, YouTube videos & other metaphorical devices. Paragrana, 28(2), 101-105.

Kontopodis, M./ Kumpulainen, K. (2022). Technical Mediation of Children’s Onlife Worlds. In A. Kraus/ C. Wulf. (Eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Embodiment and Learning (pp. 357-365). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kontopodis, M./ Kumpulainen, K. (2020). Researching young children’s engagement and learning in makerspaces: Insights from post-Vygotskian and post-human perspectives. In: Blum-Ross, A.; Kumpulainen, K./ Marsh, J. (Eds.) Enhancing digital literacy and creativity: Makerspaces in the early years (pp. 11-23). London: Routledge.

Pachler, N./ Bachmair, B./ Cook, J./ Kress, G. (2010). Mobile learning: Structures, agency, practices. Dordrecht: Springer.

Rheingold, H. (2000). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Sanches, R.D./ Baitello-Jr, N. (2018). O processo iconofágico na relação entre o corpo feminino e as imagens midiáticas: O caso Andressa Urach. ECO-PÓS, 21(2), https://doi.org/10.29146/eco-pos.v21i2.10118.

Selwyn, N. (2013). Education in a digital world: Global perspectives on technology and education. London: Routledge.

Westphal, K./ Jörissen, B. (Eds.). (2013). Mediale Erfahrungen: Vom Straßenkind zum Medienkind. Raum- und Medienforschung im 21. Jahrhundert. Weinheim: Juventa/ Beltz.

‘Neoliberalism, Pedagogy & Human Development’ now published in Japanese: 新自由主義教育からの脱出

The Japanese translation of my book “Neoliberalism, Pedagogy & Human Development” (Routledge) is now available. This is a new edition, which is in process in English & will hopefully be published next year in Europe & the US.

本書の日本語版は、北本遼太、広瀬拓海、仲嶺真 の根気強い継続的な努力なしには実現しなかっただろう. Τhe Japanese edition of this book would not have been possible without the tireless and continuous efforts of Ryota Kitamoto, Takumi Hirose, and Makoto Nakamine, to whom I feel incredibly grateful.

The book studies marginalised students’ personal dramas as reflecting broader socio-economic and ethical-political contradictions. It investigates how mediating devices such as CVs, school reports, school files, photos and narratives shape the ways in which those marginalised students reflect about their past as well as imagine their future. By building on process philosophy and time theory, post- structuralism as well as on Vygotsky’s cultural psychological theory, the analysis differentiates between two discrete modes of human development: development of concrete skills (potential development) and development of new societal relations (virtual development, which is at the same time individual and collective). The book outlines thus an innovative relational account on learning and human development which can prove of particular importance for the education of marginalised students in nowadays’ globalised (and, at the same time, highly divided) world.

New Book: Decolonizing Environmental Education [3rd Volume of Book Series (Post-)Critical Global Childhood & Youth Studies]

We are very pleased to introduce Decolonizing Environmental Education for Different Contexts and Nations, the third volume of the book series “(Post-) Critical Global Childhood & Youth Studies”. This volume, which has been edited by Kathryn Riley, Janet McVittie and Marcelo Gules Borges pushes us to expand existing theories and approaches to environmental education and to consider new possibilities for exploring, understanding and embracing situated knowledges across diverse contexts in countries such as Canada, Brazil, Ghana and Bangladesh. This investigation supports an important debate on our mutually entangled futures—in Kathryn Riley’s words, which is crucial at a time when environmental and public health crises are destroying the livelihoods of those least responsible for these. As the authors of this volume argue, there is an urgent need to trouble and challenge the Western worldview that dominated science, society and education in the 21st century.

We hope that this third volume of “(Post-) Critical Global Childhood & Youth Studies” highlights the importance of the exchange of ideas on contemporary issues affecting children and young people around the world while exploring possibilities for local and global social change, which is indeed the focus of the Series. The Series encourages novel approaches to co-producing knowledge in fields such as: urban, rural and indigenous childhood & youth; children’s rights; social policy, ecology and youth activism; faith communities; immigration and intersectionality; mobile Internet, digital futures, and global education. It discusses the geopolitics of knowledge, and decolonial and anthropological perspectives, among others. “(Post-) Critical Global Childhood & Youth Studies” is addressed to relevant scholars from all over the world as well as to global policy makers and employees at international organizations and NGOs. This book is indeed an invitation to draw upon such different fields of expertise and areas of activity and co-develop a different environmental education from within the most diverse cultural and geographic contexts.

