Demands on and of Citizenship and Schooling : “ Belonging ” and “ Diversity ” in the Global Imperative

Educational theory and practice are contending with a sense that it is imperative to take-up “the global” in schools so as to promote a sense of global responsibility and global consciousness. A review of contemporary academic literature reveals particular tensions marking the mutually reinforcing relationships between citizenship, diversity, and schooling. A main theme of this paper is the increasingly complex notion of “belonging” integral to democratic citizenship and the related questions of inclusion and exclusion inherent to citizenship and schooling. By demonstrating that, despite particular paradoxes, citizenship continues to be called on as an ideal through which to push for social justice on local and global levels, the paper contends that a great deal is demanded of citizenship and citizenship education. This paper argues for a new, flexible theory of citizenship that interrogates the assumptions on which a “neutral” notion of citizenship is based. In examining what is demanded of citizenship, the paper looks at what demands must be made of a notion of citizenship. The paper ends with a strong consideration of global citizenship education as an educational response to the global imperative. Karen Pashby is a Doctoral Candidate at the Ontario Institute For Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. She can be reached at: kpashby@oise.utoronto.ca Citizenship is central in discussions of educational responses to the global imperative, a premise that defines the contemporary moment. A growing sense of interdependency and interconnection within “the global” coupled with increasing diversity within the nation state places particular demands on extant notions of citizenship and schooling. There is a desire for schooling to equip students with an awareness of global connectedness and thus to encourage young people to develop a consciousness of themselves as citizens of the world. In this sense, the global imperative is associated with a development of a sense of global responsibility and a heightened sense of a need to respond to globalization in educational theory and practice. At the same time, the global imperative is related to existing and developing issues around diversity within the nation. On both fronts, much is desired of a notion of citizenship. This paper reviews contemporary academic literature on citizenship and citizenship education to tease out several key tensions arising from the debates surrounding the mutually reinforcing relationships between citizenship, diversity, and schooling in a “global era.” Within the context of globalization and within the backdrop of critical theory, citizenship is both problematized and evoked as a site of social struggle and justice. While the historical roots of exclusion inherent to the notion of citizenship are recognized, complex notions of identity characterize contemporary subjectivities. Citizenship is being taken up as a “global” notion – as in “global citizenship,” “cosmopolitan citizenship,” or “citizens of the world” – in order to promote a sense of global responsibility; meanwhile, within nations, the identities of citizens are increasingly defined by multiple and over-lapping loyalties. Accordingly, a main theme of this paper is the increasingly complex notion of “belonging” integral to a governing notion of democratic citizenship. Thus the paper will argue that within a context of the global imperative, main points of tension in debates and discussions among theorists, particularly around questions of how to handle notions of diversity and equity within a framework of globalization, result in particular demands being placed on citizenship and on schooling for citizenship that will require a new, flexible theory of citizenship. It ends by posing some critical questions to the emergent agenda for global citizenship education (GCE) arising from a critical engagement with the demands on and of citizenship in the global imperative. Citizenship, Nation-States, and Belonging: Identity in Flux In a broad sense, citizenship refers to membership to a group and more specifically to a political community. Thus much of the debate about citizenship relates to varying understandings of the nature of group membership. Most agree that citizenship involves a set of relationships between rights, duties, participation, and identity and that these components are the defining tenets of membership (Delanty, 2000). Debates have centered on different interpretations of these components, and because they are mutually reinforcing, critiques of or changes to one component affect the way other components are understood (Scott & Lawson, 2002). Patten (2001) identifies three key questions that characterize debates around citizenship. The first relates to citizenship status and who can be considered a full member of the community. The second concerns which entitlements a citizen can claim as a result of that status. The third pertains to what the community expects of those who are full members. These three questions relate in legal and social ways to construct notions of “who belongs.” Accordingly, critiques of identity – the who of citizenship – K. Pashby

Citizenship is central in discussions of educational responses to the global imperative, a premise that defines the contemporary moment.A growing sense of interdependency and interconnection within "the global" coupled with increasing diversity within the nation state places particular demands on extant notions of citizenship and schooling.There is a desire for schooling to equip students with an awareness of global connectedness and thus to encourage young people to develop a consciousness of themselves as citizens of the world.In this sense, the global imperative is associated with a development of a sense of global responsibility and a heightened sense of a need to respond to globalization in educational theory and practice.At the same time, the global imperative is related to existing and developing issues around diversity within the nation.On both fronts, much is desired of a notion of citizenship.This paper reviews contemporary academic literature on citizenship and citizenship education to tease out several key tensions arising from the debates surrounding the mutually reinforcing relationships between citizenship, diversity, and schooling in a "global era."Within the context of globalization and within the backdrop of critical theory, citizenship is both problematized and evoked as a site of social struggle and justice.While the historical roots of exclusion inherent to the notion of citizenship are recognized, complex notions of identity characterize contemporary subjectivities.Citizenship is being taken up as a "global" notion -as in "global citizenship," "cosmopolitan citizenship," or "citizens of the world"in order to promote a sense of global responsibility; meanwhile, within nations, the identities of citizens are increasingly defined by multiple and over-lapping loyalties.Accordingly, a main theme of this paper is the increasingly complex notion of "belonging" integral to a governing notion of democratic citizenship.Thus the paper will argue that within a context of the global imperative, main points of tension in debates and discussions among theorists, particularly around questions of how to handle notions of diversity and equity within a framework of globalization, result in particular demands being placed on citizenship and on schooling for citizenship that will require a new, flexible theory of citizenship.It ends by posing some critical questions to the emergent agenda for global citizenship education (GCE) arising from a critical engagement with the demands on and of citizenship in the global imperative.

