Citizenship Education and Globalization: Lessons to Be Learned From Singapore

• In Event: The Citizenship Education Dilemma: Implications for Civic Education Reform in Multicultural Nations

Abstract

This paper examines the tensions that exist between a citizen's commitment to the nation-state and a broader sense of global realities by analyzing citizenship education in Singapore. It explores the citizenship dilemma by illustrating the Singaporean approach to citizenship education and the tensions that are created when national identity is strained in the midst of overpowering global interconnectedness.
The conceptual framework for the analysis of citizenship education in Singapore based on Banks' (2009) typology of cultural identifications. Using this framework, this paper examines identity development for Singapore as a nation and the identity development for the various classifications of students within the nation. The Singaporean education system has played a central role in the nation's identity formation. The national identity of Singapore is rooted in an imagined community that needs to be nurtured and reinforced by the education system in tandem with other ideological and cultural policies such as the arts and civic discourses surrounding the making of Singapore. This paper, which includes an evaluation of Singapore's values education curriculum, national education curriculum, and the nation's service learning initiative, explores some of the lessons that educators can learn from Singapore and identifies the challenges that accompany adopting these lessons and initiatives.

Author

• Adebowale Adekile, University of Washington