For a summer discount on this and other relevant publications by Peter Lang, you may apply code Su40 at checkout via https://www.peterlang.com.

If you are interested to publish a monograph or an edited book with our Series, please contact your respective local series editor:

Brazil: Ass. Prof. Márcia Amador-Mascia: marciaaam[a]uol.com.br

Spanish-speaking Latin America: Prof. Silvia Grinberg: grinberg.silvia[a]gmail.com

China & other Asian countries: Ass. Prof. Hongyan Chen: chenhongyanup[a]126.com

Rest of world: Prof. Michalis Kontopodis: prof.mkontopodis[a]protonmail.com

For further information please check: https://www.peterlang.com/series/pcgs

Digital Futures & Human Development After COVID-19

According to a 2021 study, at least 17 million people will need to altogether change their profession in the US, due to the automation and digitalisation of production and consumption by 2030 (which is a 25% higher estimation than before the COVID-19 pandemic). Already 100 years earlier i.e., in 1930, L.S. Vygotsky tried to anticipate the implications of such technological progress on human development in his article published in VARNITSO* with the title “The socialist alteration of Man”. Vygotsky’s pioneering work explores the links between the organisation of social activities and the organisation of psychological functions. Taking Vygotsky’s work as a point of departure: How can one think of the present-day technological and psycho-social changes in the aftermath of a global pandemic i.e., in a world that is more interconnected than ever before in the human history, as well as increasingly divided? What are the implications of these developments for children, young people and education? 

My talk in the Summer University ‘Critical Psychology’ explored these questions by revisiting case studies from a series of research projects, while exploring, in specific, how to best support disadvantaged children and young people to imagine yet unknown futures across urban and rural settings. Further details: https://mkontopodis.wordpress.com/digitalchildhoods/

Crise écologique : «L’éducation permet de changer le monde» (Collectif d’enseignants/ open letter on the occasion of COP26)

Les jeunes se sont passé le mot : « On est mal barrés ». Selon unerécente étude, 56 % d’entre eux pensent que l’humanité est condamnée. Impossible de leur expliquer qu’ils se trompent. Les études scientifiques leur donnent raison. C’est aussi ce que disent les experts du Giec dans leur dernier rapport, plus alarmant encore que tous les autres. C’est encore ce que nous disent toutes les nations du monde réunies à Glasgow à l’occasion de la COP26.

Lorsque les jeunes mettent le nez dans le fonctionnement du système Terre, découvrent les conséquences de la perte de la biodiversité pour l’aventure humaine, ou comprennent les incidences du dérèglement climatique sur la fragilisation de nos civilisations, monte alors en eux la colère. C’est bien compréhensible : l’inaction politico-économique n’a d’égal que l’ampleur de nos connaissances scientifiques sur la mise en péril de la pérennité de nos sociétés. Il nous faut agir, ne cessons-nous d’entendre. Oui. Mais l’action politique nécessaire et salvatrice ne doit pas omettre sa composante éducative. Nous sommes en effet face à un triple défi, que l’éducation a le pouvoir de relever.

Le premier, écologique: les conditions d’habitabilité de la Terre se durcissent. La vie humaine en société telle que nous la connaissons est fragilisée et court le risque d’être compromise.

Le second, politique : les jeunes voient nos démocraties s’engluer dans de vaines controverses et échouer dans la recherche des consensus pour prévenir un avenir sombre. Ils s’interrogent, et nous entendons les échos de leurs questions dans nos cours : « Quel régime permettra de traverser les sombres temps qui s’ouvrent à nous : le pouvoir fort, rassurant et efficace des dictatures ou une insurrection violente ? » ; « À quelles conditions une démocratie est-elle possible ? »

Le troisième, anthropologique : saurons-nous refonder un nouveau « nous », tant solidaire et convivial, que symbiotique avec le vivant ? Ou allons-nous continuer d’exalter la puissance de l’individu, au risque d’augmenter toujours plus les écarts mortifères entre nous, pauvres et riches, ainsi qu’entre les différentes nations qui habitent la Terre ?

Une mutation humaine radicale

À la rencontre de ces enjeux, deux grandes options.

