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- Volume 17, Issue 3, 2022
Citizenship Teaching & Learning - Volume 17, Issue 3, 2022
Volume 17, Issue 3, 2022
- Editorial
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Reconceptualizing and reimagining citizenship education in light of youth-led global movements
Authors: Mai Abu Moghli and Maha ShuaybCitizenship education (CE) has been largely an a-political endeavour reduced to learning primarily about laws and values. Learners were on the receiving end of knowledge but have not been prompted to engage in enacting citizenship beyond some charitable and community activities and more recently environmental ones. However, with the revolutions and mass social and political movements that shock various regions around the world since 2019, there is a need more than ever to reimagine political CE and to rethink with young people the definition and practice of citizenship beyond just reciting some tokenistic values. This Special Issue aims to position CE within this fast-changing and highly politicized environment where youth are playing a major role in ongoing mobilizations. It initiates a critical conversation between the different manifestations and facets of mass social movements led by youth and CE. It also seeks to re-envision the meanings and conceptualizations of CE, inspired by the radical changes happening globally in reclaimed and imagined spaces by young people, as well as the impact of CE on political engagement beyond the traditional confines of nation states and institutions. Our aim is also to understand how youth perceive, formulate and practice active citizenship, and what kind of education young people seek to realize through their mobilization. We seek to understand how young people express notions of citizenship in different modalities of expression, such as art, theatre, music, dance, reclaiming of public spaces, social media, etc.
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- Articles
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Contesting authoritarianism, redefining democracy: Youth and citizenship in contemporary India
This article attempts to understand how youth in contemporary India perceives, experiences and engages with the contestations around the ideas of citizenship and nation against the backdrop of the new citizenship policies. In December 2019, the majoritarian Hindu nationalist government in India enacted a Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that purported to give citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from India’s neighbouring countries. But the Act crucially did not include Muslims in the list of oppressed minorities and created widespread anxieties about the possible loss of citizenship through the CAA and the National Register of Citizens. Millions of young people across Indian university campuses and neighbourhoods took to the streets to protest against the legislation. Drawing on the narratives of the young people who participated in these protests, this article highlights the youth’s conceptions of and negotiations with their identity and the use of different modes of resistance deployed in the anti-CAA movement. The article concludes by laying out the implications of these youth protests as a mode of ‘public pedagogy’ for citizenship education as an alternative to the statist models of citizenship education.
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Remapping youth activism and citizenship in Chile through the legacy of the Chilean student movement
More LessThis article analyses youth activism in Chile through the lens of the Chilean student movement. It examines new forms of grassroots politics and popular democracy that have been at the core of struggles led by the Chilean student movement since the early 2000s. The article reflects on the legacy of this student movement regarding the transformation of the character and meaning of citizenship, politics and democracy within a post-authoritarian democratic society. The relationship between education and citizenship is placed in context, paying special attention to how grievances around education are key to making education a space for the legitimization of new ways of being political. The article discusses the implications, in the context of the 2019–20 Chilean protests, of the new forms of politics and the political that were part of the legacy of the Chilean student movement.
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Performing art as a new form of youth participation and engagement in politics: The case of Chileans’ social outburst
More LessProtest activity has become a central element for political change in Chile. In 2019, during Chileans’ October social outburst, performing arts were in the centre of the street protests. This article explores the inspiration social movements have gained from artistic practices and the role the arts in general have had as a new form of youth participation and engagement in politics in Chile. Also, this article examines the relation between the lack of formal citizenship education in the Chilean curriculum after the return of democracy and the birth of these new forms of political participation and activism within the youth. Additionally, based on the Chilean case, the article argues the need for new conceptualizations of citizenship education beyond the traditional boundaries of education institutions.
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Authoritarian cosmopolitan citizenship in the new nation of South Sudan: Insights from a secondary school textbook analysis
Authors: Merethe Skårås and Denise BentrovatoCitizenship education (CE) is increasingly implemented in national curricula, often as an independent subject. In this article we examine the first official citizenship textbooks for South Sudan secondary education since independence in 2011. We analyse four textbooks, observing a multifaceted and at times contradictory understanding of the kind of citizens the new textbooks promote. Our findings point to a case of ‘authoritarian cosmopolitan citizenship’, coined here as a concept envisioning a loyal cosmopolitan citizen who is uncritical of both government and international actors and the activities, norms and values they promote.
