Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between subjective assessment of the fairness of people’s educational opportunities and their active social engagement, and how this relationship is embedded in different social environments. It is inspired by the CA’s understanding of the opportunity aspect of freedom and the importance of fairness of opportunities and used European Social Survey datа.

Paper long abstract:

Unlike existing research which has focused mainly on the effects of educational attainment on active citizenship, the present paper aims to study the relationship of subjective assessment regarding the fairness of people’s educational opportunities and their active social engagement, and how this relationship is embedded in different social environments.

Theoretically, the analysis is inspired by the capability approach’s (CA) understanding of the opportunity aspect of freedom and the importance of fairness of opportunities and processes. More specifically, the CA perspective implies that the attained educational level and years of schooling are not a sufficient measure when it comes to education, but that educational inequalities have to be also considered. According to Sen (Drèze & Sen, 2002: 6): “[t]his crucial role of social opportunities is to expand the realm of human agency and freedom, both as an end in itself and as a means of further expansion of freedom ...”

Sen (2009: 296) also argues that any theory of justice “has to be alive to both fairness of the processes involved and to the equity and efficiency of the substantive opportunities that people can enjoy”. The vital importance of the fairness of educational opportunities reflects the fact that educational inequalities are among the most important determinants of economic disparities and differences in individual civic participation. According to the CA, unjust inequality relates more to freedom to achieve rather than actual achievements. As Sen (1992: 148) puts it: “[i]f the social arrangements are such that a responsible adult is given no less freedom (in terms of set comparisons) than others, but he still wastes the opportunities and ends up worse off than others, it is possible to argue that no unjust inequality may be involved”.

Based on the above understanding of the importance of social opportunities in individuals’ personal and social lives, the present paper shifts the focus from the relationship between educational attainment and active citizenship to that of subjective assessments regarding the fairness of opportunities that people have to receive the education that they strive for and their active social engagement.

Our theoretical considerations also include the view of active citizenship as a multidimensional and domain-specific phenomenon. Taking into account previous research, we define active citizenship as individuals’ engagement with and participation in the political sphere, civil society, workplaces, and community life in accordance with human rights and democratic values and for the benefit of broader society. This definition outlines that active citizenship means not only involvement and participation in different social spheres but also personal engagement with their development, inspired by democratic values as well as care for others and society as a whole. It also suggests that active citizens do not limit their actions only to the political and civic spheres but are actively concerned with the development of their community and workplaces, as well.

Acknowledging that the relationship between education and active citizenship does not take place in a vacuum (e.g. Hoskins et al., 2008), this paper addresses the following two research questions (RQs):

RQ1: How are subjective assessments of the fairness of people’s opportunities to achieve the level of education that they desire associated with their active citizenship?

RQ2: How is the association between subjective fairness assessments of educational opportunities and active citizenship embedded in different socioeconomic contexts?

Empirically, we have used data from the European Social Survey (ESS), conducted in 2018 (ESS Round 9: European Social Survey Round 9 Data, 2018), because they include a special rotating module on “Justice and fairness”. The data were analysed with linear regression modelling.

We developed a scale of active citizenship. To do so, we selected 19 items and mapped them to four domains: political, social, workplace, and democratic values. We have then standardized the initial variables by converting them into z-scores. We used the composite active citizenship scale and its domain subindices as dependent variables in our analyses.

Our main independent variable reflects subjective assessments of the fairness of educational opportunities. We included as control variables in the models: the highest level of education, the highest parents’ level of education, age, gender, and the employment status.

In order to study the social embeddedness of the relationship between subjective assessments of the fairness of educational opportunities and active citizenship, we have considered the differences between countries based on their welfare regime. Following more differentiated classifications (e.g. Bohle & Greskovits, 2012; Roosmaa & Saar, 2017), we have grouped the 29 European countries into eight welfare state regimes: liberal; social democratic; conservative; Mediterranean; post-socialist, neoliberal; post-socialist, embedded neoliberal; post-socialist, Balkan EU, and post-socialist, Balkan non-EU type.

Our findings show that a higher perceived unfairness of educational opportunities is associated with lower levels of active citizenship. They also reveal that there is not only a negative relationship between the perceived unfairness of people’s opportunities to receive a desired level of education and their active citizenship as a whole, but also with regard to its domains. Only in the case of the political domain there is no statistically significant relationship. It is important to be emphasized that the results show that the relationship between the subjective assessments of the fairness of educational opportunities with active citizenship differs by the welfare regime. For example, although the higher is the perceived unfairness the lower is one’s level of active citizenship if one lives in a country with socio-democratic regime, he or she has a higher level of active citizenship in comparison to people who live in a liberal country.

By investigating how the subjective assessment of people’s opportunities to obtain the level of education that they desire is associated with their active citizenship, our study broadens the very understanding of the ways and mechanisms through which education contributes to active citizenship. It also reveals the heuristic potential of the CA for understanding the importance of educational opportunities as a separate factor influencing people’s activities. Lastly, the analyses demonstrate the social embeddedness of the association between subjective assessments of the fairness of people’s opportunities to achieve a desired level of education and their active citizenship.