Citizenship, Nation-States, and Belonging: Identity in Flux
In a broad sense, citizenship refers to membership to a group and more specifically to a political community.Thus much of the debate about citizenship relates to varying understandings of the nature of group membership.Most agree that citizenship involves a set of relationships between rights, duties, participation, and identity and that these components are the defining tenets of membership (Delanty, 2000).Debates have centered on different interpretations of these components, and because they are mutually reinforcing, critiques of or changes to one component affect the way other components are understood (Scott & Lawson, 2002).Patten (2001) identifies three key questions that characterize debates around citizenship.The first relates to citizenship status and who can be considered a full member of the community.The second concerns which entitlements a citizen can claim as a result of that status.The third pertains to what the community expects of those who are full members.These three questions relate in legal and social ways to construct notions of "who belongs."Accordingly, critiques of identity -the who of citizenship -are integral to the way that citizenship is taken up and understood today.For a citizen to participate in, be dutiful to, and claim rights as a member of a political community, s/he must "belong." Debates about the definition of and relationship between the main components of citizenship give rise to divergent understandings of what citizenship does and should entail.Questions around identity become paramount to these debates as a sense of belonging is central to establishing a notion of membership on which citizenship relies.In particular, evolving understandings of identity -influenced by a discourse of globalization, new social movements, and critiques of modernist frameworks -have challenged key assumptions around citizenship.Indeed, citizenship is coterminous with the history of modernism and modernist notions of subjectivity.As McAfee (2000) posits, since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the term citizen has rested on modern notions of individualism: "Even though the Greeks had an analogous term, the word citizen is peculiarly modern" (p.13).Citizenship has paralleled modernism's design of belonging to a political community and being an individual subject.It is not surprising then that evolutions in theoretical understandings of identity have resulted in much debate around citizenship, as "our notions of citizenship rest upon our notions of subjectivity" (McAfee, p. 13).Accordingly, these changing understandings of subjectivity have given rise to new criteria for "belonging."If citizenship is membership in a political community, then the basis of that membership is at the heart of current debates and these understandings will affect the interpretation and practice of rights, duties, and participation.
T. H. Marshall's work articulated a historical typology of citizenship that marked a shift from strict political definitions of citizenship emphasizing the relationship between the individual citizen and the state, to a broader definition emphasizing the relationship between the citizen and society as a whole (Isin & Wood, 1999;McCollum, 2002).Concerned with the strict class segregation in England in the mid-twentieth century, he expounded on the seemingly straight-forward idea of defining citizenship according to geopolitical territory.He argued that the development of citizenship since the eighteenth century had been defined by the acquisition of three categories of rights: a) civil rights -based on individual freedoms of speech, thought and faith, and associated with the development of a judicial system establishing rights to property, contracts, and justice; b) political rightsenabling participation in public decisions and political life and associated with the development of the electoral system; and c) social rights -based on rights to things of vital importance, namely economic and social security, and associated with the development of the welfare state which ensured the right to a certain standard of living (Isin & Wood;McCollum;Painter 2002).Marshall thus pressed the relationship of citizenship to social inequalities, raising the question of whether modern citizenship had become a provision of class inequality (Isin & Wood;Kymlicka 1995).In this sense, the criteria of belonging to the political community, and thus of being able to exercise citizens' rights and duties as active participants, was undermined by class stratification.While Marshall's work has been criticized for its exclusive class focus, strict emphasis on citizenship as rights, and lack of attention to the sites of social struggle that surround the development of citizenship, it has remained significant to a critical view of the relationship between citizenship and inequalities (Isin & Wood;Patten 2001).Isin and Wood express how Marshall's work has served as a jumping-off point for further critiques of citizenship as related to complex and dynamic understandings of identity.Indeed, there is now a demand for a notion of citizenship that accounts for an evolved understanding of multiple, overlapping, and shifting identities, and that responds to the exclusionary nature inherent to the modern ideal of citizenship.Thus, there is a desire for a more socially just citizenship that redresses these inequities.Citizenship must now negotiate the various and diverse identities within and between group members as modern assumptions regarding the equality between citizens as discrete and autonomous social agents are now problematized.
