An ideology critique of global citizenship education

ABSTRACT

In the last two decades, global citizenship education (GCE) has become a catchphrase used by international and national educational agencies, as well as researchers, to delineate the increasing internationalisation of education, framed as an answer to the growing globalisation and the high values of citizenship. These developments, however, have created issues, due to the presence of two conflicting discourses. While the discourse of critical democracy highlights the importance of ethical values, social responsibility and active citizenry, a neoliberal discourse privileges instead a market-rationale, focused on self-investment and enhanced profits. These two discourses are not separated; they rather appear side by side, causing a confusing effect. This article aims to analyse GCE as an ideology, unveiling not only its hidden (discursive) content but also the role played by non-discursive elements in guaranteeing the coexistence of antagonistic discourses. It will be argued that not only the critical democratic discourse does not offer any resistance or threat to the neoliberal structuring of higher education, but also this discourse can function as an apologetic narrative that exculpates all of us who still want to work in universities, notwithstanding our dissatisfaction with their current commodification.     

Global citizenship education: mainstreaming the curriculum?

There has been a resurgence of interest in global education in the UK as global issues are included within the requirements of citizenship education in national curricula. This paper examines the significance attached to global citizenship through Citizenship as a statutory subject at Key Stages 3 and 4 within the National Curriculum for England. Drawing on a web‐based project funded by the UK Department for International Development, the paper analyses a number of secondary school texts designed to support teachers and students in incorporating global perspectives into citizenship education. It seeks to answer the question: in what ways is global citizenship being mainstreamed? It suggests that NGOs and commercial publishers have different but complementary approaches to resources for global citizenship and that there is a strong case for greater collaboration between the two sectors.     

From civic to citizenship education: Toward a stronger citizenship orientation in the Ethiopian CEE curriculum

Recent research on Civic and Ethical Education (CEE) in Ethiopia has revealed a need for improvement in a number of areas with regard to the current CEE curricula. These materials are currently oriented to a conservative form of civic education than on citizenship education, whose aims are more progressive. The essential problem identified in the present study is that CEE content does not match the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s stated goals for CEE, including the promotion of global citizenship. An inductive method was used to categorize themes found in the CEE curricula and textbook, which were analyzed with reference to Tawil’s (2013) framework for education for global citizenship. A concept in textual analysis known as ‘internal critique’ was also utilized to identify inconsistencies in the materials between the stated aims of the CEE program and the textbook content itself. The analysis revealed three main characteristics of the CEE textbooks, namely, an emphasis on sovereignty, patriotism, and responsibility; ambivalence to Ethiopia’s independence from/dependence on wealthier nations, and abstraction in CEE content. This content does only partially match the Ethiopian government’s stated aims for CEE. The findings of this study suggest that the content of the ethical dimension of Ethiopia’s CEE curriculum could be greatly improved through the inclusion of content that reflects an emphasis on citizenship education. Such an approach is more progressive than civic education and promotes a more learner-centered and critical orientation to ethical issues on the part of students within the framework of Global Citizenship Education (GCE).     

Social literacy and citizenship education in the school curriculum

This article explores citizenship education's need to focus on both ‘political’ and ‘social’ literacy within a communitarian framework. The Crick Report (1998; see also Lahey, Crick and Porter, 1974), while recognizing that the social dimension of citizenship education was a precondition for both the civic and political dimensions, concentrated largely on ‘political’ literacy. This article examines the social dimension of citizenship education. Concern with the social dimension of the curriculum in schools is not a recent interest, but changes within society have accelerated the social demands made upon schools. At the very least, society expects schools to correct the behaviour of children and to teach them values which usually means insisting on ‘good’ behaviour. The social development of pupils has thus assumed a much greater place in the aspirations of schools. Programmes of personal and social education, together with citizenship education, invariably emphasize a range of social skills and these skills are introduced early and built upon throughout the years of schooling. An individual's sense and ability to make socially productive decisions do not develop by themselves; rather, they require knowledge, values and skills. Above all opportunities are required for children to experience social relations in such a way that they are able to operate critically within value-laden discourses and thereby to become informed and ethically empowered, active citizens.     

Cultural capital and agency: connecting critique and curriculum in higher education

This paper explores some of the unresolved tensions in higher education systems and the contradiction between widening participation and the consolidation of social position. It shows how concepts of capital derived from Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam provide a powerful basis for critique, but risk a deficit view of students from less privileged backgrounds. These students are more likely to attend lower‐status institutions and engage with an externally focused curriculum. The paper argues for greater attention to agency, and community and familial capital, in conceptualising the resilience of those from less privileged backgrounds. While the recognition of ‘voice’ is important, a curriculum that acknowledges the context independence of knowledge is essential if these students are not to be further disadvantaged.     

