Becoming Citizens Family Life and the Politics of Disability

What is citizenship?

Traditions and approaches to citizenship vary throughout history and across the earth according to unlike countries, histories, societies, cultures and ideologies, resulting in many different understandings of the concept of citizenship.

The origin of citizenship can be traced back to Ancient Hellenic republic, when "citizens" were those who had a legal correct to participate in the diplomacy of the state. However, past no ways was everyone a citizen: slaves, peasants, women or resident foreigners were mere subjects. For those who did take the privileged condition of being citizens, the idea of "civic virtue" or beingness a "expert" citizen was an important part of the concept, since participation was not considered merely a right but likewise, and offset of all, a duty. A citizen who did not meet his responsibilities was considered socially disruptive.

This concept of citizenship is reflected in today's most common understanding of citizenship as well, which relates to a legal relationship betwixt the private and the state. Most people in the world are legal citizens of 1 or another nation country, and this entitles them to certain privileges or rights. Being a citizen as well imposes certain duties in terms of what the land expects from individuals under its jurisdiction. Thus, citizens fulfil certain obligations to their state and in render they may await protection of their vital interests.

However, the concept of citizenship has far more layers of meaning than legal citizenship. Nowadays "citizenship" is much more than than a legal construction and relates – among other things – to one's personal sense of belonging, for case the sense of belonging to a customs which you can shape and influence directly.

Such a community tin can be defined through a variety of elements, for case a shared moral code, an identical set of rights and obligations, loyalty to a commonly endemic civilization, or a sense of identity. In the geographical sense, "community" is commonly defined at ii main levels, differentiating between the local community, in which the person lives, and the state, to which the person belongs.

In the relationship between the private and club nosotros tin can distinguish four dimensions which correlate with the four subsystems which one may recognise in a gild, and which are essential for its existence: the political / legal dimension, the social dimension, the cultural dimension and the economical dimension.¹

The political dimension of citizenship refers to political rights and responsibilities vis à vis the political system. The evolution of this dimension should come through noesis of the political organisation and the promotion of democratic attitudes and participatory skills.

The social dimension of citizenship has to exercise with the behaviour betwixt individuals in a society and requires some measure of loyalty and solidarity. Social skills and the knowledge of social relations in society are necessary for the development of this dimension.

The cultural dimension of citizenship refers to the consciousness of a common cultural heritage. This cultural dimension should be developed through the knowledge of cultural heritage, and of history and bones skills (language competence, reading and writing).

The economic dimension of citizenship concerns the human relationship between an individual and the labour and consumer market place. It implies the right to work and to a minimum subsistence level. Economic skills (for task-related and other economical activities) and vocational training play a key role in the fulfilment of this economic dimension.

These four dimensions of citizenship are attained through socialisation processes which accept place at school, in families, civic organisations, political parties, as well every bit through associations, mass media, the neighbourhood and peer groups.
Every bit with the iv legs of a chair, each person should be able to do the four dimensions in a counterbalanced and equal manner, otherwise full citizenship will be unbalanced.

Question: What senses of belonging do you recognise in yourself?

When we are part of a community, we can influence it, participate in its development and contribute to its well-existence. Therefore, citizenship is also understood as a practice – the practice of playing an agile role in our society. Such participation might be inside our neighbourhood, in a formal or informal social group, in our country, or in the whole world. The notion of active citizenship implies working towards the betterment of 1's community through participation to meliorate life for all members of the community. Democratic citizenship is a closely related concept, which emphasises the belief that citizenship should exist based on democratic principles and values such as pluralism, respect for human dignity and the rule of law.

Question: Would y'all consider yourself an active citizen?

Citizenship, participation and human rights

Article xv of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to a nationality, a right to change one's nationality, and the right not to be deprived of nationality. The correct to a nationality is confirmed in many other international instruments, including the European Convention on Nationality of the Council of Europe (1997). In the context of international norms, "nationality" and "citizenship" are commonly used synonymously. This is true besides for the Convention as underlined in its Explanatory Report⁴: nationality "…refers to a specific legal relationship between an private and a Land which is recognised past that State. …with regard to the effects of the Convention, the terms "nationality" and "citizenship" are synonymous".

The right to a nationality is extremely of import because of its implications for the daily lives of individuals in every land. Being a recognised citizen of a country has many legal benefits, which may include – depending on the country – the rights to vote, to agree public part, to social security, to health services, to public education, to permanent residency, to ain country, or to engage in employment, amongst others.
Although each country can determine who its nationals and citizens are, and what rights and obligations they accept, international human being rights instruments pose some limitations on country sovereignty over citizenship regulation. Specifically, the universal human rights principle of non-discrimination and the principle that statelessness should be avoided constrain state discretion on citizenship.