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Perceived school and media influences on civic/citizenship education: Views of secondary school principals and teachers in Hong Kong
Authors: Koon Lin Wong and Ming Ming ChiuThis article investigates types of citizenship education in selected schools in Hong Kong with different overarching affiliations (pro-China vs. pro-democracy). After examining schools’ policies (e.g., sister school of China school), we selected four pro-China and two pro-democracy schools. As a highly diverse society, citizenship education in Hong Kong is key to the formation of a ‘good citizen’. To better understand what a ‘good citizen’ means in this context, we interviewed ten teachers, four principals and four vice-principals at six secondary schools. We focused our interviews on key themes around citizenship, schools influence and media influence. These interviews showed that laissez-faire school staff reported acting as facilitators who emphasized knowledge, social concerns and norms of ‘good citizens’ to their students. Mediate diversity staff reported helping students integrate different perspectives. School mission staff reported supporting student engagement via citizen responsibilities and political processes; while pro-China schools emphasized a national China identity, pro-democracy schools emphasized an international view. Staff from all of these schools reported that media negatively influenced students’ values and perspectives. To reduce students’ confirmation bias (only seeking evidence to support the pre-existing views), teachers in all schools taught critical thinking skills and media literacy. The data showed that understanding how schools can nurture student-citizens amid teachers’ concerns around negative media influence can help inform instruction and policies in schools regardless of their affiliation.
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The portrayal of women in history curricula and textbooks in Lebanon: A history of systematic exclusion
Authors: Maha Shuayb and Dolly al-SarrafThe discipline of history has been largely dominated by men who were shaping the narratives. This gender inequality has been also reflected in history education, particularly in national history textbooks. Attempts to reinstate women in the field of history have emerged with the feminist movement particularly in 1960s to date. In this study we examine women in Lebanese history textbooks. Whilst Lebanon has not been able to develop a new history curriculum since 1960s, there are currently a few series of textbooks published by different private publishers. Through a content analysis of two of the main textbook series, the study found that women were almost fully absent except for a few minor appearances that often appeared in passing and a few images. Their presence was often related to their relationship with men (wife, mother) who were deemed to be of historical significance. Women were also excluded from authoring the textbooks. More remarkably there were only a few studies examining gender in Lebanese textbooks. Addressing this long history of marginalization of women in the Lebanese curriculum and textbooks, including in history, requires efforts on various levels of the Ministry of Education, including the representation of women in history education curriculum committees, a feminist perspective on history and a study of women in history. Finally, historians as well as higher education institutes have a major responsibility in deconstructing the gender gap and bias in history education.
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- Book Reviews
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The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics, Activism, and Service, Craig Rimmerman (ed.) (2018)
By Jee RubinReview of: The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics, Activism, and Service, Craig Rimmerman (ed.) (2018)
New York and London: Routledge, 208 pp.,
ISBN 978-0-81334-457-7, h/bk, $69
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The Upswing: How We Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, Robert D. Putnam and Shalyn Romney Garrett (2020)
By Ian DaviesReview of: The Upswing: How We Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, Robert D. Putnam and Shalyn Romney Garrett (2020)
London: Swift Press, 465 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-80075-002-9, h/bk, £25
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Education in Japan: A Comprehensive Analysis of Education Reforms and Practices, Yuto Kitamura, Toshiyuki Omomo and Masaaki Katsuno (2019)
By Chika HosodaReview of: Education in Japan: A Comprehensive Analysis of Education Reforms and Practices, Yuto Kitamura, Toshiyuki Omomo and Masaaki Katsuno (2019)
Singapore: Springer, 241 pp.,
ISBN 978-9-81132-630-1, e-book, £95.50
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The Palgrave Handbook of History and Social Studies Education, Christopher W. Berg and Theodore M. Christou (2020)
More LessReview of: The Palgrave Handbook of History and Social Studies Education, Christopher W. Berg and Theodore M. Christou (2020)
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 642 pp.,
ISBN 978-3-030-37210-1, e-book, £159.50
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