Participación, ciudadanía activa y educación

Abstract

Over the past few years, the language of «civic virtues» has been recovered following the impulse of two political theories: communitarism and republicanism. Both of them have been proposed as an alternative to dominant liberalism. Civic virtues respond to the aspirations and the commitment of citizens wishing to establish a public space in which people defend the common good. Amongst these democratic virtues, we emphasize the ability to participate in a reflective, critic and dialogic way. Participation is an essential virtue for harmony and well-being in current multicultural and pluralistic societies. In this paper, we analyse how the concept of participation should be interpreted in order to respond to current challenges. Then, we propose some guidelines about training this virtue, so necessary for a democratic education.