So-called "new social movements" and critical theoretical frameworks have built on the acknowledgement of this colonial past and have contributed to the posing of important challenges to extant notions of citizenship.Many of these influences have pointed to complex understandings of identity that pressure both the modern assumptions of what constitutes the community to which a citizen "belongs" and the basis of equality between citizens.While Marshall presents his narrative of citizenship as an extension of rights, from another perspective, civil, social, and political rights, rather than establishing an increasingly stable, just, and common relationship between individuals and the states, have been defined by tensions and conflicts.New social movements such as the women's movement, civil rights movements, and aboriginal movements, among others, along with theoretical frameworks influenced by postmodernism and postcolonialism, have given voice to groups and subjectivities that do and have not fit the culturally and historically normalized "citizen" (Arnot & Dillabough, 2004;Rosaldo, 1999).Some, such as Torres (1998) are optimistic, claiming that new theories of critical modernism -including feminism, critical race theory, and subordinate social spaces theory nested within the theoretical net of postcolonialism -and the practice of new social movements have enhanced the possibilities of citizenship, particularly in multicultural democratic societies.(p.432) However, these possibilities are contingent on a theory of citizenship that problematizes simplistic ideas of citizen autonomy and accounts for a complex understanding of identity while negotiating a diversity of claims on the political imaginary.In this sense, there are new demands on citizenship which is no longer seen as neutral, for far from being a universal concept, it "embodies the multifarious and complex character of the political subject" (Isin & Wood, 1999, p. 25).These perspectives expose the modern citizenship narrative as one of systemic exclusion wherein the central motif, rather than being universal equity, is social conflict and the struggles of marginalized groups for equality and recognition (McCollum, 2002).They have also challenged the assumption of homogeneity underlying conceptions of cultural communities so essential to the sense of belonging required of and by citizenship (Delanty, 2000).
"Loyalty/Loyalties" and "Belonging": The Demands of Difference

i. Identity and Pluralism: The National Context
The demands on citizenship arising from evolved and complex understandings of identity within a framework of diversity are particularly evoked in discussions of multiculturalism.As Isin and Wood (1999) claim, group rights are the "riddle of modernity" (p.25).Delanty (2000) identifies a "rupture" in the discourse of citizenship, namely "the concept between citizenship as the pursuit of equality and as a recognition of difference" (p. 10, see also Castles, 2004).This bears on the way that citizen rights are understood under new formulations of identity.
Some liberal theorists have worked on adapting modern notions of citizenship to address issues of diversity.Kymlicka (1995) has argued vehemently from a liberal theoretical perspective for group-differentiated rights.He maintains that an exclusive focus on the rights of the individual have left certain minorities vulnerable to injustices at the hands of the majority.Further, he observes that certain challenges have arisen from the twin pressures resulting from increased polyethnic dimensions in virtually all Western democracies coupled with an increase in nationalistic sentiments from minority groups.As a result, he insists, "[t]he settled rules of political life in many countries are being challenged by a new 'politics of cultural difference'" (Kymlicka,p. 193).Habermas (1994) has added that "[a] correctly understood theory of rights requires a politics of recognition that protects the integrity of the individual in the life contexts in which his or her identity is formed" (p.113).Thus citizenship is intrinsically connected to and increasingly complicated by notions of identity.Tully (2000) has also taken up the demands of difference on modern concepts of citizenship.He notes that the varying forms of recognition and accommodation sought within a "politics of difference" are as numerous as the struggles they represent -including: feminists, gays-lesbians, refugees, immigrants, and indigenous peoples -and he insists that these challenges are not new: these types of struggles for recognition all have histories which pre-date by centuries the emergence of the concept of 'identity politics'.Nevertheless, they are referred to as 'identity politics' because they often exhibit … characteristics in the present which render them significantly similar to each other and significantly different from their past forms.(p.218) Thus, he calls on a reformulation of liberalism to include diversity and highlights the interplay between identity, rights, duty, and participation.He reveals the role that the democratic freedom of citizen participation plays in engendering a sense of belonging and the complex forms this freedom takes in multicultural and multinational societies, the freedom not only to participate in accord with one's cultural and national identities when they are publicly recognized…., but also to participate in the ongoing contests over how these are to be acknowledged, recognized and accommodated.(p.212) Therefore, not only must a multicultural nation accommodate diversity, but, drawing on Taylor's (1991) notion of "deep diversity," Kymlicka (1995) notes that it must recognize the diversity of approaches to and experiences of diversity among its citizens in order to account for the various ways members of particular groups belong to the larger polity.He warns that "a vague commitment to the value of cultural diversity, by itself, may not generate a strong sense of identification with the existing country, or the particular groups that cohabit it" (p.191).Accordingly, Kymlicka acknowledges that more work must be done towards a comprehensive theory of social unity in pluralistic states (p.192).Indeed, much is at stake in this endeavor given the colonial history of nation building.As Banks (2004) reminds us, "[u]nity in most nation-states has been achieved at the expense of diversity.Unity without diversity results in hegemony and oppression; diversity without unity leads to Balkanization and the fracturing of the nation-state" (p.xx).Similarly, Torres (1998) insists that contemporary conceptualizations of citizenship are defined by a conundrum of national identity.He posits the ultimate dilemma for multiculturalism as "the understanding of the connection between diversity and the commons, that is the question of unity in diversity" (p.445).
