Postcolonial and cosmopolitan connections: teaching Anglophone Singapore literature for nation and world

ABSTRACT

This article argues for the importance and relevance of postcolonial studies in achieving the goal of cosmopolitanism through Literature education. Having significantly redrawn the overall contours of literary study in the twentieth century, postcolonial studies as an interdisciplinary critical tradition provides us with a conceptual vocabulary, analytical lens and interpretive protocols with which to interrogate rigorously many salient aspects of contemporary globalization in our world today. There are at least three main areas where postcolonialism’s contribution remains vital: i) in critical discussion about the nation and nationalism, ii) in countering Eurocentrism, and iii) in the examination of form, style and literary poetics or aesthetics. In this article, I explore each of these areas first before suggesting ways in which Anglophone Singapore literature may be taught and read through these critical emphases, with the ultimate goal of answering nation-centred goals while also fulfiling the national curriculum’s desired outcome of growing empathetic and global thinkers.     

Global education and its tensions: case studies of two schools in Singapore and the United States

Abstract

Countering the drive to erect walls between nations and communities, the burden is increasingly on educators to develop in students essential skills and dispositions for a more hospitable future. Global education is essentially aimed at addressing the realities of increasingly networked societies and porous exchanges of knowledge, capital, and products among people and groups around the world. This paper examines how global education is enacted in two schools in Singapore and the United States. Given that a central characteristic of the twenty-first century is globalization, global education is inevitably embedded in the discourse of twenty-first century competencies utilized by policymakers worldwide. However, while global education has typically been studied as a singular subject such as Human Rights or integrated into History, Social Studies, or Civics Education, this study differs as it examines two schools that have adopted a whole-school approach to global education. That is, global education is embedded in the culture of schooling and infused across curricula subjects. The first part of the paper provides an overview of global education and its two key emphases – globalism and global citizenship. The second part discusses the tensions emerging from observations of global education in the two schools.     

全球化语境下英语文学教学中的美育

本文从全球化和后现代的社会现实特殊性中探寻审美教育对高等教育的意义,在此基础上,指出在高校通识教育中英语文学教学所要实现的美育目标,并提出为实现这些目标可以采用的非传统英语文学教学方法。     

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.     

Rethinking critical patriotism: a case of constructive patriotism in Social Studies teachers in Singapore

Critical patriotism is an ideal in many liberal Western nations. Few studies, however, explore how teachers understand and teach critical patriotism and the possible tensions arising from its adoption, especially in non-Western contexts. This qualitative case study explores the understandings and practices of two Social Studies teachers from an elite girls’ school in Singapore to understand how they negotiate the tensions that arise when critical thinking and patriotism meet. The findings show that the teachers perceive little contradiction between patriotism and critical thinking and, hence, generally taught in line with democratic citizenship education. They encouraged students to discuss controversial policies, brought in diverse perspectives and challenged the status quo. However, sensitive to the socio-political context in Singapore, they sought consensus instead of contestation, gradual change instead of radical change, in contrast to the spirit of critical patriotism. These findings suggest that in Singapore, where communitarian values are promoted, critical patriotism was expressed differently. Constructive patriotism may be a better term to describe the type of patriotism observed in the teachers.     

全球化背景下的新加坡双语教育探析

新加坡的双语教育是新加坡社会政治、经济、文化等方面的发展在教育领域的集中反映。新加坡政府在具体实施双语教育的过程中,特别是在全球化背景下,面对国内政治、经济、文化的发展变化,及时调整双语教育政策和制度,力图为新加坡的平稳发展提供一种最佳的教育模式。     

Globalization,values education,and school music education in China

This paper examines music education’s legitimation of values as a means of preparing students for entry into the new ‘knowledge society’ of the People’s Republic of China in a global age. It explores the ways in which values education relates to the teaching of both musical and non‐musical meanings in the dual context of nationalism and globalization, and discusses some problems that values education faces in school music classrooms. It examines the ways in which globalization has pressured values education into resolving the apparent contradiction between national identity and national unity in the ever‐changing play of Chinese history and politics. It concludes with a discussion of how music education might juggle three pairs of apparently contradictory relationships in the curriculum: between contemporary cultural and social values on the one hand, and traditional Chinese and Communist ideologies on the other; between collectivism and individualism; and between national and global cultures.     

