Introduction
Historically, citizenship has been an exclusionary concept, where only a sub-set of people within society was considered to be citizens. In ancient Greece, for example, women and certain categories of men were excluded – including the young, the old, those of certain occupations and slaves (Heater 1990). In contemporary times, we are witnessing a move towards the relative expansion of citizenship to all members in society – evidenced in academic scholarship, as well as in terms of various policy debates around the world. There has been a particular interest in the inter-relationship between citizenship, integration and ethnic/racial diversity. These discourses typically reflect a central tension in balancing unity and diversity around the world (e.g. Banks 2004; Brubaker 1998; Joshee 2004; Kastoryano 2006; Kiwan 2008, 2013, 2014; Kymlicka 2011; Laborde 2013; Ladson-Billings 2004; Meer and Modood 2013; Mouritsen 2006; Winter 2013). Different approaches to conceptualizing the relationship between ‘race’ and ethnicity and citizenship have been written about in the literature, including civic republican approaches, where any form of cultural diversity – be it ethnic, racial or religious – must not operate or be recognized in the public sphere (e.g. Brubaker 1998; Walzer 1983); nationalist approaches, which promulgate a single or common national/ethnic culture (e.g. Miller 1995, 2000); multicultural citizenship (e.g. Kymlicka 1995; Parekh 2000) and global citizenship (e.g. Delanty 2000; Held 2005). These different approaches to conceptualizing the relationship between ethnic and racial diversity and citizenship have differing implications for the accommodation of such diversity and differing conceptions of social justice.
There is a vast theoretical literature on social justice that is beyond the scope of this chapter; yet, conceptions of social justice are inherent to understanding how race and ethnicity relate to inclusive conceptions of citizenship. Traditional conceptions of social justice have been framed in terms of redistributive models – which can include not only material goods, but also more symbolic forms of recognition. Rawls’ (1971/2005) A Theory of Justice is the most comprehensive contemporary account of a social contract-based notion of justice, where ‘distributional justice’ is emphasized, where ‘justice as fairness’ is the normative concept driving the equal distribution of resources. This relates to notions of ‘equality of opportunity’ and ‘equality of outcome’. Miller (1976) has conceptualized justice in terms of justice as ‘rights’, justice as ‘desert’ (or entitlement) and justice as ‘need’. Others have argued that distributional justice approaches do not adequately account for power relations – either within institutions or at a more micro-level (e.g. Iris Marion Young 2000) and referred to by Gewirtz as ‘relational’ justice.
In the field of education, it is evident historically that a number of the intellectual ‘parents’ in education (for example, Dewey, Froebel, Friere) were strongly motivated by their concerns for social justice. Many academics and practitioners claim to work on ‘issues pertaining to social justice’, yet there is often only an implicit understanding guiding their work and, indeed, it has been argued that the conception of social justice in education has been relatively under-theorized (Gewirtz 1998). Indeed, Amartya Sen (2009) in his book The Idea of Justice critiqued Rawls’ contract-based focus predominantly on ‘just’ institutions. Instead, Sen proposes a focus on ‘the lives that people are able to lead’; so, for example, democracy should not be judged in terms of institutions but, rather, by the extent to which different voices are not only heard, but are also listened to. Sen also emphasizes the link between justice and sovereignty. Rawls’ theory of justice assumes a nation-state framework. In thinking about global justice, Sen cites Nagel, who argues that this is not a viable project, as the institutional demands cannot be met at the global level and so the most we can call for is a ‘minimal humanitarian morality’.
This chapter’s approach to social justice is premised on understanding justice in terms of inclusion – both in terms of process and in terms of outcome. This ‘justice as inclusion’ relates both to the societal and to the pedagogical processes of involvement as well as actual curriculum content; as such, this approach emphasizes ‘relational’ aspects of justice, recognizing the implications of power relations at the macro and micro levels.
