This project, facilitated through WISERD and the Ecole Normale Superieure, Lyon, is exploring the contrasting relationship between education, the state and civil society in Wales and France.
France and the UK provide two important contexts in which to explore these issues as the relationship between the state, the education system and civil society is very different. It is against this contrasting political and historical background that we sought to examine young people’s engagement with civil society in Wales and France, whether they place greater trust in the voluntary sector or the state and what the implications of increasing voluntary sector involvement in education might mean for their future relationship with civil society.
The data derive from two questionnaire surveys that involved nearly one thousand young people in South Wales (collected through the ESRC WISERD Civil Society programme of research) and over 200 young people in Lyon..
Preliminary findings have been shared at the WISERD-Triangle conference, held in May 2018, and are currently being prepared for publication.