Mbwika, Stephen Kiio (2022) Centering voices from the political margins: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Civil Society Organisations' Civic Education approaches in Promoting Youth Political Participation in Kenya. Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
Suppose educators are to revitalize the language of civic education as part of a
broader discourse of political agency and critical Citizenship in a global world. In
that case, they will have to consider grounding such a pedagogy in defense of
militant Utopian thinking in which any viable notion of the political takes up the
primacy of pedagogy as part of a broader attempt to revitalize the conditions for
the individual and social agency while simultaneously addressing the most
fundamental problems facing the prospects for social justice and global
democracy.
Henry Giroux (Winter 2004, p.36)
The overall aim of this research is to identify and evaluate the civic education
approaches used by civil society organizations to promote the participation of youth in
political processes in Kenya, as well as propose the adoption of critical pedagogy as the
most effective in empowering youth to be transformative agents of their society. The
study used a qualitative approach and employed semi-structured interviews as the data
collection method. The study draws from the perceptions and experiences of eight civil
society organizations and finds a direct correlation between the values and ontological
positions the civil society brings to the field and the civic education approach, which in
turn affects the civic knowledge acquisition of the youths. The study also found that
most of the approaches used by civil society in Kenya are rooted in a deliberative
pedagogy that often has little focus on power inequalities that are at the core of the
political system. Consequently, the study draws from Frearean pedagogical principles to
propose adopting a critical pedagogical approach in the youth civic education programs.
This research adds to the body of knowledge on youth civic engagement by suggesting
a pedagogical approach that is most suited when empowering disillusioned and
apathetic youth, as is the case with the Kenyan Youth.
Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
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Keywords: | Civil Society Organizations; Civic Education; Pedagogy; Political Participation; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Adult and Community Education |
Item ID: | 17701 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 17 Oct 2023 09:30 |
URI: | https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/17701 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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