Education, Globalization and the Nation

Andrew Peterson, Ian Davies, King Man Chong, Terrie Epstein, Carla L. Peck, Alistair Ross, Alan Sears, Maria Auxiliadora Moreira dos Santos Schmidt, Debbie Sonu

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781349559329
  9781137460349
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137460356
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Comparative Education

'Globalization' and 'the Nation' provide significant contexts for examining past educational thinking and practice and to identify how education has been influenced today. This book, written collaboratively, explores country case studies - Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the UK and USA as well as discussing the transnational European Union.

1

Introduction

‘Globalization’ and ‘nation’ provide perhaps the most significant contexts, concepts and processes that inform educational thinking and practice today. In this book, we – a team of authors from around the world – have written collaboratively about several overlapping themes. We describe and discuss the sorts of education about – and for – the nation that occur within individual countries. We are interested in the links that are made in education between the nation as a distinct unit and its connections to other similarly distinct nations. As such we are exploring the role that education plays in internationalization (or, literally, what education does in terms of understanding and activity between nations). And, we are also keen to explore the issues that emerge from national and international initiatives and characterizations that are pertinent to globalization, which allows us to consider overarching and perhaps more inclusive conceptions of education that go beyond the nation state.

These themes are not mutually exclusive or treated in isolation from each other. Education for the nation may be seen as allowing for the consideration of multiple perspectives and the recognition and development of multiple citizen identities among learners. We recognize that the nature and purpose of education and schooling in different parts of the world may differ in very significant ways. We felt we had to develop an appropriate way of engaging with these complex matters. The process by which we worked together and the structure that governs the book are interlocking factors. This is a co-authored and not an edited book. From the beginning we had determined to avoid writing a set of highly individualized, separate chapters. We wanted instead to establish a collegial dialogue that allows us to learn from each other and to generate a series of insights about how different practices and perspectives inform debates about education, globalization and the nation. Hence, in chapter 2 we explain and discuss key terms and explore the background to debates in national education, internationalization and globalization; we then provide a series of case study chapters in which we focus on individual countries and produce a case study of transnational educational action in the European Union; and we have a final chapter in which we present an overarching discussion arising from the individual case studies with a clear intention to influence thinking and practice by recommending strategies for the future. Chapters 1, 2 and 10 were written collaboratively by authors working in co-ordinated teams. The case study chapters were written by specialists, initially as drafts that were commented upon by others and then finalized. The discussions arising from the case study chapters were of great use in developing the frameworks for the other more generalized and overarching parts of the book.

It is necessary to explain the reasons for the case study chapters that were chosen and the structure that was adopted to inform the writing of each chapter. It is of course impossible to include every country in the world and our selection is somewhat arbitrary based on our current networks and knowledge of experts. We do not claim to be comprehensive either in achieving geographical coverage of nation states (this would clearly be impossible in one book) or in including examples from each continent or in illustrating all relevant themes and issues in debates about nations and citizenship and education. Our case study countries are Australia and its federal states; Brazil; Canada, its provinces and territories; China including particular mention of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Macau SAR; the UK with special reference to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; the US and its states; and, finally, the EU and its member states. All these countries have national populations within a nation state and have witnessed long-standing discussions in relation to national identity, internationalization and globalization. Within and across these cases there is a range of characterizations of the state and a variety of experiences in relation to national issues (e.g. there is a sharp contrast between the devolved UK, the federal US and Australia, provincial Canada and the newly defined Chinese state). In some ways our key criterion has been our preference to include a diverse range of case studies in which we have expertise. There is sufficient coherence in these cases to allow for discussion; there are sufficient differences across our cases to allow for a consideration of diversity (politically, culturally, economically and in other ways). We wish to aim for insightful but not comprehensive reflection, consideration of diverse but not isolated cases, and coherent and yet varied examples that relate to education within, for, about and across national citizenships. But all the cases mentioned so far have been to do with countries. As such it is necessary to offer further justification for our inclusion of a case study of the EU. The inclusion of the EU offers a particular and unique opportunity to examine the response of educational systems to emerging post-national characteristics. The EU is not, unlike the countries in our other case studies, a devolved or federal state. The possibility (or perhaps growing acceptance) that the nation is a social construct and that most European countries are not nation states, but include a variety of nationalities within a political unit, is leading to interesting developments in the re-appraisal of the role of the nation in national syllabi. And the various member states of the EU have all joined in the creation of a common additional citizenship that can be seen as something that consolidates post-nationalist identities (or the possibility of these). This possibility compromises the near-exclusive nationalist identities often seen to be required by the nation state and in turn begins to impact on the ways in which young people learn about their nation and the characteristics of the national identity they may construct.