This chapter will, first, highlight some of the various and contested conceptual underpinnings of the terms ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’, and debates relating to distinctions between these terms. It should be noted that this is a vast literature and so this chapter will not attempt a comprehensive review; rather, it seeks to highlight some features in the literature and some key debates in the field. In addition, it highlights the constructed, intersectional and institutionalized nature of these concepts (Cornell and Hartmann 2007). Indeed, it has been argued that where ‘race and ethnicity are debated, categories of sexuality, gender, citizenship, morality, the meaning of history are not far behind’ (Whitehead and Mattson 2002: 2). Understanding conceptions of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ in relationship to citizenship necessarily engages us in the recognition of power dynamics at play within society and engages us with social justice. Following this, certain key issues of concern are highlighted, including a consideration of the different implications for social justice of accommodating such diversity in conceptualizing inclusive citizenship. The subsequent sub-section explores these different issues in relation to education for citizenship and the implications these issues hold for educational policy and practice. Different country case examples will be examined to elucidate different approaches to the accommodation of ethnicity and race in conceptions of citizenship in educational policy, curriculum and pedagogical practice. The chapter concludes with a summary of key points and suggestions for further research in the field.
Conceptual Underpinnings
The twentieth century has been described as an ‘ethnic’ century, in that many conflicts and social justice claims have been constructed in these terms (Cornell and Hartmann 2007), and the early twenty-first century looks likely to continue in this vein. The idea that ethnic and racial identities would decline in significance – that ‘modernity … would bring an end to ethnicity’ (ibid., 2007) (e.g. Marx, Weber) – does not seem to have been borne out, despite many national and international common nation-building attempts through language, education and naturalization policies. To the contrary, ethnicity and race are evidently salient organizational categories at both the macro political level, denoting the state’s approach to social justice, and at the micro personal level, in terms of how people understand and construct their daily lived experiences, and how they relate to one another.
What Is ‘Ethnicity’?
The term ‘ethnicity’ can be traced to the Greek word ‘ethnos’, which means common descent or common blood – a nation (Cornell and Hartmann 2007). The Latin ‘ethnicus’ had a different meaning, however, referring to ‘others’ or those outside the dominant group. Cornell and Hartmann (2007) attribute this Latin meaning to fifteenth-century usage in English, where ‘ethnic’ designated someone who was other than Christian or Jewish. Although the use of the term related to religious belief, Cornell and Hartmann (2007) make the point that what is important here is the notion of boundaries, where ‘ethnic’ refers to others. According to Weber (1978: 389), ‘ethnic’ corresponds to a ‘subjective belief in […] common descent because of similarities of physical types or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration’. Of note in this definition is that it is the constructed idea or subjective belief in a shared identity and history that is important. This is what Brubaker et al. (2004) refer to as ethnicity as cognition. This reification of an ethnic group, therefore constructs or creates ‘substantial things-in-the-world’ (Brubaker 2002: 166). He describes this as a social process, central to ‘the practice of politicized ethnicity’ (ibid.). Brubaker (2002) rightly emphasizes the relational nature of the construct of ethnicity (and, indeed, race):
Ethnicity, race and nation should be conceptualized not as substances or things or entities or organisms or collective individuals – as the imagery of discrete, concrete, tangible, bounded and enduring ‘groups’ encourages us to do – but rather in relational, processual, dynamic, eventful and disaggregated terms. This means thinking of ethnicity, race and nation not in terms of substantial groups or entities but in terms of practical categories, cultural idioms, cognitive schemas, discursive frames, organizational routines, institutional forms, political projects and contingent events. (p. 167)
In effect, this suggests a shift from thinking about ethnicity as referring to a group to thinking of it in terms of a category; this corresponds to what Cornell and Hartmann (2007) refer to as a more ‘constructionist’ approach to understanding ethnicity, in contrast to ‘primordial’ and ‘circumstantialist’ accounts. Primordial accounts emphasize blood, family and kin, focusing on local community interests, where the bond is seen as natural, historical, permanent and not a matter of choice. Circumstantial accounts have more utilitarian accounts as a rationale for group formation, with an orientation towards political and economic interests; as such, the nature of the tie is circumstance and a matter of choice, and can change over time. In contrast, constructionist views of ethnicity see ethnic groups as being actively involved in constructing and reconstructing identities while, at the same time, circumstances can change – also a driver of the construction of ethnic identities; hence, there is an interaction between both the interpretation of circumstances and the circumstances or events themselves, and so these identities change over time (Cornell and Hartmann 2007).
What Is ‘Race’?
The historical context to modern theories of ‘race’ can be situated in relation to the justification of the emergence of European empires in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hannaford (1996) meticulously traces the genealogy of the concept and its philosophical development between 1684 and 1914 in philosophical thought. He examines Hobbes’ arguments for the right of conquest, and Locke’s application of Aristotle’s genus, providing a framework for anthropologists’ classification of people into types or races in the eighteenth century. He also traces how ideas of race were linked to character and intelle...