Civic Competence in the Logic of Openness: A Phenomenological Approach

The article offers a phenomenological view on civic competency, openness of education, and values as type of competencies. The need for such a comparison is dictated by the discrepancy between the humanistic meanings of education and the social reality in which they are supposed to be implemented. It is assumed that a phenomenological perspective can present civic competency as a borderline connecting both the areas. This study is methodically supported by explication of the philosophical (transcendental-phenomenological) logic of the concept of openness.

The appeal to openness, which is the essence of human subjectivity (autonomy), clarifies the substantive character of civic competency structure.

Firstly, the study underlines the connection between openness and universalism as cultural principle (that is, in culture and through culture) of self-determination of the mind, constituting civic mindedness as a universal moral and legal modus of subjectivity. Bringing the civic idea to the competency range is the own task of education, which can be accomplished only in continuous actualization of the concept of openness.

Secondly, the article proposes to consider the concept of value in the meaning of “type of competencies” according to the Council of Europe’s “Reference Framework of Competence for Democratic Culture” as a tool for crystallizing the self-determining mind into civic competency. Attention to this document is drawn by the coherence of openness and universalism with educational policies and practices, which is formalized in the pedagogical design of values as a type of competence. The study’s argumentation confirms this connection and ascertains that an open edu­cational system is defined in its essence not by a set of accessible educational environment technologies, but by the depth of its rooting in the logic of openness.

Thirdly, the actualization of values as a type of competence in the logic of openness provides an opportunity for phenomenological designing of pedagogical technologies. The essential idea of this approach is that civic competency can be constituted as a semantic determination of different types of subject knowledge and, through their correction, can transform broad social contexts. As an example of that sort of transformative participation, the article presents the values’ influence on the strengthening of human capital in aggregation of new technologies and inequality.

1. Rumyantsev O.K. Reproduction and Construction in European Thought, Metamorfozy razuma v evropeiskoi kul’ture: k filosofskim istokam sovremennykh problem obrazovaniya [Mind Metamorphoses in European Culture: On the Philosophical Roots of Contemporary Educational Problems]. Moscow, Progress-Traditsiya Publ., 2010, pp. 289—400 (in Russ.).

2. Shemanov A.Yu. Samoidentifikatsiya cheloveka i kul’tura [Human Self-Identification and Culture]. Moscow, Akademicheskii Proekt Publ., 2007, 479 p.

3. Sogomonov A. Grazhdanskoe obrazovanie v kontekstakh mirovoi istorii [Civic Education in the World History Contexts]. Moscow, Shkola Grazhdanskogo Prosveshcheniya Publ., 2018, 141 p.

4. Rotman D. Technology and Inequality, MIT Technology Review, 2014, October 21. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531726/technology-and-inequality (accessed 15.08.2020).

5. Acemoglu D. Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market, Journal of Economic Literature, 2002, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 7—72. Available at: https://www.nber.org/papers/w7800 (accessed 15.08.2020).

6. Acemoglu D., Restrepo P. Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets (March 2017), NBER Working Paper, 2017, no. w23285, 91 p. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2941263 (accessed 15.08.2020).

7. Acquier A., Carbone V., Masse D. How to Create Value(s) in the Sharing Economy: Business Models, Scalability, and Sustainability. Technology Innovation Management Review, 2019, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 5—24. Available at: https://timreview.ca/article/1215 (accessed 15.08.2020).

8. Berger T., Frey S.B. Future Shocks and Shifts: Challenges for the Global Workforce and Skills Development, OECD Publ., 2017, 34 p.

9. Kurennoi V. On the Problem of Personality in the Russian Pedagogical Discourse of the Mid-19th — Early 20th Century, Personal’nost’. Yazyk filosofii v russko-nemetskom dialoge [Personality. The Language of Philosophy in the Russian-German Dialogue]. Moscow, Modest Kolerov Publ., 2007, 478 p.

10. Weinberg J., Flinders M. Learning for Democracy: The Politics and Practice of Citizenship Education, British Educational Research Journal, 2018, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 573—592.

11. Chernyak L.S. Vechnost’ i vremya: vozvrashchenie zabytoi temy [Eternity and Time: The Forgotten Topic Returning]. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriya Publ., 2014, 694 p.

12. Chernyak L.S. Position 1.1. Rationality of Culture, Teoreticheskaya kul’turologiya [Theoretical Cultural Studies]. Moscow, Akademicheskii Proekt Publ., Yekaterinburg, Delovaya Kniga Publ., RIK Publ., 2005, pp. 30—42 (in Russ.).

13. Kant I. Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? I. Kant. Sochineniya: v 4 t. na nemetskom i russkom yazykakh [I. Kant. Works: in 4 volumes in German and Russian]. Moscow, AO “Kami” Publ., 1993, vol. I, pp. 125—147 (in Russ.).

14. Kant I. About the Saying “This May Be Right in Theory but Is Not Suitable for Practice”, I. Kant. Sochineniya: v 4 t. na nemetskom i russkom yazykakh [I. Kant. Works: in 4 volumes in German and Russian]. Moscow, AO “Kami” Publ., 1993, vol. I, pp. 239—351 (in Russ.).