Within each case study chapter we aimed for a coherent and consistent approach to key issues. So, we decided to include some background information about each case. We wanted to describe the social, political and cultural contexts so that we could be clear about what nations exist within each particular nation state. We have also included some historical background and highlighted the strategies (curricular and other) that are used for educating about and for the nation. This focus on curricular contexts means that we have given particular consideration to social studies programmes with an emphasis on citizenship education. We have finally in each chapter discussed likely and desirable futures so that we make clear what we feel will (and should) happen in the next 50 years.

In the final and main part of the book we look to the future. Principally, we wanted to develop not only some discussions but also some focused recommendations that could apply across more than one location. We did not want to pretend that individual differences do not matter but we prefer a logic of globalization to allow for some forms of consensus in a shared commitment to enhanced educational standards and common commitment to human worth, dignity and rights. Our recommendations fall principally into four areas: policy that is nationally framed but also in relation to international organizations such as the United Nations; research in which key issues are explored philosophically and empirically; teacher education so that we have a professional and inclusive approach to those who we see as one of the principal engines of reform; and work with young people within and beyond schools. Throughout we intend our recommendations to be seen as ranging widely across different contexts. So, an emphasis on professionals is not meant to be exclusive; a commitment to schools is signalling our educational ambitions and an inclusive approach to communities. We want this book to illuminate issues and to influence key opinion formers as well as the professionals and young people who are already engaged in building education about and for the nation in a globalizing world. And through the collaborative approach that has been adopted throughout the process of writing this book we wish to make our own small contribution to the ways in which people from around the globe can work together.

2

Key Contexts and Challenges

A quarter century ago, Benedict Anderson (1991) published what came to be a seminal book on understanding nationalism and nation states, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. Anderson argued that nations were not primarily bounded territories but ‘imagined communities’, created in the mind and heart through the mediation of a number of institutions and processes including schools, public monuments and historical sites, and patriotic ceremonies. It is evident from the case studies in this book that the process of imagining and reimagining communities continues but is not necessarily limited to the context of nation states. China, it appears, is very focused on incorporating the people of Hong Kong and Macau (SARs), as well as their numerous ethnic minorities, into one national imagined community. The EU, on the other hand, is focused on imagining a ‘post-national’ community of communities.1 While the EU moves to a supranational understanding of citizenship, some in the UK imagine devolution of the federal nation state into smaller, more traditional entities. Consistent with Anderson’s original analysis, this reimagining is being fostered through formal schooling, other public institutions such as museums, galleries and historic sites, and cultural ceremonies and traditions.

It can be seen from the chapters in this book that ideas of the nation and citizenship are contested and fluid, both within and between the models of education for citizenship described in each case study. It is also clear that there are common themes or elements related to globalization driving the evolution of policy and practice. Increasing cultural diversity and the increasing complexity of that diversity, for example, is a key theme in all of the chapters. Kymlicka (2003) identifies three kinds of minorities that impact ideas of citizenship and nation in modern states: national minorities, immigrant minorities and Indigenous Peoples. The case studies contain examples of all three but also some that do not fit neatly into these categories. Afro-Brazilians and African Americans, for example, are not indigenous, can hardly be described as immigrants (at least for the most part) and lack the territorial and institutional heritage within their respective states to be seen as national minorities. Similarly, the people of Macau and Hong Kong are largely Han and therefore part of the ethnic majority of China and yet their particular histories and local identification raise issues for how they fit in with majority (or state) conceptions of citizenship and the nation. They are, in a real sense, minorities within the state.

Thus, in this chapter, in an effort to provide structure and context for the case studies that follow we explore themes that cut across all of these case studies. The themes we explore below include the influence of historical and political contexts on educating for and about the nation, teaching for the nation in diverse contexts, and tensions between patriotism/social cohesion and critical citizenship. In this book, we examine how these themes are manifest in particular jurisdictions and in so doing, we point to some key questions that continue to shape debates about what it means to teach for the nation in an increasingly globalized world.

