Ewa Krzaklewska

Erasmus and Citizenship

Since 2014, a range of actions associated with the preceding Youth in Action initiative have been interpolated into the Erasmus programme, including voluntary placements and other forms of short duration exchange. In this chapter, we elaborate upon the shift away from academic mobility and towards establishing a clearer personal-political agenda in Erasmus+. We also examine the potential role of Erasmus in encouraging active citizenship, taking into account the value of mobility to its realization. Evidence is used from empirical material gathered in Estonia in the form of interviews with young people conducted before and approximately seven months after they had participated in a mobility project, with specific emphasis on the development of citizenship competences.

The Erasmus Impetus

In this chapter, we acknowledge international conviviality as an important driver of Erasmus participation for students, with the communal nature of exchanges being one of the main reasons for the programme’s longevity and success. Using evidence gathered from Erasmus candidates in Italy and interviewees in Germany, we are able to illustrate what an exchange visit means in terms of future personal and professional development. This constitutes an original approach to understanding the impetus to participate in the programme, including the formal application procedure, the initiation of a dialogue between the student and Erasmus authorities, and the experience of entering a competitive selection procedure at European level for what may be the first time.

Erasmus and Employability

In this chapter we take an in-depth look at one of the main theoretical constructs underpinning the Erasmus programme: the idea of ‘employability’. Taking a sociologically informed view, we define ‘employability’ as a form of reflexivity to be practiced during the transition from tertiary education to the labour market. Understanding employability involves appreciating the need to link potential employees and employers, with educators and trainers providing a crucial meditative role in this relationship. Erasmus provides a pedagogical habitus within which this form of reflexivity is imaginatively conjoined with intra-European mobility. The idea is to make students capable of working across national boundaries, acquiring the capacity to engage in transnational circulation and establish professional relationships that traverse national fields, including the development of pragmatic skills, such as foreign language fluency, and an appreciation of cultural diversity.

Conclusions: A Changing Erasmus

In the closing chapter of the book, we bring together insights from the preceding discussion and consider the present state of Erasmus and its future prospects. In doing so, we reiterate the idea that Erasmus is, fundamentally, a pedagogical tool for the learning of mobility and building mobility capacity among European youth. While there is potential for Erasmus to contribute to innovation and economic development in the European Union, there are few signs that this is actually taking place. What is clearer is that the programme faces many challenges and needs to adapt to changing circumstances, with much of Europe appearing to be more concerned with introducing new borders rather than overcoming existing barriers to circulation.

The Quality of Mobility

In an effort to understand how the Erasmus programme is made accountable to policymakers and European taxpayers, and managed as a ‘product’ by civil society organisations, we look at the regulation of quality within non-formal education mobility projects. Discussion in this chapter includes looking at work undertaken by the European Platform for Learning Mobility (EPLM) in benchmarking mobility and key documents such as the Green Paper on Learning Mobility, policy recommendations and the creation of a Charter on Quality in Learning Mobility.