La première: poursuivre les politiques néolibérales actuellement en vigueur dans la plupart des pays du monde. Il s’agit de permettre à chacun de devenir l’entrepreneur de lui-même, grâce à des institutions affaiblies et une toile numérique hégémonique. Ici : pas de décision collective, mais uniquement des luttes organisées autour de la maximisation des intérêts individuels. L’hubris, cette folie destructrice de la démesure identifiée par les Grecs d’antan, devient la norme (mais ses conséquences sont désormais apocalyptiques). Elle est partout entretenue par le discours sur la transition et la promotion des processus de changements incrémentaux, un doux euphémisme face à la transformation vertigineuse du monde et des conditions de vie sur la Terre.

La seconde: engager une mutation humaine d’une radicalité politique sans précédent, mais qui soit à distance de tout extrême. L’ennemi : la démesure individualiste s’autorisant toute forme de violence qui dévoie le sens de la liberté et fait basculer l’humanité de l’autre du statut de prochain à lointain. La visée: une existence partagée avec l’ensemble des terriens au sein d’un monde habitable et hospitalier.

Comment cela se fera-t-il ? Nous ne pouvons accompagner une telle visée uniquement à coups de mesures politiques. Cela suppose une double guerre. Contre les angles morts actuels des programmes scolaires : renforcement de l’éducation scientifique au fonctionnement du climat avec ses interactions avec la biosphère, approfondissement des défis environnementaux au sein des « humanités », formation de tous les enseignants… Mais aussi contre nous-mêmes, et les logiques de domination, préemption et accumulation qui apparaissent désormais comme relevant de notre « nature ». Ce combat contre l’hubris refuse toute violence mais n’écarte pas la radicalité, qui consiste à aller à la racine des problèmes.

Existe-t-il des moyens politiques plus puissants que l’éducation pour prendre les affaires à la racine ? Envisager des mesures sans qu’elles soient accompagnées par une refonte radicale des politiques éducatives serait un désastre de violence. Il s’agit de mettre en œuvre une éducation renouvelée qui ne cherche pas seulement à adapter les enfants et les jeunes à nos sociétés, mais bien à transformer le monde. Partant, l’éducation doit viser l’émergence d’un nouveau « nous », n’ayant d’égal que la puissance de sa convivialité et le combat contre la violence. En accompagnant, par l’éducation, une mutation anthropologique profondément politique, l’aventure humaine pourra traverser les sombres temps qui s’ouvrent à nous.

Alors les jeunes auront un avenir.

Alors, nous, éducateurs, aurons fait notre job.

Alors nous pourrons partir en paix.

Signataires:

Prof Nathanaël Wallenhorst, Prof Michalis Kontopodis et plusieurs autres cf. La Croix: https://www.la-croix.com/Debats/Crise-ecologique-Leducation-permet-changer-monde-2021-11-17-1201185551.

3 Years of Collective Research Endeavour at ICY: Inclusion, Childhood & Youth Research Centre, University of Leeds

[posted originally with minor amendments here]

Dear colleagues, dear postgraduate researchers,

As we are approaching the summer break, and given that this has been a particularly challenging year for all of us, I would like to thank you all for your hard work and commitment to our research activities. It will soon be three years since I undertook the Centre Director position and the plan is that another colleague will take the lead beginning from the next term. The ICY Research Centre brings together diverse scholars conducting research on learning and human development, inclusive and equitable quality education, children’s rights and sustainable development in rapidly evolving knowledge societies. Our work is informed by a broad understanding of inclusion referring to the intersection of specific resources and needs, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, mental health and wellbeing, dis-/ability, socio-economics as well as digital, cultural, religious and geographical aspects.

There are strong links between our teaching practice and our research on inclusion and, while this is very much a team effort, including work by our student education service team and our highly esteemed colleagues from other University Centres, I would like to warmly congratulate Indira Banner, Haley Davies, Katie Gathercole, Judith Hebron, Anne Luke and Jackie Salter – among many other colleagues – for the excellent achievements in recent evaluations: The Complete University Guide has placed the University of Leeds at number 18 in the UK for Education. This success follows Education subjects at Leeds being very highly ranked in the UK – and top 100 in the world – in the Times Higher Education (THE) Subject Rankings 2021.

Without getting ahead of ourselves, I believe that we can also be very proud of our REF entry, which made explicit how we all come together so that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Excellent colleagues, such as Paula Clarke, Peter Hart, Judith Hanks, Lou Harvey, Matt Homer, Gill Main, Rachel Mathieson, Judy Sayers, James Simpson, Ruth Swanwick, Aisha Walker and Lucy Taylor (to mention only a few) have been involved in outstanding projects & impact case studies, as you can read, for example, HERE and HERE.