In practice, the attempt to accommodate difference within the nation through multiculturalism, as interpreted by federal policy in Canadawhere polyethnic and linguistic diversity has been characterized by a "mosaic" approach to managing difference -remains to a certain extent tenuous.Despite the fact that the "multicultural mosaic" has become integral to the discourse of national character in Canada and is performed regularly through public celebrations of diversity in festivals, concerts, and textbooks, it appears that the trope of the mosaic has not fully encouraged a socially just approach to "unity in diversity."The mosaic approach can be criticized for defining the ethno-cultural minority as "the other" in relation to a neutral dominant culture in such a way as to commodify and tokenize rather than properly recognize culture and lifestyles.In this way, the dominant culture remains unquestioned and rather than recognizing the workings of prejudice and inequities, the neutral, dominant culture is lauded for being so benevolent as to acknowledge various minority cultures (Day, 2000).Thus, as Yon (2000) notes, multiculturalism can be critiqued for its cultural relativism that "sees cultures as discrete, bounded, and contending for positions on the multicultural Canadian stage…" (p.37).Multiculturalism has both attempted to manage questions of pluralism within a liberal democratic notion of citizenship and exposed particular challenges and tensions within an inclusive notion of citizenship.It represents particular demands being placed on citizenship to include a recognition of groupdifferentiated rights and a desire for citizenship to accommodate such diversity while maintaining a notion of community, belonging and "unity" within the nation.

ii. Loyalty and Belonging -The Global Imperative
The very tensions that have defined theories of citizenship that respond to cultural diversity within nations continue to emerge along with new issues within a discourse of globalization.In an editorial piece that looks back on their collaborative tenure as editors of Citizenship Studies, Isin and Turner (2007) identify the problems of defining citizenship in the global moment.They note that citizenship is both a legal status conferring an identity on persons and a social status that determines the redistribution and recognition of economic and cultural capital.The existence of citizenship is confirmed by an identity card or passport, yet citizenship practices and virtues expand beyond the borders delineated by passports.They point out that "While citizens may be contained within state boundaries with their rights and obligations, neither their social existence nor the practices of their own states follow such containment" (p.14).The sense of a causal relationship between the intensification of communication and transportation technologies and an intensification of social relations across borders complicates the escalation of struggles over the redistribution of resources and recognition within and between nations.
Yet, importantly, many theorists warn against simply accepting the inevitability of globalization and insist on a more nuanced understanding.Rizvi and Lingard (2000) raise some questions about the relationships between the economic and social phenomena associated with globalization.They pose an important question: The rhetoric of globalization… implies that the apparent shortening of distance, changes in the experience of time, the multiplying of global links, the proliferation of global flows of myriad kinds, and the deepening of interdependence has benefited all.But has it?(p.419) Also identifying the problematic acceptance of globalization as "progress," Popkewitz (2004) notes that while globalization appears ubiquitous, it often is treated ahistorically as a "condition that encapsulates contemporary life, one that…is accepted almost fatalistically" (p.vii).He adds that "while the talk of globalization may function as an empty signifier, there are things happening in the world for which the word acts as a convenient fiction" (p.vii).Further, Benhabib (2002) also warns against a "global.comcivilization" that "will create a permanent flow of individuals without commitments, industries without liabilities, news without a public conscience, and the dissemination of information without a sense of boundaries and discretion" (p.182).
Despite the fact that the term "globalization" is as ubiquitous as is it problematic and contentious, this paper presumes that the sense of imperative that schooling take-up "the global" represents and highlights particular complications for citizenship and citizenship education that are especially relevant to a critical understanding of "loyalty" and "belonging."Indeed, contemporary phenomena including immigration trends, the decline of the welfare state, and postmodern thinking require a fundamental reconsideration of citizenship theory (McCollum, 2002).The current historical moment is marked by multiple loyalties -cultural, social, and political -that overlap with multiple geographical positions -regional, interregional, national, international, and super-national.Indeed, Scott and Lawson (2002) observe that a prevailing sense of insecurity as to where one's loyalties lie is a condition of and conundrum of globalization: "Loyalty at one level may mean being considered disloyal at another" (p.2; see also Osler & Starkey, 2003).
It is important to recognize the complex nature of identifications under current geopolitical conditions.As Banks (2001) reminds us, "[c]ultural, national, and global experiences and identifications are interactive and interrelated in a dynamic way" (p.8).Li (2003) also challenges the tendency to bifurcate the notions of the local and the global, insisting that they are conceptual constructs and "[w]hile the globalization of the political economy seems to form a global monoculture, the emergence of postmodern, postcolonial, and multicultural theories demonstrates an increasingly complex understanding of the diversity of human cultures"(p.55).Indeed, issues present at a national level are encountered at a regional or transnational level.As Appiah (2005) notes: "[I]f it is true that there are difficulties in what we think of as cross-cultural dialogue, they are often no more and no less substantiated than those of dialogues within societies" (p.254).This suggests that theories of citizenship that look "beyond" the nation-state to a more global orientation, such as "global citizenship," may well face similar tensions around equity and diversity and the various claims for recognition that have emerged at the national level.
