The Acts of Citizenship as the Basis for Defining the Aims of Citizenship Education

This presentation reformulates the concept of "acts of citizenship," as introduced by Engin Isin (Isin 2008, Isin 2015), and explores the implications of this theoretical shift for defining the aims of citizenship education. Isin characterizes acts of citizenship as ruptures in the established social order, contrasting his approach with mainstream understandings of citizenship that tend to reproduce the status quo. The innovation proposed in this paper reconceptualizes acts of citizenship as answerable narrative practices, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s ontology of dialogics. Bakhtin views social and cultural change and reproduction not as opposing forces, but as mutually constitutive moments within a broader process of becoming (Bakhtin 1981). By extending the ontological foundation of the concept of acts of citizenship, this approach integrates the ideals of both transformation and continuity into the model of citizenship. The paper discusses the implications of this innovation for defining the aims of citizenship education, advocating for a shift beyond merely supporting social interests related to either enforcing reproduction or rupture. Instead, it calls for critical and dialogic engagement with the tensions between different social interests.