Moral education and values education in curriculum reform in China

In the new curriculum reform in China, moral education and values education have been defined from the angles of the integrity and conformity of curriculum functions. Accordingly, a new education concept based on complete/integral curriculum functions is established. By discussing the essences of the curriculum, the basis of moral and values education, integrated curriculum setting in instruction structure, the presence of emotional and attitudinal goals in the subject standards, and teaching methods, this text points out that this curriculum reform looks to moral and values education in schools. The reform also emphasizes and will guarantee moral and values education in schools. Finally, the article recommends to elementary and secondary schools the studies on moral education in class conducted by the Research Institute of Moral Education of Nanjing Normal University, one of the Key Bases for Humanities and Social Sciences Research for the Ministry of Education. __________ Translated from Global Education, 2002:12     

Discovering democracy: an analysis of curriculum policy for citizenship education

Citizenship education has become the focus of renewed interest internationally as governments are struggling with issues of national identity in an era of globalisation where there is much ‘talk’ of threats to the legitimacy of nation states. Within this context, the Australian Commonwealth Government took another step in an accelerating trend of becoming involved in curriculum policy with the introduction of its citizenship education curriculum package, Discovering Democracy, in the late 1990s. Legally, education in Australia is a State government responsibility. However, over the last half century, the Commonwealth Government has increasingly set education agendas, justified in terms of'the national interest’ and has achieved them using financial levers which result from the vertical fiscal imbalance between the Commonwealth and the States.

This article examines citizenship curriculum policy processes and practices associated with the enactment of the Commonwealth's Discovering Democracy curriculum package in the State of Western Australia (WA). The study employed a framework of a policy trajectory extending from the Commonwealth Government (macro level) through State (WA) policy enactment (meso level) to individual classrooms (micro level). Documents and interviews with key players, including the Commonwealth Minister for Education, were the main data sources.

Analysis of the policy process revealed the emergence of power struggles as a result of the provision of a national curriculum on citizenship education by the Commonwealth Government, and these struggles occurred at national, State and local levels. These power struggles resulted in extensive transformation of Commonwealth and State level policy intent as the policy enactment proceeded at the classroom level. The study demonstrates the need for better alignment of conceptualisations and discourses in the processes of curriculum development if a greater congruence is to be achieved between expectations and realities in curriculum renewal. Meta‐level issues to emerge from the data, in particular the nature of policy consultative processes and the construction of teacher professional identity, have broader implications for education policy processes in other domains and in other countries.     

Subject English as citizenship education

This article is equal parts educational history and political philosophy. We aim to remind readers that subject English (SE) and indeed state education emerge from the contradictory impulses of classical liberalism, and that, more than simply resembling citizenship education, SE emerges in the first instance as a form of highly normativising citizenship education. We further argue that, following England's recent educational reforms initiated by former Education Secretary Michael Gove, SE continues to be framed in moral terms consistent with citizenship education—again, of a highly normativising sort. England's current educational policy generally, and specifically the framing of SE, employs the language of liberal possibility, while ultimately espousing an invidious exclusionary and assimilationist politics. The framing of SE, moreover, is one that misrepresents the supposedly ‘rich and varied literary heritage’ it is supposed to exemplify and promote. The current political landscape in which the study of literature takes place is one where a crisis of liberalism is manifest (in terms of populism, radicalisation or apathy). However, we do not believe the answer is to retreat into a sealed, hermetic canon that excludes the reality that England and English literature are fundamentally multicultural and polyethnic. SE will be the poorer for not fully acknowledging and embodying this, for not enabling students to imaginatively and critically engage with characters and experiences that reflect both the present and long-standing diversity of English society, as well as its present and long-standing inequalities.     

The curriculum of climate change education: A case for Singapore

The inclusion of the climate change topic in the curriculum of school subjects in Singapore was pivotal, such that it positioned the discourse squarely in the structure of Singapore's education system. In an examination of the intersections and disjoints between state policies on climate change against the programmatic curriculum, results showed that there is no strong policy curriculum that mandates how climate change should be learned in Singapore, even though it is present in several school subjects. The topic is included in school subjects through the initiative of subject disciplinary specialists and middle managers of the education ministry. This exemplar has implications on how climate change education policy and practice can be shaped elsewhere.     

