Ambiguity as deliberate strategy: the ‘de-politicized’ discourse of national identity in the Taiwanese citizenship curriculum

This article aims to investigate how the discourse on national identity is approached in the new Taiwanese citizenship curriculum. The differing opinions on Taiwan’s relationship with China and the constant threat from this rising superpower have deterred the explicit promotion of either a Taiwanese or Chinese identity. The new curriculum follows a strategy of ‘intentional ambiguity’, where neither identity is mentioned. In this ‘polysemous’ form, the curriculum has been criticized for staying silent on the question of cultivating a national identity. However, the curriculum developers interviewed for this paper suggested that parents and pupils who examine the new curriculum can find support for whichever national identity they favor since it is designed in such an inclusive manner. They can then simultaneously reflect on the multiple, divergent or competing meanings behind the ‘polysemous texts’ and this ‘hermeneutic’ process of reasoning can then facilitate the choice of national identity with maximum acceptance.     

Tradition meets pluralism: the receding Confucian values in the Taiwanese citizenship curriculum

Confucianism, long regarded as the key philosophy on personal character-building and interpersonal relations in Chinese society, used to be pivotal to citizenship education in Taiwan, but that has changed in the last 20 years. In the wake of democratization in the late 1980s, growing liberalism and pluralism in Taiwanese society prompted the authorities to widen the scope of the school curriculum to include a diversity of cultures and thus the influence of this ancient Chinese philosophy began to fade away. The new citizenship curriculum, introduced in 2010, is no longer structured around Confucian moral guidance, but has instead embraced pluralism. Confucianism, from the perspective of those Taiwanese citizenship curriculum designers who were interviewed, hinders the formation of civil society due to its overly strong emphasis on familial kinship and “sovereign-subject” paternalism. Engulfed by Confucian moral principles, the critical and reflective competence of the individual often fails to develop. The new citizenship programme therefore attempts to counter the emphasis on fostering “obedient citizens” under monolithic Confucian doctrines and envisions a resilient civil society open to pluralistic voices.     

National identity and its relationship with teachers' historical knowledge and pedagogy: the case of Taiwan

National identity is one of the most important forms of ideology that affects human behaviours. Yet, the issue of whether it influences history teachers' subject matter knowledge or teaching practice is overlooked most of the time. With regime change in Taiwan, history curriculum and textbooks are no longer dominated by a China-centred narrative; more Taiwanese history is included in the curriculum. Given the fact that the Taiwanese are split on the issue of national identity, it is important to understand if and how teachers vary in their historical knowledge and instruction. This study examines the issue by investigating the relationships between Taiwanese junior high school history teachers' national identities, their subject matter knowledge and teaching practices. The result indicates that teachers' national identities significantly relate to their historical knowledge and conceptions about history, but bear no relationship to their teaching approaches. Pro-independence teachers have significantly more knowledge in both Taiwanese and Chinese histories and have better conceptions about the nature of history, but they do not necessarily choose to provide students multiple perspectives and interpretations. The implications for democratic citizenship education and teacher education are discussed.     

Fashioning curriculum reform as identity politics—Taiwan's dilemma of curriculum reform in new millennium

This paper explores indigenization and globalization, the double issue of curriculum and identity as a dialectical contradiction that characterizes the ambivalence of “Taiwanese identity.” “Taiwanese identity” is treated as a social, political, and cultural construct rather than a fixed term in an essentialist sense. Curriculum, as culture's medium of social identity construction, represents a struggle over who constructs whose identity and what is constructed. Therefore, when curriculum reform is called for, it is also a time when a society transitioning and redrawing its socio-political and cultural boundaries to resolve internal social conflicts and identity anxiety. Curriculum reform, in this paper, is analyzed not only as a question of shifting explicit ideas of educational practice but also a question of shifting configurations in power relations that signify a politics of identity.The historical context that brought about the question of identity in Taiwan is introduced first. The second section discusses how emerging curricula were politically, socially, and culturally implicated in the process of constructing a Taiwan-centric identity. The third section analyzes the political, social, cultural, and educational implications of new curricula on the formation of a Taiwan-centric identity. Finally, the paper discusses the effect of globalization on the practice of new curricula and points out an ambivalence of local–global identity construction and the conflicting roles of education, especially curriculum, in this ambivalence.     