We have achieved significant impact through our established collaboration with colleagues from across disciplines and sectors, including several other Research Centres at the University of Leeds – most importantly the Centre for Research in Digital Education, Centre for Disability Studies, Centre for Applied Education Research (i.e., Born-in-Bradford cohort study team), Centre for Immersive Technologies and Centre for Global Development. The recent podcast episodes presenting work by Bridgette Bewick on student mental health; by Fereshte Goshtasbpour & Bronwen Swinnerton on online learning, and by Miro Griffiths on disability activism can be seen as excellent examples of this very fruitful ongoing collaboration. Even though our podcast series was only recently launched, we have already had around 200 listeners on various platforms, including Anchor, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Updates on Inclusion & Education on Weibo

I am immensely grateful to Luke McFarline for his excellent work on this front. Let me also mention that there are more than 250 scholars and partners who regularly engage with our posts on Twitter. Most importantly: I am particularly proud of the Chinese postgraduate researchers leading our Weibo account on inclusion & education, which is accessible to all students and PGRs who reside outside of Europe and may not be able to access our “Western” social media: LeedsUni教育研究中心. The leading postgraduate researchers, whom I would like to especially thank for their outstanding social media engagement are: Zhongyan Zhang, Shichong Li, Xiaowen Liu and Shouqiang Wang. We are receiving excellent applications by prospective PhD candidates from all over the world as a result of our media work and we have been highly efficient in attracting outstanding researchers from diverse geographical areas and backgrounds.

Our events have been very well attended by staff and postgraduate researchers. These include:

• Two major externally-facing events with external stakeholders (#EDU4FUTURE in 2019 and #LINKS in 2021)
• Reading group meetings every two months on “Current Debates on Inclusion, Childhood and Youth”
• About two internally-facing “thinking aloud/allowed” workshops per year which provide an informal space to meet new colleagues, share research ideas, discuss raw empirical data, brainstorm on future projects and present unfinished work.

Since my very first days at the University of Leeds I have worked closely with Ruth Swanwick, who has until recently been working incredibly hard to support all of us in her role as Director of Research & Innovation. I am grateful to Ruth Swanwick for her kindness, wisdom and supportive leadership. Having worked with very different Heads of Schools at different universities, I would also like to express my gratitude to our Head of School, Alice Deignan, who has been working day and night leading the School of Education, supporting our staff and students, and ensuring that everything has functioned so smoothly over the years – and even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most importantly: thank you everyone who has offered so much support and encouragement in this difficult year.

EDU4FUTURE Conference Poster, ICY 2019

As a first-generation student and an immigrant to the UK, it is vital to me that this collective research endeavour continues and I will do my best to help the next Centre Director take these activities forward. Thinking especially of the challenges which today’s children and young people – the so-called “Generation Covid-19” – will be faced with in the near future, I believe that powerful possibilities for public good can emerge if we combine research on inequalities with innovative approaches to learning in knowledge societies, as I explain on our recently launched YouTube channel.

There is always hope as we know from… Banksy.

The Fluid Classroom: New Media in Education

Increasing numbers of children and young people from around the world are engaging in speedy communication which takes place through interactive, fast and mobile media that enable the distributed production and peer-to-peer circulation of advanced audio-visual designs and bits of information across the most different geographical areas – the prediction being that by 2025 every child and young person in the planet will have daily access to the Internet at a speed of 1 MB per second. In this frame, even before the recent school closures during the Covid-19 outbreak, schooling, teaching and learning have fluidly transcended online and offline spaces. New media and digital technologies have enabled connections between different life spheres, diverse cultural and socio-economic milieus, and different times and places that would have been impossible a few years ago.

My research with colleagues from the Netherlands, Finland and Brazil has explored the possibilities entailed in this new condition for teachers and pupils in formal educational settings as well as in spaces outside the formal education system:

Kontopodis, M. & Kumpulainen, K. (2020). Researching Young Children’s Engagement and Learning in Makerspaces: Insights from Post-Vygotskian and Post-Human Perspectives. In: A. Blum-Ross; K. Kumpulainen, J. Marsh (Eds.). Enhancing Digital Literacy and Creativity: Makerspaces in the Early Years (pp. 11-23). London: Routledge. OPEN ACCESS HERE

Da Cunha Junior F.R., Kontopodis M. & van Oers B. (2020). Online Groups in Educational Settings: An Opportunity for Argumentation. Brazilian Journal of Socio-Historical-Cultural Theory and Activity Research, 2(1), 1-22. Golden Open Access: http://www.revistashc.org/index.php/shc/article/view/49.