Context matters

A central lesson from these case studies is that historical and social contexts matter in shaping both ideas about the nation and citizenship and the specific policies and practices that flow from those ideas. Several years ago, Sears et al. (2011) argued that citizenship education curricula around the world have taken on a ‘generic’ (p. 198) character. That is, rather than pay attention to particular social and political contexts including complex and messy ideas like identity, they tended to focus on generic processes of political and social engagement such as understanding how government works and developing skills related to active participation in society. Sears et al. (2011) go on to argue that these generic approaches are inadequate because while democratic citizenship does share generic features across jurisdictions, it is practised in particular times and contexts and one cannot be an effective citizen without understanding those. The case studies in this book illustrate this.

Virtually all of the jurisdictions, for example, have been shaped by their experience of colonialism but its effects are very different across contexts. The question of whether or not colonized people, as inhabitants of colonized spaces, will ever be allowed to rise above their colonizers is a pressing question that many nations face. Britain was the most powerful colonial power of the 19th and 20th centuries, and its more contemporary citizenship laws and policies have been significantly influenced by the results of decolonization and the desire of some British subjects from abroad to take up residence in the UK. Meanwhile curricula across the UK largely ignore colonialism and its effects. As the case study chapter points out, ‘colonialism and decolonisation occupy only a very marginal place in the English curriculum’. England is not alone in this as a number of European powers push colonialism to the margins of the curriculum and even then they portray it in quite positive terms. It is interesting that Japan receives significant international criticism for what many see as the sanitizing of its part in World War II in school curricula, but most of Europe seems to do exactly the same thing with regard to colonialism (Yoshida, 2007). Like the UK, many European states have experienced significant immigration from former colonies and have struggled with issues related to integration and the fostering of engaged citizenship among these communities.

China’s experience has been much different. The perceived humiliations of colonization have pushed it towards a much more aggressive and nationalistic orientation to citizenship. A key purpose for citizenship education is to re-establish national dignity and to promote international recognition of China as a significant actor in the world. One of the central ways of doing this was through developing elite sports programmes that put Chinese athletes at the top of the world in their respective fields. In addition, the complexities of incorporating the people of Macau and Hong Kong into the Chinese polity are a direct result of prolonged colonial control of those territories. The Macau and Hong Kong SAR governments have introduced nationalistic education to promote identification as a Chinese national citizen among students, though with different degrees of success between them. This could be regarded as a form of re-engineering from local to national identification of minorities within a Chinese state.

Colonialism manifests itself differently again in the new world states of Australia, Brazil, Canada and the US. In these jurisdictions, inheritors of colonial power and the colonized (including both the descendants of slaves – slavery being a vestige of colonialism – and Indigenous Peoples) have been left to build nations together but that process has often been thwarted by continuing power differentials and the legacy of oppression. In all of these places, constitutional and legal frameworks promoting equality, equity and inclusion have been put in place, but practice on the ground often falls far short of those mandates.

Another important contextual factor shaping how the nation is taught is the impact of critical incidents. We write this in the shadow of the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris, France in January 2015. While it is far too early to predict the impact of those on French conceptions of the nation and teaching for and about citizenship, we do know that events like these have had significant effects on policy and practice in citizenship education in other jurisdictions. Indeed, some early responses from certain media organizations to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris carry a ‘if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists’ tone, a message that immediately places some groups (mostly Muslim) on the ‘wrong’ side of the equation and the nation – a move that is full of assumptions and stereotypes and grounded in fear mongering and a nationalist agenda.

The bus and underground train bombings in London in 2005 precipitated significant national discussion about how British citizens could perpetrate such acts on their own people. National inquiries were struck examining the question of teaching ‘Britishness’ in schools, and reforms were made to the national curriculum with citizenship education paying more attention to both Britishness and diversity (Ajegbo et al., 2007; Goldsmith QC, 2008; Heath & Roberts, 2008; Kiwan, 2008).

Similarly, in the Netherlands, a series of events including the murder of a prominent film-maker, threats against politicians an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Key Contexts and Challenges
• Case Studies
• Notes
• References
• Index