15. Kant I. Kritika chistogo razuma [Critique of Pure Reason]. Moscow, Eksmo Publ., 2007, 734 p.

16. Solovyov E.Yu. I. Kant: vzaimodopolnitel’nost’ morali i prava [I. Kant: Complementarity of Morals and Law]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 210 p.

17. Gibelev I.V. A Man in a Hybrid World: Borders after Postmodern, Kontsept: filosofiya, religiya, kul’tura [Concept: Philosophy, Religion, Culture], 2017, no. 4, pp. 78—88 (in Russ.).

18. Barrett M. (ed.) Interculturalism and Multiculturalism: Similarities and Differences. Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing, 2013, 188 p.

19. David H. Skills, Education, and the Rise of Earnings Inequality among the “Other 99 Percent”, Science, 2014, vol. 344, no. 6186, pp. 843—851. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/96768 (accessed 15.08.2020).

20. OECD-2030. Future of Education and Skills 2030: Conceptual Learning Framework. Paris, OECD Publ., 2018, 29 p.

21. Husserl E. Logicheskie issledovaniya. Kartezianskie razmyshleniya. Krizis evropeiskikh nauk i transtsendental’naya fenomenologiya. Krizis evropeiskogo chelovechestva i filosofiya. Filosofiya kak strogaya nauka [Logical Investigations. Cartesian Meditations. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. The Crisis of European Man and Philosophy. Philosophy as a Rigorous Science]. Minsk, Kharvest Publ., Moscow, AST Publ., 2000, 752 p.

22. Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. Vol. 2. Descriptors of Competences for Democratic Culture. Council of Europe Publishing, 2018, 65 p.

23. Dvenadtsat’ reshenii dlya novogo obrazovaniya: doklad Tsentra strategicheskikh razrabotok i Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki [12 Solutions for a New Education: Report by the Center for Strategic Research and the Higher School of Economics]. Moscow, Tsentr Strategicheskikh Razrabotok Publ., Vysshaya Shkola Ekonomiki Publ., 2018, 105 p.

24. Recommendation CM/Rec(2012)13 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on Ensuring Quality Education, European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe: official website. Available at: https://www.ecml.at/Portals/1/documents/CoE-documents/CMRec2012-13_quality_EN.pdf?ver=2016-11-29-113145-700 (accessed 15.08.2020).

25. Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. Vol. 1. Context, Concepts and Model. Council of Europe Publishing, 2018, 89 p.

26. Kant I. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, I. Kant. Sochineniya: v 4 t. na nemetskom i russkom yazykakh [I. Kant. Works: in 4 volumes in German and Russian]. Moscow, Moskovskii Filosofskii Fond Publ., 1997, vol. III, pp. 39—275 (in Russ.).

27. Porter M.E., Kramer M.R. The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value, Harvard Business Review, January-February 2011, pp. 549—554. Available at: https://docplayer.net/21118328-The-big-idea-creating-shared-value-rethinking-capitalism.html (accessed 15.08.2020).

28. Kramer M.R., Pfitzer M.W. The Ecosystem of Shared Value, Harvard Business Review. Boston, 2016, vol. 94, no. 10, pp. 80—89. Available at: https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-ecosystem-of-shared-value (accessed 15.08.2020).

29. Beutin N. Share Economy 2017. The New Business Model, PWC Publ., 2018, 58 p.

30. Frumin I.D., Dobryakova M.S., Barannikov K.A., Remorenko I.M. The Universal Competencies and the New Literacy: What to Teach Today for Success Tomorrow, Sovremennaya analitika obrazovaniya [Modern Education Analytics], 2018, no. 2 (19), pp. 1—25 (in Russ.).

31. Plotnikov N.S., Haardt A., Molchanov V.I. (eds). Personal’nost’. Yazyk filosofii v russko-nemetskom dialoge [Personality: Language of Philosophy in German-Russian Dialogue]. Moscow, Modest Kolerov Publ., 2007, 478 p.

32. Martin C.J. The Sharing Economy: A Pathway to Sustainability or a Nightmarish Form of Neoliberal Capitalism? Ecological Economics, 2016, vol. 121, pp. 149—159. Available at: https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2017/HEN445/um/67863091/67863283/Martin_2016_The_sharing_economy_1_1_.pdf (accessed 15.08.2020).

33. Torney-Purta J., Cabrera J.C., Roohr K.C., Liu O.L., Rios J.A. Assessing Civic Competency and Engagement in Higher Education: Research Background, Frameworks and Directions for Next-Generation Assessment (Research Report No RR-15-34). Princeton, NJ, Educational Testing Service Publ. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ets2.12081 (accessed 15.08.2020).

34. Steinberg K.S., Norris K.E. Assessing Civic Mindedness. Diversity & Democracy, 2011, no. 14 (3), pp. 12—14. Available at: https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/2718/Assessing%20Civic%20Mindedness.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (accessed 15.08.2020).