Participatory budgets at universities in Poland as a tool for educating young citizens

Abstract

In addition to enabling students to acquire the knowledge and competencies necessary for their professions, higher education institutions should also support the formation of broad civic attitudes among students. University participatory budgets (PB) are an example of a tool for reaching this goal. The purpose of the presented research was to analyse the degree and scope of their use by public universities in Poland, with particular focus on the context in which PBs educate young citizens. The aim of the study was to fill the research gap regarding the lack of knowledge about the scale, importance and potential educational dimensions of PB implemented at public universities, by means of analysing the use of PBs at all 92 public universities. To this end, the budget regulations, orders, informational material and other documents available on the universities’ websites regarding participatory budgets were studied, which enabled the identification of 19 universities that implement processes meeting PB criteria, and 17 of including students in the process. Analysis of the data showed significant variation in terms of the scale, scope and stakeholders involved in BP processes, and although it should be noted that the educational goals are not directly indicated by universities, a number of activities were identified in the research that could ensure the achievement of differentiated educational outcomes at different stages of the PB process.