Da Cunha Júnior, F.R., van Kruistum C., Kontopodis, M. & van Oers B. (2019). Students on Facebook: From Observers to Collaborative Agents. Mind, Culture & Activity, 26(4), 336-352. Golden Open Access: HERE.

Kontopodis, M. (2019). The Fluid Classroom: Book Narratives, YouTube Videos & Other Metaphorical Devices. Paragrana, 28(2), 101-105. OPEN ACCESS HERE

Further details on digital childhoods & digital youth are also provided here: https://mkontopodis.wordpress.com/digitalchildhoods/

Last but not least, this is a brief relevant video from a recent YouTube conference, which I organised at the University of Leeds in 2021, exploring LINKS: Learning in Inclusive Knowledge Societies after COVID19:

“Those in power don’t listen”: Review of “Youth Participation in Democratic Life: Stories of Hope and Disillusion” by Bart Cammaerts, Michael Bruter, Shakuntala Banaji, Sarah Harrison & Nick Anstead (PalgraveMacMillan)

By Michalis Kontopodis & Myrto Nikolopoulou

Young people around the world have recently been engaging with different modes of political participation, including significant protests & social movements, such as: “XR”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Kill the Bill”, etc. How do we however define “participation” & “politics”? What are the pertinent figures and views by the young people themselves as well as by other relevant stakeholders regarding youth participation in political life? Addressing a significant gap in the relevant literature and research, the 2016 book Youth Participation in Democratic Life: Stories of Hope and Disillusion by Bart Cammaerts, Michael Bruter, Shakuntala Banaji, Sarah Harrison and Nick Anstead can still be read as a highly valuable and timely contribution to mapping the current modes and levels of political participation by young people across a wide range of European countries (Austria, Finland, France, Hungary, Poland, Spain and the UK).

Youth Participation in Democratic Life is written in a very accessible way and describes in detail the theoretical frame, methodology and results of a large-scale research project led by renowned scholars from a variety of relevant disciplines such as media and communication, political science, political psychology and youth studies. It reviews a wide range of data generated through a highly innovative mixed-methodological design (combining documentary analysis, comparative secondary data analysis, large-scale representative survey of pre-voters [16-18 years old] and young voters [18- 30 years old], an experiment in e-voting, stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions).

The book consists of two introductory chapters with relevant theoretical and methodological contributions and five empirical chapters on: elections (chapter 3), European policymaking and representation (chapter 4), volunteering (chapter 5), participation through traditional and new media (chapter 6), non-participation and exclusion (chapter 7). It analyses and assesses the contexts, nature and the diversity of young people’s participation in European democratic life and explores their views regarding the political elites who appear to run the current so-called “representative democratic systems” as well as their attitudes towards volunteering, protesting, taking part in grass root community-based initiatives and employing traditional and new media for purposes of political participation. The authors manage very well to dig into details – for example when discussing quotes by diverse young people or relevant statistical data from the various local and national contexts. At the same time, in the last part of the book, they manage to provide the reader with a very good overview of the general issues that emerged through the data analysis, which in turn leads to a series of concrete and constructive recommendations for improving modes and levels of youth participation across Europe.

It is commendable that the book explores views and modes of participation by highly diverse young populations through sampling pre-voters along with young voters from 7 European countries – thereby including “active” as well as “excluded” youth. The book does not cover though refugee youth, which was the case in other publications by the authors (de Block, et al. 2005). It could also be interesting to shed more light on right wing youth by linking the analysis to further work by the authors such as the Mapping extreme right ideology by Bruter & Harrison (2011).

A main argument of the book is that youth may not regularly engage with the standard forms of political participation not because they are apathetic, but rather because the political offer does not match their concerns, ideas, and ideals of democratic politics. Diverse groups of young people feel that “those in power don’t listen” (Cammaerts, et al. 2016: 57). Youth are therefore critical against mainstream politics and traditional media and feel that they must not merely be given a voice, but also possibilities to participate in follow-up processes and to further shape the relevant debates and policy implementation. This empirical finding fits very well with studies of youth in non-European contexts (cf. Kontopodis 2014) as well as with recent theorizing on youth development and socialization (Stetsenko 2016).

