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Paper short abstract

To deal with the uncertainties caused by their country’s financial crisis, young Greeks try to improve their CVs by participating extensively in market-oriented educational school programs, promoted by the European Union and the UN.

Paper long abstract

The financial crisis in Greece has caused a lot of uncertainty among young people of all ages. One of their responses to it has been to try to enhance their CVs by adopting the so-called "lifelong learning strategies", which provide for future vocational skills and promote a managerial ethos. To accomplish this goal, they participate in a plethora of educational, yet entertaining, programs ("edutainment"), made available, since the late 1990s, to member states by the European Union and affiliated organizations (UN, World Bank, OECD). I will present two cases of "edutaining" projects in which thousands of Greek pupils participate enthusiastically. First, the intra-European electronic school twinnings (e-Twinning), where e-Twinners are asked to become competent users of ICTs; to cultivate their "creativity" by (re-)combining all sorts of knowledge and information (related to school curricula); to learn how to work both in teams and individually in order to develop "cooperativeness" and "flexibility", "self-management" and "self-esteem". Second, the international role-playing game known as "Model UN" (MUN), where pupils play, face-to-face, the part of the UN-member states' diplomats. MUNers are asked to become competent in argumentation, negotiation, lobbying, and flexibility, akin to those of "salespersons" and "politicians". I explore pupils' interpretations of the projects' promising goals: the preparation of productive and flexible citizens, who learn fast and can cope with, and adapt to, vocational changes. I also investigate the extent to which pupils are aware of the uncertainties inherent to these market-oriented programs: is it job finding that they promise or mere "employability"?