The current debate on citizenship and citizenship education in the European context is defined by the idea of active citizenship. There are two tendencies in this development that are significantly challenging the traditional understanding of citizenship and citizenship education: 1. the change of focus from citizenship understood as a passive legal status to more of a process, participatory and society-oriented citizenship, 2. the change of focus from political citizenship understood as a participation in public or political sphere to the citizen engaging in volunteering activities in civil society and community.

In the recent literature there are three prevalent claims about the interconnection between volunteering and citizenship. Namely, volunteering is said to develop civic values, enhance political participation, and improve democracy (Theiss-Morse andHibbing2005: 230). It is argued that people are more likely to vote, to join political parties, and to participate in the political processes if they have been involved in volunteering (Rochester et al. 2010: 164). Several studies also indicate that young people, while having an antipathy to politicians and formal politics, do see volunteering as a meaningful political activity (Annette 2000: 80). But, on the other side, the studies have demonstrated that volunteering and helping others is a good way to gain mostly the individual benefits such as a personal development, an increase in confidence, greater life satisfaction and self-fulfilment (Janoski et al. 1998; Rochester et al. 2010; Wilson and Musick 2000). While volunteering can further social cohesion, solidarity, social responsibility and community involvement, it does not encourage young people towards political participation. Learning citizenship through volunteering is limited to social concerns, moral engagement and the idea that one should care about other human beings, the environment etc. In other words, volunteering is a way of learning and developing personally responsible citizens, who help the community and others in need, and not participatory citizens.

Thus, at the centre of the idea of learning citizenship through volunteering stands a dynamic and committed individual who is self-reliant and takes responsibility for his or her own actions by following the strategy of blaming individuals rather than paying attention to the broader structures (Biesta 2011: 9–10). Consequently, the explanation of society’s problems is couched in individualistic, psychological and moralistic terms – as a result of a lack of individual responsibility, rather than an outcome of more structural causes (Biesta 2011: 10). The problem here is that volunteering usually starts from private and individual motivations, altruistic and egoistic alike. Political participation, in contrast, is actually motivated by the public interest and the idea of the common good (Biesta 2009: 150).

Therefore, there are two interrelated difficulties arising from the equation of citizenship and voluntary activities. The first is related to the degree to which these private worries or individual interests can be translated into collective or political issues. An additional problem here is that volunteering is not universalistic in the sense of seeking to incorporate the whole population. Rather, the profile of the typical volunteer is well known: they are likely to be above average in education and income, there is a good chance that they will be a parent and active in the church (Janoski et al. 1998: 496). The second difficulty with the individualistic tendency in the idea of active citizenship is that citizenship actions, after all, does not simply depend on what individuals decide to do or not to do, as is the case in volunteering actions (Biesta 2009: 150–151).

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