Decentring the ‘places’ of citizens in national curriculum: the Australian history curriculum

There is debate internationally about the production of curriculum texts and the epistemologies underpinning the knowledge legitimated in national curricula. National History curricula in particular are a source of contention bounded by calls for coherent and unifying national narratives that are inclusive and reflect the complexity of the discipline and historical consciousness of the nation to which they are bound. This paper uses critical spatial theory to highlight the ‘spaces’ and ‘places’ of the Australian Curriculum History (years 7–10) which organise and disorganise representations of identities in and out of the centre of the national narrative. Interrogating the impact of these representations within purported inclusive and cohesive national narratives draws attention to the notions of belonging presented to Australian citizens. We argue that resistance to normative national narratives and colonial legacies presented with place-based identities can reinhabit the curriculum. This reinhabiting and decentring seeks to engage History students with alternative perspectives and articulations to the national narrative, and foster meaningful connections to place and citizenship. Finally, critical place-based education approaches invite an embodied local/global citizen through local and marginalised knowledges.     

Identity issues in Taiwan's history curriculum

As a result of Taiwan's peculiar political situation, national identity has become a crucial and controversial issue in the history curriculum. This chapter analyzes the changing role of nationalism in the history curriculum from 1980 onwards, focusing on the ways in which politics has affected the history curriculum. In particular, it examines how, why and to what extent the focus of the curriculum has shifted from China to Taiwan. Relying on analysis of the content of official syllabuses and textbooks for elementary and junior high schools, it concludes that Chinese identity was emphasized before the 1990s, while Taiwanese identity has been given greater emphasis more recently. The emergence of the identity issue has been part cause, part consequence of the democratization process and the shift of political power away from the KMT old-guard and towards more ‘nativist’ Taiwanese elements.     

Globalization,National Identity,and Citizenship Education: China’s Search for Modernization and a Modern Chinese Citizenry

Since the early 20th century, numerous scholars have proposed theories and models describing, interpreting, and suggesting the development paths countries have taken or should take. None of these, however, can fully explain China’s efforts, mainly through education and citizenship education, to modernize itself and foster a modern citizenry since the late 19th century. This article traces and examines these efforts through a reflective and critical analysis of such public texts as official policy documents, curriculum standards, and related commentaries, and reveals three major findings. First, China’s leaders have advanced different views of and approaches to development and citizenship in response to changing domestic and global contexts. Second, the Chinese state determines China’s development course, defines its national identity and citizenry, and selects its nation-building curricula. Third, the Chinese state’s growing desire for national rejuvenation in an increasingly competitive, globalized world in the 21st century mandates an important education mission that its citizenship education be politically and ideologically open and accommodative, and help students develop global, national and local identities and function as active, responsible citizens of a multileveled, multicultural world. This article furthers academic understanding of how China’s education responds to economic, political, and social demands and shapes students’ multiple identities in a global age.     

The art of self-making: identity and citizenship education in late-modernity

Taking the English National Curriculum as its main example, this article argues that an overly nationalistic, normative and ‘fact-based’ citizenship education curriculum is failing to engage the dimensions of young people’s identities which they experience as deeply meaningful. There is thus a chasm – albeit a false one – between official discourses and pedagogies of citizenship and what young people consider to be their ‘real’ selves. I argue that citizenship education must develop a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of how identities are formed and performed, especially in light of globalisation and increasing migration. I also make a somewhat unorthodox argument for conceptualising ‘relating-to-otherness’ in the same way that we think of music consumption. This has implications for how we experience, interpret, value and create ‘others’. The article also makes some recommendations for how these ideas can begin to be implemented in educational settings.     

