Education and social participation : civic identity and civic action in formal and informal education contexts

In this chapter, we argue that the development of civic identity through education is a social achievement. When opinions about how the world should be are experienced as social identity (‘we’) rather than as personal identity (‘me’), then they gain increased power to bring about change (see McGarty, Lala and Thomas, 2012; Smith, Thomas and McGarty, 2015). We describe empirical work showing that people can come to a new understanding of themselves (identity) and the civic world that they live in (participation) through structured group interaction or discussion (Thomas and McGarty, 2009); Thomas, McGarty and Mavor, 2009; Thomas, Smith, McGarty and Postmes, 2010; see also Campbell, 2008). Other work shows social identity transformation through an intervention where university students learn to oppose everyday racism (Pedersen, Paradies, Hartley and Dunn, 2011). Finally, we discuss how providing support for people recovering from severe trauma (genocide survivors) precipitates identity change and promotes global civic engagement (McGarty et al., 2012).