A major concern remains: Drawing upon a notion of citizenship in a global discourse may prove to persist, mask, and even encourage inequities as it has in a national context.For example, Ong (1999) reveals problems with imposing a notion of global citizenship on immigrants of colour suggesting that citizenship privileges are bestowed to Western democracies and are thus granted by and through hierarchy.He observes that attaining global citizenship might help "the immigrant to scale racial and cultural heights but not to circumvent status hierarchy based on racial differences" (p.262).Indeed, the democratic agency demanded of citizenship in contemporary discussions is complicated and tested in an era in which citizenship is being evoked within, at, between and beyond the level of the nation-state.
Another possibly negative impact of a global orientation to citizenship is raised by Kenway and Bullen (2005) who recognize the potential for new spaces of imagined belonging but also warn against the possible persistence of power inequities: Our view is that cultural globalization deterritorializes and hybridizes mundane places and institutions.In so doing, it complicates their relationship to the cultural practices, experiences, and identities of those who occupy them.Alongside this, it offers new transnational cultural spaces and identifications and new ways of imagined belonging.At the same time, it reconfigures certain geometries of power and reinscribes others.(pp.33-34) Further, Benhabib (2002) identifies an optimistic view of global citizenship that includes a world-wide discourse of human rights, the development of transnational solidarity across cultures and religions around global issues, and the rise of NGOs taking on issues of global concern, among other important developments.Yet, she questions whether all aspects of democratic agency remain preserved when citizenship is exercised across national boundaries and within transnational contexts.Therefore, a global orientation to citizenship is wrought with tensions around agency and justice that are tied back to the questions of what notions of identity and loyalty define what it means to "belong."As with national citizenship, divergent understandings will affect the interpretation and practice of rights, duties and participation.

The Demands on Citizenship
Through a review of contemporary literature, the first section of this paper has argued that a new and relevant model of citizenship must engage in differences and promote the agency of socially embedded individuals and the communities that give meaning to citizens' sense of self.It must negotiate at the symbolic level of imagined communities in order to re-envision a diverse and complex citizen.Complex, multiple, and overlapping identities challenge traditional assumptions about who is identified by others as members of a political community and who self identifies with that political community.Multicultural responses to plurality within the nation state are implicated in the criticisms of modernist understandings of citizenship.Also, as difference is encountered within, at, and beyond the nation state level, these tensions are persistent.In order for citizenship to provide a framework for a sense of belonging and loyalty to a "global community," it must be flexible enough to serve as an axis to the multiple and shifting identities and allegiances that characterize the current global moment.In this sense, much is demanded of citizenship in the contemporary global context.

Citizenship and Schooling
An evolving and contested concept of citizenship raises important questions about how schooling should respond to these new demands.The global imperative in education can be defined by a growing call for the inclusion of a sense of global-mindedness that encourages students to develop a consciousness of global connectivity and responsibility.This section of the paper will first consider the traditional relationship between citizenship and schooling before examining the main debates about citizenship education in light of increasing pressure for schooling to respond to concerns surrounding globalization.This will lead to an identification of key demands being made of citizenship education in the global imperative out of which global citizenship education (GCE) has emerged as an orientation.
Public schooling has traditionally been an important apparatus of the state as a fundamental means through which to disseminate and build notions of citizenship and is thus strongly and intimately tied to constructions of what Anderson would call the imagined nation (Anderson, 2006).As Richardson (2002) notes, national curricula function to perpetuate and even manufacture national myths "for the twin purposes of grounding national consciousness in some kind of legitimizing historical tradition and garnering the allegiance of the people to the existing political status quo" (p.54).Education is also tied to the critique of citizenship as masking and even perpetuating social inequities.Isin and Wood (1999) demonstrate that particular economic interests were served through the initiation of mandatory schooling in Western democracies in that civil and political rights that had already been established and were supporting modern capitalism required an educated society and a trained workforce.Public schooling, like citizenship, served to hide inequities and re-establish the status quo at the same time as it was to open up new possibilities for expanding membership and participation.
Discussing citizenship education in New Zealand, Olssen (2002) contends that schooling reproduces inequalities by treating equally students from very different circumstances who have different orientations towards the future, distinct language systems, particular motivational patterns, and varying access to cultural capital.In this sense, schooling is an instrument in the enterprise of citizenship, providing an institutional implementation of modernist notions of equality and universality of opportunity, and is consequently criticized for enabling and propagating a status quo that benefits those who enjoy a degree of capital.However, while Isin and Wood's reminder of Marshall's exposure of the reproduction of inequities systemic in public education raises important alarm bells and Olssen's recognition of the unequal distribution of power within state sponsored school systems is significant, according to Osborne (2000), the process of creating national citizens has and will continue to be fraught with divergent and competing interpretations as schooling has never been a simple matter of imposing and reinforcing the hegemony of the dominant class.Yet, as Glass (2000) identifies, there is a key paradox inherent to schooling.While it ultimately reproduces the status-quo, "with all their faults and despite questions about their own causal role in the injustices, [schools] remain crucial to a hope for creating more fair and equitable communities" (p.279).This is why citizenship education continues to be evoked as a site for social justice.