Participation, in political and cultural life, is a central human correct recognised in a number of international human rights treaties, starting with Universal Declaration of Homo Rights, which provides for the right to participate in regime and free elections, the right to participate in the cultural life of the customs, the right to peaceful assembly and association, and the right to join trade unions. Participation is also a core principle of human rights and is also a condition for effective democratic citizenship for all people.

Participation is one of the guiding principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This treaty says that children (all people beneath the age of 18 years) have the right to have their vocalization heard when adults are making decisions that touch on them, and their views should be given due weight in accordance with the kid's age and maturity. They have the right to limited themselves freely and to receive and share data. The Convention recognises the potential of children to influence decision making relevant to them, to share views and, thus, to participate as citizens and actors of change.

Without the total spectrum of man rights, participation becomes difficult if non impossible to access. Poor health, low levels of education, restrictions on liberty of expression, poverty, and so on, all impact on our ability to have role in the processes and structures which affect us and our rights. Equally, without participation, many human rights are hard to admission. It is participation through which we tin build a society based on man rights, develop social cohesion, make our vocalization heard to influence decision makers, achieve alter, and eventually be the subject area and not the object of our own lives.

Question: What forms of involvement or participation, other than voting in elections, are possible for the ordinary citizen?

Exercising citizenship

Much word apropos citizenship is focused on the problem of increasing citizens' involvement and participation in the processes of democratic social club. It is being increasingly realised that periodic voting by citizens is bereft, either in terms of making those who govern in the interim menstruum fully accountable or in promoting feelings of empowerment among ordinary citizens. Furthermore, low voting turnouts point levels of political apathy amongst the population, which seriously undermines the effective functioning of democracy.

A second ready of issues concerns the question of those individuals who do not, for one reason or another, receive the full benefits of citizenship. 1 aspect of this is a result of continuing patterns of discrimination inside societies: minority groups may very often take formal citizenship of the state in which they are living just may still be prevented from full participation in that guild.

A 2nd attribute of the problem is a consequence of increasing globalisation, including new patterns of piece of work and migration, which leads to a pregnant number of people throughout the world being resident away but unable to apply for formal citizenship. Such people may include immigrant workers, refugees, temporary residents or even those who accept decided to set permanent residence in another country.

Question: Should immigrant workers be entitled to some of the benefits of citizenship, if non to formal citizenship?

A third attribute is the issue of statelessness. Although the right to a nationality is a human right guaranteed by international human being rights law, there are millions of people worldwide who are not nationals of any country. The UNHCR, the Un' refugee agency, estimates that there were 12 million stateless people at the end of 2010. Statelessness is often the outcome of the pause-up of countries such as the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, just stateless people may besides include displaced persons, expelled migrants, and those whose birth has non been registered with the authorities.

Forms of participation

Participation of the citizens in their authorities is thought to be the cornerstone of democracy, and it tin take place through different mechanisms and forms, and at various levels. Several models of participation have been developed, the earliest and probably the nearly well-known being Sherry Arnstein'due south ladder of participation (1969).

Arnstein identified 8 levels of participation, each corresponding to 1 rung of the ladder, with little or no denizen participation at one end to a fully denizen-led class at the other. The higher you are on the ladder, the more power you take in determining the upshot. The lesser two rungs – manipulation and therapy – are not participative and should be avoided. The next three up – informing, consultation and placation – are tokenistic; they allow citizens to accept a voice and be heard, but their views may non be properly considered by those in ability. The final iii steps – partnership, delegated power and citizen command – constitute real denizen ability and the fullest course of citizen participation.

Rights versus reality

Roma communities are routinely discriminated against in many parts of Europe. In some cases, Roma are denied citizenship of the countries in which they alive. When Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia broke up in the 1990s, some Roma were left without nationality because the successor states regarded them as belonging elsewhere, and implemented legislation that denied them citizenship. Furthermore, Roma parents who are stateless or accept migrated to another land often neglect to accept their children registered, even though such children are entitled to citizenship under international law. As a result, such children cannot access some of their fundamental rights such every bit health care or education. Other communities with itinerant lifestyles, for example the Travellers in United kingdom, may face similar problems.
Fifty-fifty when Roma are formally recognised as citizens they may be excluded from fully participating in their communities and treated in practice like second-class citizens, due to widespread discrimination and prejudice.

