Contesting nationalism & globalization: Cultural framing of citizenship education

Wai-Kwok Benson Wong

GIS @ HKBU

2013/06/21

Critical Issues

1. How are citizenship education and

citizenship related educationally and

politically?

2. How do nationalism and globalization

frame and reframe (in a counter way)

under citizenship education?

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Articulation of citizenship

education and citizenship

The former refers to how schooling introduces, formulates, promotes and then internalizes the concept and ideas of citizenship by designing pedagogy, adopting materials, and organizing teaching and learning activities inside and outside of the classroom (e.g., student union’s election at high school level)

The latter focuses on the people being entitled constitutionally, legally and politically to enjoy the political/civil, economic, social and cultural rights regardless of social, ethnical and cultural differences within a nation.

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One key concern is: how do

schooling’s experience and practices

connect with and shape citizenship?

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Cultural reframing of

citizenship education

Culture: Ideas arising from values, beliefs and/or ideologies are (re-)produced & then shape people individually and collectively

“Politics of signification” (Hall, 1982) Production of mobilizing and counter-

mobilizing ideas and meanings (from the powerful & the powerless)

Signifying agents actively engage in the production & maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists and bystanders or observers

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Meaning construction

“an active, processual phenomenon that implies agency & contention at the level of reality construction” (p.614) Active: something is being done Processual: dynamic and evolving process Agency: work of (social movement)

organizations/movement activists Contentious: generating interpretive frames

differing from, and even challenging, the existing ones

Resultant products: collective action frames (CAF)

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Results

By undertaking citizenship education,

schooling’s experience & practices can

be meaningful, useful and impactful for

learners to engage in society and polity. Meaningful: such democratic and liberal

values can be reflected upon the everyday

life and practices, and have become an

inseparable part of students’ life.

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Results

Useful: how to resist, defend and protect

the civil rights, especially in face of

official/authority’s violence and distortion.

Impactful: shape friends, family

members, colleagues as well as members

of associations, become participatory in

social and political affairs

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Cultural framing

reestablishing the meanings based on

humanistic values (respecting/tolerating

the differences, pluralism)

responding to, challenging and then

overthrowing the

hegemonic, dominating, and taken-for-

granted assertions

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Doing

Reframe•Citizenship education

Reframe•Nationalism & globalization

•Citizenship

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Nationalism (The dominating

frame)

1. Bounding the state-defined knowledge

and understanding: geography

China, cultural China and economic

China

2. Adopting the essentialist approach

3. Constructing the national imagination

based on apolitical issues

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Nationalism (Cultural

reframing)

1. Exploring and then respecting the (personal) experiences in everyday life

2. Adopting an individualistic and humanistic perspective: understand and accept the differences in understanding China

3. Knowing about, and then responding to the political and social controversies in the light of the institutional and political setting

4. The importance of locality via-s-via nationality5. Students’ orientation > state orientation

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Globalization (The dominating

frame)

1. Equivalent to material culture: science

& technology, as well as goods &

services

2. “Respecting” cultural differences

3. Framing as international exchange &

cooperation

4. Disarticulation: science & technology /

good & services / different cultures

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Globalization (Cultural

reframing)

1. Acknowledging cultural relativism: China/HK/US culture is NOT dominating

2. Accepting & appreciating the cultural differences through everyday experiences

3. Demarginalizing migrants: Understanding, acceptance and inclusion + reject discrimination & exclusion

4. Global democracy, human rights and freedoms

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Conclusion

Cultural reframing aims to challenge & then resist the hegemonic version of nationalism & globalization endorsed by the educational bureaucracy

Cultural reframing fosters the inclusion of everyday experiences in shaping citizenship education apart from challenging the hegemonic discourse arising from the official curriculum, then actualizing citizenship through reflecting upon experiences and practices.

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