Citizenship Education on the Theoretical Agenda
While citizenship is a governing principle of public education, citizenship as a topic has been given particular and explicit attention in schooling through specific courses in citizenship education which have historically been viewed as a central obligation of public schooling (Sears & Hughes, 1996).Particular understandings of citizenship have influenced the aims and objectives of citizenship education.Historically, citizenship education was focused on an individual's relation to the nation state, and its principle aims were to establish a shared identity and history among citizens-in-making and to foster patriotism and loyalty to the nation.The perceived fragmenting effects of globalization have called into question citizenship education's premise of a monolithic nation state (Scott & Lawson, 2002).Citizenship education is thus inevitably implicated in the contestations around citizenship characterizing those contemporary debates take up a complex notion of identity.Osler and Starkey (2003) criticize national citizenship education as propagating the myth of the objective, autonomous citizen and note its failure to engage with the lived experience of students whose identities are shifting and multiple and whose senses of belonging are not necessarily tied primarily to the nation state.Demonstrating that this is particularly true for minority students, they reveal a paradox of citizenship: In democratic states, citizens are constitutionally entitled to equal rights to participate in and to influence government.However, in practice, this formal equality is undermined by discriminatory practices and public discourses that exclude minorities or which marginalise them within the imagined community of the nation.In such discourses the nation is often portrayed as having a homogeneous cultural identity into which minorities are expected to integrate.(Osler & Starkey,p. 244) They studied young people in multicultural communities in Leicester, U.K. and found that students demonstrate an interplay of multiple and dynamic identities and do not identify with a single notion of being "British."In light of a similar Canadian study by Hébert et al (this issue), this suggests that education for national citizenship that is premised on a knowable and stable notion of "national identity" will not provide a context complex enough for students to integrate the various and overlapping geo-political perspectives that define their experiences and identities.
The increasing pressures of the perceived realities of the current global order have put citizenship education on the forefront of theoretical discussion.Osler and Starkey point to three key factors that have led to the recent peaked interest in citizenship education.To begin with, citizenship education has been paramount to enabling populations in recently democratized states in places such as South Africa, Central Europe, and Latin America to understand democracy and its system of rights.Secondly, the perceived crisis of confidence in time-honored political processes in established democracies -as indicated by low voter turn-out and apparent voter apathy -has led to the promotion of citizenship education as the key to reinstating confidence in democracy.Finally, the effects of demographic changes resulting from increased migration have resulted in a turn to citizenship education to respond to a resultant sense of fragmentation.Indeed, the increasing of cultural diversity in school populations, particularly those in urban areas, calls upon citizenship education as a means through which to enable young people from differing backgrounds to live together.
A main problem with citizenship education has been that despite being called upon to respond to new demands on citizenship characterized by complex notions of belonging and recognition, its inclusion in curricula has been as "value-added" content rather than integrated throughout disciplines and practices.Sears and Hughes (1996) lament the exercise of limiting education for citizenship to social studies curriculum.They insist that while citizenship education has become central to social studies, the total lack of consensus on citizenship itself has become embedded in the continuous and unforgiving debate about the purpose of social studies.As a result, education has pursued a normalized understanding of citizenship through educational slogans (see also Westheimer & Kahne, 2004).The meaning of citizenship remains contingent on interpretation of these models and thus remains abstract and varied.
Contributing to the problem of ambiguous interpretations of citizenship in education is the pressure for schooling to respond to the fact that globalization is advancing a sense of competitiveness and survival of the fittest that could marginalize those unable to contend in the global arena.Therefore, while there is a sense of needing to reach out to others locally, nationally, and globally, there is the added dimension of needing to compete. 1 Ghosh and Abdi (2004) articulate this predicament: [S]ince one cannot call a timeout in the course of the game of globalization, those who may be jeopardized by their difference from the mainstream in societies where they are minorities, must incessantly, it must be said, use one of the best weapons available, i.e., education, to move, as much as possible, to the relativized political-cultural and socioeconomic center.(p.143) In this sense, despite the tensions acknowledged, schooling will play a significant role in mediating the globalization of difference: [W]hile education cannot serve as a ready panacea that solves all the livelihood hindrances that people's differences might aggravate, it will, nevertheless, remain an important and primary forum that facilitates the critical and positive understanding of people's differences as something that could be good for interpersonal and international understanding, and would make our world a better place.(Ghosh & Abdi, p. 162) Schooling for citizenship is presented as an agenda with the potential for significant change and progress, particularly within the context of the global imperative (McCollum, 2002).
