European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

284 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYprocesses, despite their social repercussion, should focus themselves,without doubt, on the development of the individual subjects.Education constitutes a formal process that equips the individualwith the basic tools necessary in order to get by in society. Education isseen as a more complex process than formation which, in essence,would consist of training 9 individuals as citizens to take a good look atthemselves in order to be able to deliberate, judge and make choicesregarding the basis of their own rational thoughts 10 .The main problem of the socialization process resides in the factthat its teaching has no direct relationship with the development ofcertain individual capacities such as rationality, creativity and autonomy.Such capacities should be the main qualities taken into account in ourpresent society, marked by change (to the point of rampant neophilia)and plurality (to the point of everything is accepted) and the fact thatcontroversy and social discrepancy which today’s society defines asrelevant attributes 11 .For all of these reasons there is a risk that the socialization processturns into an indoctrination process, if it is based on emotions ratherthan meditation and if it fails to stimulate the individual to think,analyse, argue and justify their opinions based on rational evidence,and on the other hand, offers enough emotional elements to nurturefeelings of adhesion, belonging and identification, which are all equallycapable of provoking conflicting attitudes (opposition, breaking-up,unwillingness to integrate and lack of identification).In order to avoid this undesired effect, it is recommended that inpost modern societies the socialization process carried out in schoolsbe compensated with another process that reinforces individualsubjects and touches on subjects such as individual thinking andresponsible social critique.Countersocialization, as Engle and Ochao 12 called this process,would be more or less integrated by those areas of society that cannotbe reached by socialization and would be orientated towards a9We could subscribe to Alain Touraine´s definition of the acceptance of the subject“I I term subject as the desire to be individual, to create personal history, to givemeaning to the sphere of experiences of individual life… The transformation ofindividuals into subjects is the result of the necessary combination of two affirmations:that of individuals versus communities and that of individuals versus the market“.1010. Carr, W. (1995) “Education and Democracy: Facing the Post-modernChallenge”; VV.AA,. Rethinking Education. Madrid, Morata-Paideia, Vol. 1, p. 96-11111Ranson, S. (1994) Towards the Learning Society. London, Casell.12Engle, S. H.; Ochoa, A. (1988) Education for democratic citizenship: Decisionmaking in the social studies. New York, Teachers College.