Youngsters in transformative and reproductive processes of moral and citizenship education Wiel Veugelers University of Amsterdam / University for Humanistics Utrecht Introduction In my work on education, social change and identity development I have been attracted by three different positions with each their own philosophical foundation, its research methodology and a distinct tradition. They are different ways of looking at educational processes. The four perspectives are: Cultural Studies, Sociology of Education, Critical Pedagogy and Moral Education. In this paper I will analyse the results from empirical research I have doing among teachers, students and parents in the last 10 years in the frameworks of these four theoretical perspectives. I will end with try to integrate these perspectives. 1. Cultural Studies: youngsters and active sense making In Cultural Studies the perspective of the youngsters is essentially. Ethnographic research tries to find out how youngsters individually and in cultural groups make sense of their life. The identity is considered as situated but actively constructed by the person involved. 2. Sociology of education: social and cultural reproduction in education The Cultural Studies were partially a reaction on the strong reproductive way of thinking in sociology in the seventies. Education according to sociologist as Bowles & Gintis, Bourdieu, Whitty and Apple reproduces the social and power relations of society, the positions taken in it and the legitimation of the processes of selection and sozialisation. According to this tradition making differences in education (tracking and selection) and legitimasing this is more the effect of education than flourishing human development. By accommodation to rules students learn to adapt to social norms. By the ideology embedded in the curriculum youngsters are getting a mirror of society; in the reproduction paradigm Western societies promote in education an acceptance of unequal power relations, a neo-liberal market orientation and a personal responsibility. 3. Critical pedagogy Education doesn’t need to accept to accept these processes of education. Education is not a perfect copy machine of society. Political, social and cultural tensions in society are visible in education as well. Education can be seen as a side for social and cultural struggle. Transformative practices can be possible. There is always a temporary balance between reproduction and transformation, a balance that is always contested and under reconstruction. Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy try to enforce transformative processes by working on the content of education, the school culture and organization, the empowerment of learners, and the detracking of education. 4. Moral education Moral education can also be seen as a transformative practice based on moral values like justice and care, but often less linked with the political, social and cultural level of society and of analysing reproductive processes in education.

I think moral education can be become more meaningfull if the links with the political, social and cultural level of society are strengthened. In this paper I will try to do some work on this. I will start with the perspective of youngsters on moral education. Then I will continue with analyzing issues in moral education on try to articulate the balance between transformative and reproduction processes.