Evidently, much is demanded of and expected from education in the current global moment.Schooling remains a main apparatus through which notions of citizenship are disseminated and governed, and demands on schooling are implicated in new pressures on citizenship.Guilherme (2002) identifies that the need for reflective and critical citizens holds consensus among theoreticians and documents on citizenship.She insists that the closer ties between nations and the growth of complex multicultural societies require the preparation of critical and committed citizens able to negotiate the intricate balance of respect for the universal with a legitimization of the particular and to establish "personal and professional relationships across cultures in the search for individual and collective improvement and empowerment, at different levels" (p. 1).The political, economic, and social contexts of future citizens will demand a notion of citizenship education that is both flexible and empowering.This flexibility is necessary for imagining a citizenship that is responsive to changing national and global imperatives and that attends to demands for the construction of non-linear narratives to describe multi-faceted global and national relationships (Singh, 2005).
Essential to an agenda for change through education is the inclusion of the voices of those who offer a first hand view of the myth of citizenship as a neutral category.A repositioning of any approach that claims to do "what is best" must take up the apparent disconnect between neutral assumptions about citizenship on the one hand and the diverse and dynamic experiences and desires of democratic populations on the other hand.It must involve a negotiation of diversity that resists reinscribing power inequities through assumptions of equality among "autonomous" agents and that interrogates the status quo preserved through modern, liberal notions of multiculturalism.Drawing on the Canadian context, Jones (2000) insists that visible minorities have important contributions to be made in this regard: The argument in the communities of the "visible minorities" is that extant approaches to the articulation and management of educational policy have been constraining, not facilitating, the progress of multiculturalism….Like other voices in mainstream society, they are pressing for the re-invention of citizenship and citizenship education in Canada….This new brand of citizenship education, unlike a multicultural education for all, would need to offer a framework that is capable of bridging the gap between "we" and "they," for, currently, there can be no assumption that negative social attitudes toward the concept of multiculturalism will not influence decisions surrounding deeper issues of about citizenship.(p.116, see also Osler, 2002) Indeed, many erroneous assumptions are made about minority youth who, according to Osler and Starkey's (2003) study, are involved in a variety of political engagements.Instead of appreciating and engaging the significant insights of minority students, policy makers tend to further denigrate these youth by assuming that they require more teaching in citizenship than do majority students.Li (2003) insists that power inequities be taken up without a simple reversal of perspectives.He lauds the contributions of postcolonial perspectives as a corrective to dominant liberal views but insists that educators avoid any romanticization or normalization of those perspectives: "It would be just as dangerous for them to become the new hegemony" (p.70).He argues that educators should focus on demonstrating how hybridity, whether in the context of colonization or globalization, is not centered on reciprocal cultural relations but is engaged in dominant and subordinate interactions.Thus, simply legitimizing complex identities and acknowledging different views and lifestyles will not result in transformative education.Li demands a citizenship education that is self-conscious and that goes beyond an appreciation of complexity, refusing the assumption that a mere encouragement of hybridity will shift power relations: [I]t is a mistake to assume that cultural hybridization necessarily entails a radical departure from cultural assimilation in the colonial and postcolonial contexts.Without continuous efforts to demystify established institutions and without the kind of radical human reflectivity that entails autocriticism, postcolonial cultural hybridization can be just as threatening as the cultural assimilation embraced by Western imperialism.(Li, Yet, citizenship education in Western democracies has not been characterized by even an acceptance of let alone engagement with hybridization.Instead, it remains conservative and superficial.A recent study of citizenship education initiatives through an analysis of textbooks in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom by Davis and Issitt (2005) suggests that despite a rhetoric among policy-makers that seems to support a radical conception of citizenship education and that aims to engage in the challenges and complexities characteristic of the current historical moment, the textbooks reveal only shallow attention to citizenship education and thus present no real challenge to existing norms.Instead, the focus rests almost exclusively on the promotion of knowledge, understanding, and involvement for democratic purposes in the system as is, and although there appears to be a concern with the promotion of diversity and democracy, the interpretations are entirely positive and do not engage in real concerns around power imbalances.Notable in the study, the Canadian material is relatively more conservative.Sears and Hughes's (1996) study of citizenship education across educational jurisdictions in Canada similarly found support for citizenship education that encourages a notion of activism, but they warn that in practice, this tendency is limited.Significantly, textbooks from all three countries focus entirely on national rather than global issues.In this context, a new form of education for citizenship is being called on that responds to a sense of a global imperative.

Global Citizenship Education: Negotiating Belonging and Diversity
Citizenship education must negotiate a sense of belonging that reimagines political community, encounters and engages diversity, and in exposing the symbolic level of citizenship, constructs citizenship as a site of struggle.As citizenship relies on a clear notion of identity that espouses a sense of belonging, it must negotiate a sense of group membership through various, overlapping, and socially contextualized individual and group identities.These weighty demands frame a consideration of Global Citizenship Education (CGE) as an educational agenda for schooling for citizenship in a global era.