高校德育不可忽视隐性课程的探讨

隐性德育课程建设是高校德育面临的一个崭新的重要课题。切实加强和改进大学生的思想政治教育工作,在培养当代大学生专业知识的同时,使他们具有高尚的思想品质和良好的道德修养,这样他们才会跟上时代的步伐。本文对高校德育教育隐性课程及其特点进行了论述,并通过对隐性课程在高校德育教育工作中所发挥的重要作用进行分析,提出了高校德育教育隐性课程建设的实现途径。     

Sexuality education as a collective responsibility: a new health education curriculum in Cyprus

The development of health promotion is typically viewed as a reaction against both the excessive responsibility placed on individuals concerning their health-related choices and the absence of recognition of environmental factors associated with personal decision making. What though does sexuality education mean from the perspective of health promotion? According to one approach, it implies the existence of a curriculum that recognises the environmental factors affecting sexuality and sexual behaviour. It also suggests a curriculum that aims to empower students to engage with risky sexual behaviour, not just as a personal issue but also as a social matter. The emphasis is placed not merely on developing personal knowledge and skills associated with sexuality and sexual behaviour but on enabling active citizens to protect themselves and their co-citizens from sexual risks and to promote healthy sexuality. This paper discusses such a health promotion perspective in relation to the sexuality education curriculum as recently developed in Cyprus. It demonstrates how a health promotion perspective in relation to sex education can be translated into the establishment of learning objectives, appropriate pedagogic methods and the development of school materials.     

Women's rights to adult education as a means to citizenship

A fundamental reason for the advocacy of women's literacy is its contribution to the attainment of citizenship, that is the claiming and use of public space and power.Following a presentation of basic trends and public policies in literacy, this article reviews the diverse theoretical understandings of literacy. It discusses normative arguments regarding the provision of emancipatory and sustainable literacy programs for women and the development of an expanded view of citizenship that considers not only the public space but also the private realms of everyday life. Such objectives, the article asserts, can be attained only if literacy is conceived as part of a political project that encourages dialogue and reflection to foster individual and collective agency.     

Young people, citizenship and citizenship education in Zimbabwe

Citizenship education in Zimbabwe is based on the claim that young people lack citizenship virtues. This study set out to investigate these assumptions by assessing high school students’ knowledge of, attitudes towards and participation levels in citizenship issues. Findings show that while students are knowledgeable about citizenship issues they are however, hesitant about involvement in political activities. The study concludes that the reported claims are partly not valid. In a politically sensitive environment students are unwilling to engage in political activities. They accurately assess the situation and adopt a position which other citizens in similar circumstances might take.     

大学生公民意识教育:高校思想政治教育的新使命

加强大学生公民意识教育可为我国社会主义公民社会的成熟发挥引领性作用,为社会主义民主政治建设起到基础性的作用,而且可为大学生自我成长提供新的途径.高校思想政治教育要承担起党赋予的新使命,加强大学生公民意识教育,借鉴并吸收高校思想政治教育中众多合理的成分,将公民意识教育渗透到思想政治理论教学中,同时借助思想政治教育的多样性活动载体提升大学生公民意识水平.     

Critical citizenship education in England and France: a comparative analysis

The promotion of ‘critical citizenship’ has become a key objective of official school curricula around the world. Using an analytic framework developed by the authors, this paper identifies the diverse conceptions of critical citizenship that are promoted, by comparing the official school curricula for citizenship in England and France. The analysis goes beyond the dichotomous distinctions prevalent in comparisons of education in the two countries, especially those that focus on the contrasting degrees of centralisation–decentralisation, and suggests that there were significant differences in the goals promoted in their curricula with regard to four key dimensions: ideology, the collective, the individual and action. While these differences reflect historical, political, social, economic and cultural differences between the two nations, the analysis indicates a lack of symmetry across the levels of the curriculum, which contributed to the significant spaces that were found to exist which have the potential for teachers and students to creatively interpret how critical citizenship can be understood and implemented in the classroom.     

Citizenship as a learning process: disciplinary citizenship versus cultural citizenship

A relatively neglected dimension of citizenship is learning processes. A theory of learning is outlined, distinguishing between individual learning processes and collective ones. Linking learning to citizenship suggests a model of cultural citizenship, which entails mechanisms of translation whereby the different levels of learning are connected. In this article, the idea of cultural citizenship is conceived of in terms of learning processes and is defended against what will be called disciplinary citizenship in which learning is reduced to citizenship classes and formal membership of the polity.