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’.     

Discursive construction of Pakistan's national identity through curriculum textbook discourses in a Pakistani school in Dubai,the United Arab Emirates

This study investigates Pakistan's secondary school children's constructions of their national identity in a Pakistani school in Dubai by drawing on data collected from students and teachers from the case school and analysing national curriculum textbooks used in the school. Informed by Foucault's concepts, the article problematises how the curriculum textbooks are employed as a technology of power for inculcating national consciousness in the students. The findings suggest that Pakistan's national curriculum textbooks deploy a specific version of Islam as a major technology, which then influences other national identity signifiers in the textbooks for shaping students' national identity. The school affords a crucial space for the complex interplay of these technologies, which construct students' ethnocentric national identities, encouraging social polarisation. This has implications for Pakistan's national social cohesion as well as the potential for subverting international peaceful coexistence and working relationships, particularly in the selected overseas study context.     

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.     

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.     

Education Reform in Taiwan: A search for a 'national' identity through democratisation and Taiwanisation

Recent studies on globalisation and the literature of democratisation of society and education cannot explain the complicated interplay between democratisation, localisation and the pursuit of 'national' identity in both education and the broader society of Taiwan between the late 1980s and 2000. The paper argues that these three processes are indivisible in Taiwan. They involve not only the reallocation of power between the state, society and education, but also the redefinition of the territorial and social components of Taiwanese 'national' identity in relation to the Chinese mainland. In particular, social pressure groups, teachers and parents are empowered in policymaking processes at various levels, whilst the power of school principals and education officials to respond to these pressure groups is limited. The role of the school curriculum is now reversed from suppressing to promoting ethnic cultures and identities as points of a new collective identity: 'Taiwan people' with Taiwan as their ultimate homeland.     

野火再燃与台湾文化迷思

21世纪初台湾面临着全球化和本土化问题的双重夹击,因此龙应台在《中国时报》发表一系列文章,内容关涉国际化VS本土化、中国文化VS台湾文化等问题,触及现代化与传统文化的紧张、国家认同与文化认同的竞合,以及价值失落与人心迷惘等台湾知识阶层与广大民众在思想认同上存在的文化迷思。因其击中台湾文化结构性问题的湖心,从而引发了台湾公共领域的一场文化大论争,被称之为“野火再燃”。这一文化现象反映了台湾社会发展的一个侧面,呈现了台湾知识分子的公共关怀及其在社会发展变革中的努力和推动作用。     

Citizenship education in civics textbooks in the Japanese junior high school curriculum

This article discusses the types of citizenship education that are included in a sample of Japanese junior high school civics textbooks. Seven civics textbooks that have been authorized by the Ministry of Education for use in junior high school from the 2012 academic year were analysed in the context of fundamental issues in citizenship education and the national curriculum guidelines in Japan. In contrast to some previously published research, it is argued that the textbooks encourage, to a limited extent, active, participatory approaches by students with exercises and practical tasks to help students develop skills and gain the understanding required to live in contemporary society. It is suggested that the textbooks place some limitations on active learning especially in relation to students' political participation and that they reflect the struggle Japan is experiencing in the search for an inclusive national identity. Further work may serve to clarify the nature of potential contributions to citizenship education including that associated with students' involvement in whole school issues.     

The influence of liberal studies on students’ participation in socio-political activities: the case of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

This paper reports an investigation into how secondary student participants in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement related this particular political experience to their learning of Liberal Studies. Questionnaire-based surveys and interviews were conducted to probe their interpretations of Liberal Studies’ impact on their political involvement and their perceptions of national versus local identity. The results indicate that students perceived the subject to have offered them background knowledge necessary for comprehending the movement rather than functioning as the cause of their participation against the backdrop of wider socio-economic conflicts in the community at large. Moreover, the current Liberal Studies curriculum seems to have reinforced students’ sense of a dichotomy between their local and national identities. Further examination of that dichotomy sheds light on both the review of Liberal Studies and another recently proposed, but swiftly shelved, curriculum: Moral and National Education. The study’s broad implications for citizenship education worldwide are also discussed.     