全球化与外国文学教学中素质教育的实施

结合全球化对教育提出的严峻挑战,从素质教育的目标出发,提出外国文学教学的新思路：1、淡化功利导向,强化人文教育;2．培养全球意识,提高跨文化交往的能力;3．强化德育功能：整合价值体系。     

Service learning using English language teaching in pre-service teacher education in Singapore

In line with the Ministry of Education's vision of the delivery of twenty-first century competencies amongst all students in Singapore, the National Institute of Education in Singapore employs service learning as a pedagogical tool to develop community outreach and engagement. This paper begins with a review of related literature on service learning as a means of enhancing the quality of pre-service teacher education programmes internationally. It then looks at how the teaching of the English language may be used as a principal means by which students can make an impact on a local community of their choice in the Singaporean context. It draws attention to the nexus of theory and practice via highlighting three service-learning projects where the vital relationship between the pedagogical methods area of study known as Curriculum Studies on English Language Teaching and the opportunity to practise English language teaching outside the traditional clinic field experience offered through practicum posting are presented. The paper concludes with the proposition that service learning promotes active citizenry and moral education of youth and allows student teachers an opportunity to build deep partnerships with the community even before they step into the teaching profession as full-fledged teachers.     

Change and Continuity in the Singapore Literature-in-English Curriculum

This paper examines contestations over the value of Literature in the secondary school curriculum in the former British colony of Singapore and the way the Literature curriculum has been framed to understand the various issues surrounding the role of Literature education. Using Raymond Williams’ framework of dominant, residual and emergent ideologies, I show how the dominant perception of Literature study in Singapore as a decontextualised humanistic and aesthetic subject is influenced by its residual British colonial legacy. Significant official changes, fundamentally conservative, have been driven by the governing ideology of instrumental pragmatism and are tied to twin aims of economic well-being and national belonging. The conservative view of Literature education prevents the adoption of emergent views of Literature education as hybrid, multimodal and critical. A pragmatic re-evaluation of the aims of Literature education in the twenty-first century is required to regain renewed significance for the subject.     

Shadow education in Singapore: A Deweyan perspective

Abstract

This study focuses on the phenomenon of private supplementary tutoring, otherwise known as ‘shadow education’, which has proliferated around the world. By casting the spotlight on one particular shadow education institution (SEI) in Singapore and viewing it through the lens of Dewey’s educational philosophy, the study aimed to illuminate the inner workings of a SEI to shed light on its ability to thrive in a competitive educational landscape. Data were drawn from lesson observations, interviews with various stakeholders and the SEI website. Viewed through Dewey’s philosophical thinking about the connections between the child and curriculum and school and society, the data shows an institution outwardly guided by a progressivist mission to develop learners as a whole, providing opportunities for broadening their minds and preparing them for their future workplace. However, evidence also suggests that there is a fundamental focus on high-stakes examination preparation in its pedagogic practices and curricular content. This tension reflects the wider socio-economic culture in Singapore that is entrenched within a utilitarian and pragmatic paradigm while aspiring towards more humanistic and holistic educational goals.     

Towards a framework for critical citizenship education

Increasingly, countries around the world are promoting forms of ‘critical’ citizenship in the planned curricula of schools. However, the intended meaning behind this term varies markedly and can range from a set of abstract and technical skills under the label ‘critical thinking’ to a desire to encourage engagement, action and political emancipation, often labelled ‘critical pedagogy’. This article distinguishes these manifestations of the ‘critical’ and, based on an analysis of the prevailing models of critical pedagogy and citizenship education, develops a conceptual framework for analysing and comparing the nature of critical citizenship.     

