Civic participation and the education for European citizenship

Civic Participation and the Education for European Citizenship. A project of education towards European (democratic) citizenship. It is an answer to the process of unification, expansion and integration of European national states into a new community with a new - European - identity that is creating a hope of keeping and developing the European culture in the processes of globalisation (Du Bois Reymond, M., 2002; Eberhard, L., 2002; Chisholm, L. - Kovacheva, S., 2002; Williamson, H., 2002). The process of the transition of an adolescent into a full maturity must be completed not only by obtaining the real-life experiences of labour process, which examines the efficiency of basic qualifications (language skills, the capacity to use information technologies, entrepreneur spirit and social-communication abilities) acquired in the formal as well as non-formal process of education, but it must also be perfected by obtaining the knowledge of democratic citizenship, the abilities and experiences to use personal citizen rights and obligations. All these points can be defined as the citizen literacy. The most important thing is that not only the education towards citizenship is being restored in schools, but also the sphere of civil participation of children and youth in extra-class time is being integrated into the educational process. In the modern concept of the education towards citizenship, the stress is put on both spheres: The education towards citizenship in schools: through selected school subjects, in specialised subjects of civic education, through school self-governing councils. The civil participation of children and youth in extra-class time. associations of adult citizens with the participation of children and youth, civil associations of children and youth, non-formal civil movements and initiatives, local-municipal parliaments of children and youth. Modern concept of the education of youth towards citizenship enables and requires to combine the achievements of formal education in school and those of non-formal education in the structures of work with youth in the civil society, and to use them more intensely.