Arnstein's model was further developed by Roger Hart and adapted to the issue of children and youth participation. Hart stated that participation is a fundamental correct of citizenship⁷, because this is the way to learn what being a citizen ways and how to be one. Youth participation tin too be seen as a form of a youth-adult partnership. There are different degrees to which youth can exist involved or take over the responsibleness, depending on the local state of affairs, resource, needs and level of experience. Hart's ladder of participation illustrates different degrees of involvement of children and young people in projects, organisations or communities. These are the eight levels of youth involvement:

Rung eight: Shared determination making
Projects or ideas are initiated past immature people, who invite the adults to accept part in the
decision-making process equally partners.

Rung vii: Young-people led and initiated
Projects or ideas are initiated and directed by young people; the adults might be invited to provide necessary support, just a project can be carried out without their intervention.

Rung 6: Developed initiated, shared decisions with immature people
Projects are initiated by adults simply young people are invited to share the decision-making power and responsibilities as equal partners.

Rung 5: Young people consulted and informed
Projects are initiated and run by adults, but young people provide advice and suggestions and are informed equally to how these suggestions contribute to the terminal decisions or results.

Rung four: Immature people assigned merely informed
Projects are initiated and run past adults; young people are invited to take some specific roles or tasks within the project, but they are enlightened of what influence they have in reality.

Rung 3: Tokenism
Young people are given some roles within projects but they have no real influence on any decisions. There is a false appearance created (on purpose or unintentionally) that young people participate, when in fact they practise not accept whatsoever pick about what is being done and how.

Rung 2: Ornament
Young people are needed in the project to stand for youth as an underprivileged group. They take no meaningful role (except from beingness present) and, equally with decorations, they are put in a visible position inside a project or organisation, so that they tin can be like shooting fish in a barrel for outsiders to spot.

At that place are many ways in which young people play an active part equally citizens of their societies. In 2011, a survey of immature people aged between xv and 30 living in European union fellow member states was conducted to find out how immature EU citizens are participating in lodge. It focused on their participation in organisations (e.chiliad. sports clubs, voluntary organisations), political elections, voluntary activities and projects fostering co-functioning with young people in other countries.Rung 1: Manipulation
Young people are invited to have part in the project, but they have no real influence on decisions and the outcomes. In fact, their presence is used to achieve another goals, such as winning local elections, creating a better pic of an institution or securing some extra funds from institutions supporting youth participation.

The findings included the following:

• Beyond all countries, a minority of young people said they had been involved in activities aimed at fostering co-functioning with young people from other countries; this ranged from iv% in Italy to 16% in Austria.
• About a quarter of young adults had been involved in an organised voluntary activity in 2010. The highest rates were observed in Slovenia, Denmark, Ireland and holland (36%-40%).
• Among young people who were old enough to vote, roughly 8 in 10 said that they had voted in a political election at the local, regional, national or Eu level in the previous 3 years. This ranged from 67% in Luxembourg to 93% in Belgium (where voting is compulsory).
• Roughly a third of immature people in the European union had been active in a sports society in 2010. About a sixth had been involved in a youth system and i in 7 had participated in a cultural organisation'south activities.⁸

Question: How tin can you make your vocalisation heard in your youth group, organisation or schoolhouse?

Youth participation in the Council of Europe

The aim of the Council of Europe'southward youth policy is to provide young people -  girls and boys, immature women and young men -  with equal opportunities and experience which enable them to develop the knowledge, skills and competencies to play a total role in all aspects of society.⁹

The Council of Europe plays a major office in supporting and encouraging participation and active citizenship. Participation is primal to the Council's youth policy in various means:

• Youth policies should promote the participation of young people in the diverse spheres of society, especially those that are nearly straight relevant to them. This includes support for youth organisations, setting youth platforms or consultative bodies, recognising the role of students' councils and students' unions in the management of schools, and and then on.
• Youth policies should exist developed, implemented and evaluated with immature people, namely through ways that take into business relationship the priorities, perspectives and interests of young people and involve them in the procedure. This may exist done through youth councils and fora (national, regional or local) or/and through other ways of consulting immature people, including forms of e-participation.
• Youth policies and programmes should encourage participant-centred approaches to learning and action, such as in man rights education, through which participants exert and learn participation and citizenship.