As is evident from international conferences and recent attention in anthologies and academic journals (e.g.Banks, 2004;Davies, 2006;Davies, Evans & Reid, 2005;Openshaw & White, 2005), the concept of GCE is emerging as alternative to nation-centric approaches to citizenship education.While there are divergent views within these discussions and between those writing for and about GCE, some themes appear to define it as an educational agenda (Pashby, 2006).GCE moves beyond an exclusively national perspective of world affairs, and seeks to avoid a social studies approach that may tend to tokenize and exoticize foreign places and peoples.As an ideal, it encourages students to adopt a critical understanding of globalization, to reflect on how they and their nation are implicated in local and global problems, and to engage in intercultural perspectives.It is significant to point out, however, that the bulk of the writings on GCE are from England, Australia, Canada, and the U.S. which begs the question, "How global is global citizenship education?"Yet, the move is significant as citizenship is taken as central to what is desired for a more socially just understanding of membership to local, regional, and global communities.A "global" approach to citizenship education appears to push for a more contemporary notion of citizenship education that promotes social justice and democratic principles in an increasingly interconnected world marked by multiple identities, loyalties, and political, cultural, and social allegiances.Discussions of GCE reflect a desire to construct a global orientation to citizenship that works to promote social justice in such a way as to incorporate the nation-state as a main site of political organization while also recognizing that the main tenets of citizenship -rights, duties, participation, and identity -are being evoked in new and multiple ways that are not limited to the spaces defined by the nation-state (Pashby, 2006).
Given that citizenship and globalization are both contested concepts, but also given that citizenship education remains tightly bound to a normative and persistent paradigm of democratic education, GCE merits serious consideration.Yet, this paper has raised some important questions for those of us desiring a more critical approach to citizenship education: Can a global orientation to citizenship as evoked in an agenda such as GCE promote an evolved theory of citizenship that accounts for the perception of increased global flows of capital, ideas, and peoples; accommodates the complex and multiple identities that influence how one belongs to a political community; and avoids re-inscribing power imbalances while striking a balance between universal commitments and the context specific particularities so essential to the agency of the citizen?Or is GCE really a more critical version of global studies and not a new theory of citizenship?If so, what effect does such schooling have on how citizenship is understood within the global imperative?Can we separate basic theories of citizenship and the use of "global citizenship" as an educational agenda?
What is evident is that the literature on GCE endorses an approach to citizenship education that acknowledges the significance of and possibilities in the strong global connections that are currently evoking a sense of global citizenship through the popularity of such phrases as "citizens of the world" and "global consciousness."In fact, as Davies (2006) insists, even if GCE is currently an ideal, "an abstract term can in theory be turned into a highly valuable and radical curriculum area" (p.22).However, in supporting GCE, it is important to recognize the potential for struggle and unintended results.Banks (2004) reminds us that "citizenship education within any social and political context is likely to have complex and contradictory consequences that educators and decision makers are not always able to envision or predict" (p.11).Indeed, globalization defines a particular problem space in which difficult and complex questions arise.Taking up a critical and self-reflective view of global issues will require an engagement with controversial contemporary issues arising from current geo-political dynamics such as terrorism, surveillance, religious intolerance, and illegal immigrants (Pashby, 2006).These questions begin to identify the points of tension and confusion inherent to discussions of diversity within the global imperative.Indeed, in arguing that global orientations to citizenship -as in an agenda for global citizenship education -result from and contribute to what is desired of citizenship in a global imperative, more questions arise than answers, and complexity, rather than certainty, prevails.However, as Apple, Kenway and Singh (2005) insist, the effort espouses hope, for "[a]n understanding of complexity does not mean paralysis" (p.23).
Despite the tensions laid out in this paper, citizenship, as a concept, remains a desirable governing principle of democratic schooling.GCE represents an alternative approach to purely nation-centric versions of citizenship education; however, in persisting with the notion of "citizenship," it is implicated in the historical difficulties the term represents.In this sense, it may not prove to be any more transformative than earlier versions of citizenship education.A central theme of this discussion has been the ways that citizenship serves to mask inequities, and I call on those theorizing GCE to be careful and cognizant of the ways a global orientation to citizenship education may, despite its intentions, reinforce a global hegemony and re-inscribe the problems inherent to citizenship.It remains to I Openshaw & White (2005) lament that a "good citizen" has become one who "fits" into society and contributes to development for economic progress: "The ideal of democracy has been co-opted by the concept of capitalism as the "ideal" system.And capitalism now has even been replaced by the "ideal" of globalization.Globalization is the exporting (and importing) of capitalism as the political and economic system of the entire world.A "good citizen" is one that buys into the inevitable and works to facilitate its growth" (p.9).Fitzsimons (2000) also complains that a citizen-as-consumer model is limited and problematic for democracy: "In terms of social justice, measures of consumption are a very limited notion of citizenship -especially for those in poverty, which is estimated to be about one-half of the world's population.By and large, for them, such consumption is simply not attainable".(p.510)