An approach to the current debate on citizenry in its right to education: recalling Francisco Giner de los Ríos Authors Eugenio Otero Urtaza Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Espanya Keywords: active citizenry, right to education, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, nonformal education, citizen participation. Abstract Being a free, active citizen is not an achievement that is unrelated to a context in which each person can be fully educated. A citizenry that has initiative and moves at the rhythm of a set of values that we esteem positive does not stem from a neglected education system. Education is currently a right for everyone without restriction or diminution in any group, but it is not enough to merely state it, we need the young generations to manage to actively flourish within a community and to learn to live alongside other groups that are different to their own. In this article an analysis is made of the construction of the idea of European citizenry in its recent history, and the thinking of Francisco Giner de los Ríos is recovered, especially as regards his idea of the «social persona» which is most useful to understand the nature of what we now call non-government organisations and the educational action they carry out.Key words: active citizenry, right to education, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, nonformal education, citizen participation. Author Biography Eugenio Otero Urtaza, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Espanya Downloads PDF (Català) PDF PDF (Español) Issue No. 27 (2016): gener-juny Section Monographic theme License The intellectual property of articles belongs to the respective authors. On submitting articles for publication to the journal Educació i Història: Revista d'Història de l'Educació, authors accept the following terms:Authors assign to Society for the History of Education in Catalan-speaking countries (a subsidiary of Institut d’Estudis Catalans) the rights of reproduction, communication to the public and distribution of the articles submitted for publication to Educació i Història: Revista d'Història de l'Educació.Authors answer to Society for the History of Education in Catalan-speaking countries for the authorship and originality of submitted articles.Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for the reproduction of all graphic material included in articles.The Society for the History of Education in Catalan-speaking countries declines all liability for the possible infringement of intellectual property rights by authors.The contents published in the journal, unless otherwise stated in the text or in the graphic material, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd) 3.0 Spain licence, the complete text of which may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/deed.en. Consequently, the general public is authorised to reproduce, distribute and communicate the work, provided that its authorship and the body publishing it are acknowledged, and that no commercial use and no derivative works are made of it.The journal is not responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors of the published articles.