Constructing national and European identities: the case of Greek‐Cypriot pupils

The European Union’s increasing attention to social and cultural matters has been expressed through the notions of European citizenship and identity which are to be developed among children, adolescents and adults. Whether, and if so, how, children perceive a European identity to coexist with national identities is a challenging and relatively under‐studied question. This paper presents part of the findings of a study conducted in December 2000 which explored the ways in which 140 10‐year‐old Greek‐Cypriot pupils constructed their national and European identities. Results indicated that, despite positive attitudes towards Europe, pupils attributed little significance to the European identity, whereas national identities were extremely important. The discourse developed revealed essentialist and a‐historical representations of national identity, and an instrumentalist approach to Europe. Social psychological insights from self‐categorization theory are employed to explore whether the two identities were construed as in the same or different typical levels of abstraction. These findings are discussed within the broader socio‐political context of Cyprus and European integration.     

The contested place of religion in the Australian Civics and Citizenship curriculum: exploring the secular in a multi-faith society

In the absence of a dedicated subject for teaching general religious education, the inclusion of Civics and Citizenship education as a new subject within the first Federal Australian Curriculum provides an important opportunity for teaching the religious within Australian schools. The curriculum for Civics and Citizenship requires students to learn that Australia is both a secular nation and a multi-faith society, and to understand religions practised in contemporary Australia. The term ‘secular’ and the need for students to learn about Australia’s contemporary multi-faith society raise some significant issues for schools and teachers looking to implement Civics and Citizenship. Focusing on public (state-controlled) schools, the argument here draws on recent analysis within the Australian context to suggest that religion remains an important factor in understanding and shaping democratic citizenship in Australia, that this should be acknowledged within public schools, and that a constructivist, dialogical-based pedagogy provides possibilities for recognising the religious within Civics and Citizenship education.     

Beginning student teachers’ teacher identities based on their practical theories

In this article, we investigate first-year student teachers’ teacher identities through their practical theories and ask what these practical theories reveal about their emerging teacher identities? This study approaches teacher identity from a dialogical viewpoint where identity is constructed through various positions. The empirical part of this study analysed the practical theories of 71 first-year student teachers in order to determine what kinds of positions are involved in their teacher identity at the beginning of their teacher education and what positions are emphasised. The results showed that when student teachers begin their teacher education, the majority of positions concern didactical issues, that is, how to promote pupils’ studying and learning processes. In addition, student teachers’ teacher identities as teachers strongly emphasise the moral nature of teaching. Contextual issues about school and society and matters related to content, such as the curriculum, had little representation in first-year student teacher identities. On the basis of the results, the role of teacher education is considered in the process of promoting development of student teachers’ teacher identity during their studies.     

Deconstructing immigrant girls’ identities through the production of visual narratives in a Catalan urban primary school

In this article, the research findings of a deconstructive visual ethnography focused on the production of immigrant girls’ identities will be analysed. This collaborative research project involved experimentation with a dialogic curriculum aimed at creating diverse identity narratives with immigrant girls at an urban primary school in Barcelona. Using a theory of subjectivity based on feminist post‐structuralism and subaltern studies, I will deconstruct: (1) the role of ‘subjugated knowledges’ when the curriculum is used to rewrite children’s cross‐cultural narratives; (2) the production of local/global children’s identities through the interaction between ethnic, racial, gender, age and social class subjective and learning positions; and (3) the creation of new curricular spaces and times in which differences are empowered and distance is transformed between schools and families, public and private knowledge, official and subaltern identities, as well as between teaching and research.