Even if the term democratic life is used in the title and widely employed in the book, the authors question therefore legal and formal understandings of democracy. While official discourses fetishize certain and marginalise other forms of participation, the authors extend the term democratic life so that it covers every form of political participation young people may be involved into: from volunteering to NGOs or sharing political views on Facebook to participating in peaceful or violent demonstrations. What is more: according to the analysis, “democratic life” does not refer only to various forms of participation but concerns contents, as well: unemployment combined with the risk of poverty and social exclusion is a significant concern for today’s youth, and a major challenge to what they see as “democratic life”.

This insightful assertion can lead to the expansion of the notion of participation, and also addresses the question, whether all forms and contents of participation are considered as solely positive and desirable per se. When considering, for example, initiatives where young people are involved in far right wing movements, participation can have totally different outcomes to what participation in democratic life entails. Summing up: even if published a few years ago, the wide array of analysis and the close attention to detail render Youth participation in democratic life: Stories of hope and disillusion a valuable and much needed contribution to the research literature in youth studies and the relevant disciplines. We are looking very much forward to discussing the book with our BA and MA students, most of whom are young people and may have participated in recent protests and social movements, such as: “XR”, “Black Lives Matter” and “Kill the Bill”.

NOTE: This blogpost is based on our book review from 2018: Kontopodis M, Nikolopoulou M. 2018. Book Review: B. Cammaerts, M. Bruter, S. Banaji, S. Harrison and N. Anstead (2016). Youth Participation in Democratic Life: Stories of Hope and Disillusion (Palgrave). YOUNG. 26(4), pp. 113-115.

References

Bruter, M., and Harrison, S. 2011. Mapping extreme right ideology: An empirical geography of the European extreme right. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cammaerts, B., Bruter, M., Banaji, S., Harrison, S., and Anstead, N. 2016. Youth participation in democratic life: Stories of hope and disillusion. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

de Block, L., & Buckingham, D., and Banaji, S. 2005. Children in communication about migration (CHICAM): Final project report. London: Center for the Study of Children, Youth & Media, Institute of Education, University of London.

Kontopodis, M. (2014). Neoliberalism, pedagogy and human development: Exploring time, mediation and collectivity in contemporary schools. London and New York: Routledge.

Nolas, S-M., Varvantakis, C. and Aruldoss, V. 2016 “(Im)possible conversations? Activism, childhood and everyday life.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), 252-265.

Stetsenko, A. 2016. The transformative mind: Expanding Vygotsky’s approach to development and education. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

New book: Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change

Very pleased to announce the publication of the second volume in our Peter Lang book series “(Post-)Critical Global Studies“: Revisiting Vygotsky for Social Change.

This book edited by Adolfo Tanzi Neto, Fernanda Liberali & Manolis Dafermos, brings together researchers from across different countries and disciplines, who are currently employing Vygotsky’s theory in order to understand and deal with new social challenges arising in our globalized and yet, deeply divided world. The chapters of this book shed light onto the foundational principles of Vygotsky’s theory while adding critical and social perspectives as a way of expanding Vygotsky’s legacy to global contemporary issues. Through a series of case studies from across so-called “Global North” and “Global South” settings, this books explores crises and dramatic life events; critical reflection, imagination and social change; social dynamics and human development; ethical-political issues, as well as activism and political engagement. The book has been published as a paperback, so that it can be easily purchased without being too expensive.

Further details are provided here: https://www.peterlang.com/abstract/title/70161?rskey=O13pwD&result=1

Cultural-historical Activity Theory Travels to Greece

How have socio-cultural, cultural-historical and activity approaches to education and psychology traveled to Greece over the last three decades? It has been a pleasure for me to collaborate with M. Dafermos and A. Chronaki and explore how these approaches have been introduced in the Greek context while identifying key dimensions of this process, such as: diverse interpretation of original works, key actors in academic teaching and research and linkages with educational policy and activism beyond the university spaces.

Greece with its specific history of military dictatorship, constitutional change, varied struggles for democracy within the university, European integration, and current crisis and neoliberal reforms is seen as a sample case; taking this case as a point of departure, we develop a meta-theoretical frame on how to evaluate the various ways in which socio-cultural-historical and activity approaches to education and psychology have traveled across social, cultural, historical, institutional, political, regional, and also, increasingly globalized contexts of education.

GOLDEN OPEN ACCESS: Dafermos, M., Chronaki, A., Kontopodis, M. (2020) Cultural-historical Activity Theory Travels to Greece: Actors, Contexts and Politics of Reception and Interpretation. Cultural-Historical Psychology. 2020. Vol. 16(2), 31-44.