These dimensions of youth participation reflect the approaches of the Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life, which stresses that:
to participate ways having influence on and responsibility for decisions and deportment that affect the lives of young people or are simply important to them. In practice, therefore, this could hateful voting in local elections as well as setting upward a youth organisation or an Internet forum to exchange data almost hobbies and interests or other creative ways of spending complimentary time. The charter's definition of participation as well shows a shift in the approach to young people and youth involvement. Young people are non treated as victims or as a vulnerable group that needs protection and help (the so-called "problem-based approach"). They are non treated as objects of adults' intervention, with the adults assuming that they know what is best for young people. Young people are at present seen as active players in organisations or in community life; they are seen as partners with lots of potential, talents and strengths. They should take the opportunity to express their needs and to find ways of satisfying them.^ten

The European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life¹¹ (produced in 1992 and revised in 2003) is an international policy document approved by the Congress of Local and Regional Regime of the Council of Europe. The Charter consists of three parts relating to different aspects of youth participation at a local level. The showtime provides local and regional authorities with guidelines on how to comport policies affecting young people in a number of areas. The second part provides the tools for furthering the participation of young people. Finally, the third section provides advice on how to provide institutional weather condition for the participation of young people.

The charter outlines 14 areas in which young people should be involved. They are the following:
1. sport, leisure and associative life
2. work and employment
3. housing and transport
iv. education and training
5. mobility and intercultural exchanges
six. wellness
7. equality for women and men
8. young people in rural areas
9. admission to culture
10. sustainable development and surround
11. violence and offense
12. anti-discrimination
13. honey and sexuality
14. admission to rights and law.

In a unique manner to implement youth participation in youth policy, the Council of Europe has introduced a co-management organization into its youth sector, where representatives of European non-governmental youth organisations and authorities officials work together to develop priorities for and make recommendations concerning youth. This co-management system consists of three bodies: the European Steering Commission for Youth, the Advisory Quango on Youth and the Articulation Council on Youth.
The Advisory Council is fabricated upwardly of 30 representatives from youth NGOs and networks, who provide opinions and input on all youth sector activities. Information technology has the task of for¬ mulating opinions and proposals on any question apropos youth, within the scope of the Council of Europe.
The European Steering Committee for Youth (CDEJ) consists of representatives of ministries and organisations responsible for youth matters from us parties to the European Cultural Convention. It encourages closer co-performance betwixt governments on youth issues and provides a forum for comparing national youth policies, exchanging best practices and drafting standard texts. The CDEJ also organises the Conferences of European Ministers with responsibility for youth matters and drafts youth policy laws and regulations in member states.
The Joint Quango on Youth brings the CDEJ and the Advisory Quango together in a co-conclusion body, which establishes the youth sector's priorities, objectives and budgets.

Endnotes

1 These four dimensions of Citizenship were developed by Ruud Veldhuis, in "Education for Democratic Citizenship: Dimensions of Citizenship, Core Competencies, Variables and International Activities", Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1997, document DECS/CIT (97) 23, quoted here from T-Kit 7 – Under Construction, T-Kit on European Citizenship, Quango of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg, 2003
two  T-Kit 7 – Under Construction, T-Kit on European Citizenship, Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg, 2003
3 Peter Lauritzen, keynote speech on participation presented at the preparation course on the development of and implementation of participation projects at local and regional level, European Youth Heart, June 2006
four Explanatory Report to the European Convention on Nationality, Article 2, para. 23:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/reports/html/166.htm#FN2
5 Megan Rowling quoting Thomas Hammarberg, Quango of Europe Commissioner for Man Rights in: "Rights Chief urges Europe to make stateless Roma citizens", AlertNet 23 August 2011: www.trust.org/alertnet/news/interview-european union-governments-should-give-stateless-roma-citizenship-commissioner
6 Sherry R. Arnstein, "A Ladder of Denizen Participation", JAIP, Vol. 35, No. four, July 1969, p 216.
seven Roger Hart, Children'due south Participation: from Tokenism to Citizenship, UNICEF Innocenti Research Middle, Florence, 1992
8 "Youth on the Move", Analytical Written report, European Commission, May 2011 http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_319a_en.pdf
9 Resolution of the Committee of Ministers (2008)23 on the youth policy of the Council of Europe
ten Have Your Say!, Manual on the revised European Lease on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life, Council of Europe Publishing, 2008
11 The Charter is available here: world wide web.salto-youth.net/downloads/four-17-1510/Revised%20European%20Charter%20on%20the%20Participation%20of%20YP.pdf
12 world wide web.coe.int/t/dg4/youth/Source/Coe_youth/Participation/Have_your_say_en.pdf
13 Learn more on the European Youth Forum website: www.youthforum.org

brigmangraid1944.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/citizenship-and-participation

Share this post