Citizenship education under discourses of nationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism: Illustrations from China and the United States

The authors, one from China and one from the United States, present a theoretical framework for understanding the discursive fields of citizenship education as composed, in large part, of the discourses of nationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism. The framework is illustrated by examples from citizenship education in China and the United States. Citizenship education in these examples is largely influenced by the discourse of nationalism. The discursive fields are fractured, context-specific, and dynamic. In conclusion, the authors call for awareness of how these discourses operate, and propose that the discourses of globalization and cosmopolitanism merge and strengthen within citizenship education. The effect could be a new citizenship education that is responsive to the current needs of local and global democratic communities.     

Working against globalisation: the role of the media and national education in Singapore

This article discusses how the media and schools are used as disciplinary apparatuses to resist and work against globalisation in Singapore. Aihwa Ong calls the deployment of state ideological apparatuses, such as the media and schools, acts of ‘reassemblage’, when technocrats resort to assemble institutions, diverse Government practice and political values to engage in citizenship production. The National Education curriculum package introduced to Singapore schools is one example of ‘reassemblage’, which aims to reinvent subject‐citizens who are perceived as lacking cultural mooring and a national identity. I argue that in the context of globalisation, this cultural experimentation of constructing a national identity and creating a sense of belonging is fraught with ruptures, as ‘youthscapes’ and new communication technologies are potentially the liminal spaces where other sources of identities are up for grabs. These liminal spaces further allow youths to perform ‘elective belonging’ rather than a sense of belonging bound by the ‘national’ and ‘local’.     

新加坡案例:拓展国际教育 建设世界校园

1980年代中期以来,新加坡开始关注作为知识服务产业的国际教育服务。1990年代后期,新加坡政府将国际教育服务作为教育产业纳入了国民经济发展之中。教育服务市场的发展,奠定了新加坡实现"世界校园"梦想的基础。     

On the need to repoliticise environmental and sustainability education: rethinking the postpolitical consensus

This article draws attention to the possibilities of the ongoing philosophical discussion about cosmopolitan universal values in relation to the normative challenges in environmental and sustainability education (ESE). The purpose of this paper is to clarify the philosophical problems of addressing universally sustainable responsibilities and values in ESE. Our arguments draw inspiration from the work of three poststructuralist scholars: we explore how Butler develops her claim that universal assertion requires a cultural translation, how Mouffe exposes the political in universal claim and how Todd argues that education needs to introduce students to a political language that enables them to critically reflect on their own and other groups’ values and actions. In the concluding part, we suggest the following guidelines for rethinking ESE: unmasking the political dimension, re-politicising education, seeing beyond the relativist and objectivist divide and using passion as a moving force.     

Singapore international education hub and its dilemmas: the challenges and makings for cosmopolitan learning

ABSTRACT

Higher education in Asia is massifying at an exceptional pace and scale. In this paper, I ask how practices and discourses which inform the internationalization of Singapore’s higher education can provide opportunities for developing cosmopolitan learning that it claims to provide. Cosmopolitan learning is closely related to cross-border student mobility and plays an important role in shaping the international students’ identities, aspirations and worldviews. Based on a recent study in Singapore of a group of international students from various parts of Asia and Europe, this paper attempts to bring the theoretical and grounded realities of cosmopolitan learning in an Asian context into the fore. The aim of the paper is to provide a useful frame for rethinking the purpose of international education for cosmopolitan learning in an increasingly interconnected world that is strewn with ambivalence, and what that means in the context of Singapore as an erudite nation-state critical to building Asian education hub aspirations.     

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     

新加坡的教育分流制度及对我国教育改革的启示

本分析了新加坡教育分流制度的理论依据，对其教育分流制度进行了详细的阐述，并从精英与大众，划一与求多，职教与普教三个方面研究 新加坡的教育分流制度对我国教育改革的启示。