Citizen Consciousness in Cambodia: Politic-Didactical Reconstruction of a Social Accountability Project

Johannes Ph. Backhaus applies the Model of Education Reconstruction (MER) to the context of a social accountability intervention in Cambodia. This book is not an evaluation but adopts a qualitative perspective on the learning approach applied by the researched intervention. The research found that the learning intervention does not systematically include learners’ pre-existing social knowledge.
It would potentially benefit from systematically harvesting and reinforcing pre-held convictions to sustainably motivate participation. It does not address potentially sensitive topics while interviewees show a sophisticated and holistic understanding of these. Finally, there are inconsistencies between the program’s aims and objectives. In sum, the piloted approach offers pathways on how to beneficially include qualitative perspectives on similar development interventions.

Contents
■ Decentralization and social accountability in Cambodia
■ Academic and programmatic citizenships
■ (global) citizenship education and I-SAF’s approach
■ Empirical citizenship constructions in Cambodia
■ Conclusions for the researched program

Target Groups
■ Researchers in (didactics of) political education, research on democracy, citizenship studies, development policy
■ Practitioners in social accountability

Author
Johannes Ph. Backhaus is a development practitioner with more than ten years work experience in different civil society organisations predominantly focussed on supporting engagement and advocacy.