Social Contracts 101: Bringing Social Contract Theory and Praxis to School(s)

Written by Rui F. Carvalho and André Caiado, Postdoctoral Researchers at the

Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra (Portugal).

As European societies face multiple societal challenges, developing a pedagogy of social contracts can be valuable for overcoming crises, strengthening democracy, fostering social inclusivity, and reinforcing social citizenship. This post reflects on the CO3-CES team’s experience conducting workshops with high-school students in Portugal on social contracts and how they can shape our societies.

How much do high school students in Portugal learn (and know) about social contracts? And how can students learn the history, the epistemologies, and the heuristics of such an abstract philosophical, political, and sociological concept, which moreover encompasses multiple perspectives? And is this concept and its derivations of any use for these youth’s education and for their daily lives?

This is what we tried to find out, as we designed two 90-minute workshops and went to schools across Portugal to talk about social contracts. The first workshop used a format based on a “who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire” type quiz, whereby youth learned about the basics of the past, present and possible future(s) of social contracts interactively. The second workshop used Hip Hop to critique and discuss socioeconomic inequalities and extant (ecological, class, gendered, racialized) tensions in contemporary social contracts.

Altogether, and considering the two workshop formats, we facilitated: seventeen workshops, in eleven schools, across eight cities, for a combined audience of almost 800 students, from different curricular paths (and about 40 teachers and other school-based staff). So, what exactly were we able to discover through these (ad)ventures?

First, how much do students know about the social contract? The short reply is: hardly anything! Aside from (literally) a couple of puzzled: “Oh yes, we discussed that in passing in History or Philosophy class, at some point,” the social contract was nothing but a vague notion amongst these students.

Hence, our first conclusion is straightforward: High school students in Portugal do not (substantively) engage with the social contract in their school curricula. As the European Union seems to be growingly interested in developing this concept as a heuristic for social and political citizenship, far more groundwork to make (young) citizens acquainted with it is thus necessary.

And how can this be pursued in educational settings? This is surely a wider question, whose discussion would involve tackling issues related to pedagogical methods, the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms, and strategies for fostering participation amongst students. While pursuing such an all-encompassing reflection goes beyond the scope of this brief intervention, our experience did provide some worthy insights. Namely, facilitating two very different, in both their aims and pedagogical underpinnings, workshops made us aware of the benefits that can be accrued from exploring the existing complementarities between them. 

The quiz model was more effective at content production and knowledge acquisition about the conceptual dimensions of the social contract, and its history and main theoretical underpinnings. Reciprocally, the Hip Hop format had greater potential to foster reflexivity and social critical thinking, and develop values such as empathy and inclusivity. Altogether, each format had its own strengths, which therefore adds worth to their complementary use.

Which leads us to jump straight to our third question: Is the social contract (encompassing its multiple variations) a valuable educational concept? Again, if the European Union appears interested in using the social contract as a guiding concept towards an active European social and political citizenship, then it would be crucial for this notion to be understood by its young citizens.

However, our own post-workshop reflections lead us to contend that the advantages of teaching the social contract in schools are more than merely instrumental. These educational benefits extend to social contract’s capability to connect rights, responsibilities, and citizenship; to strengthen citizenship principles and democratic values; to make democracy concrete and deliberative; to connect personal experience(s) with collective life; and to create opportunities for youth to debate common values and possible ways to address societal challenges.

In other words, the social contract is not only something students can and should learn about, but also something they can learn through.

To summarize, our experiences teaching the social contract allowed us to reach three main takeaways. First, high school students in Portugal have an incipient knowledge about the social contract. And getting them acquainted with it requires a multimethod teaching experience, able to hone social contract’s conceptual diversity and many educational, pedagogical, and civic benefits.

As the European Union faces deep crises and anti-democratic tensions and challenges, educating young Europeans about and through the social contract is crucial for enhancing their social and political citizenship, strengthening deliberative democracy, and fostering social cohesion. In light of all this, it will thus surely serve European democracies well to start bringing the social contract to school(s).