Critically-reflexive citizenship: Teachers’ understandings and classroom enactment in Singapore

• In Event: Comparative Perspectives on Teachers as Citizens: Reflections from East Asia, Mexico, and the Middle East

Proposal

Citizenship is a contested concept that is often hard to pin down, and citizenship education in general tends to reflect this, with a plethora of approaches and aims in different states, or even schools (Osler & Starkey, 2006). Teachers add to the complicated picture as they have their own understandings of citizenship, and in their capacity as gatekeepers of the classroom, hold much responsibility over teaching of citizenship values. The concept of the researcher ‘bearing witness’ (Hansen, 2017) supports the self-reflexive process I wish to develop as researcher in interpreting teacher accounts; gives a central position to the teachers’ own explanations of their work; and promotes ethical critical but non-judgmental observations of teacher practices.
To examine the citizenship conceptions of teachers in Singapore, I conducted a study of 14 Social Studies teachers and identified three types of citizenship conceptions, namely character-driven, social-participatory and critically reflexive conceptions (Author and others, 2017). While these three conceptions corresponded loosely with the conceptions identified by Westheimer and Kahne (2004), distinct nuances were apparent in the conception of critically reflexive citizenship. This paper focuses on the six teachers I characterize as critically reflexive. Singapore teachers who identified as belonging to this typology, while generally similar to teachers identified as justice-oriented in Westheimer and Kahne’s study, also displayed a strong sense of critical introspection. They examined their own life choices, experiences and meaning-making deeply and intellectually, which in turn impacted their teaching and classroom behaviours and attitudes.
This paper examines the nature of critical reflexivity as exemplified by these teachers; explores how they have developed this particular range of personal characteristics; and considers how they engage with their students in the classroom. I wanted to investigate whether the trait of critical reflexivity expressed in their narratives manifests itself actively in their classroom teaching, and particularly to explore how they address challenges arising from migration, socio-economic inequalities and other threats to inclusive citizenship.
References
Osler, A. & Starkey, H. (2006). Education for democratic citizenship: a review of research, policy and practice 1995-2005. Research Papers in Education 21(4): 433-466.
Author and others (2017).
Hansen, D.T. (2017) Bearing witness to teaching and teachers, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49:1:7-23.
Westheimer, J. & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Educational Research Journal 41(2): 237-269.

Author

• Jasmine B.-Y. Sim, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore