Reconceptualizing Citizenship Education Beyond the Nation-State

• In Event: Cultural Diversity, Social Context, and Citizenship Development

Abstract

This paper will argue that it is time to refocus how citizenship education is understood and taught for the twenty first century. After reviewing the historical development of public schools and their close association with citizenship education and the ideologies and processes of rationalization, modernization, and bureaucratization, this paper will argue that the conceptualization of citizenship education found in these programs has been limited, as it has been a government-formulated one, aimed at and towards state aims and developed within the ideological processes mentioned above. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative ways of thinking about citizenship education that consider contemporary issues and realities.

Author

• Catherine A. Broom, The University of British Columbia - Okanagan