Re-imagining Foreign Language Education in an Interconnected World: The Conceptualization of Global Citizenship Education in Post-colonial Algeria

• In Event: Peace education and global citizenship education

Proposal

The intensification of globalization has brought with it various crises that have affected humanity. Simultaneously, it has spurred the development of new educational paradigms aimed at promoting more peaceful, equitable and sustainable societies. Global citizenship education (GCE) as a new educational model has evolved and gained importance following the Global Education First Initiative (GEFI, 2012), which underscores three goals: fostering global citizenship; expanding access to education; and improving the quality of learning. GCE was revisited in Goal 4.7 of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the UN in 2016, in which the role of education was expanded beyond literacy to include civic values that prepare learners to critically think and engage in solving issues of global concern (UNESCO, 2014, 2015, 2018). In spite of the expansion of the GCE field, its agenda has been criticized by post-colonial scholars as imperialist, contested and ambiguous (Andreotti, 2010; Jorgenson & Shultz, 2007; Kiwan, 2018; Tukan, 2018). Moreover, there is a dearth of research that centers GCE within Global South contexts, and even less focus on the analysis of curriculum and instruction in the North Africa region.

Broadly speaking, foreign language education is perceived as the most accurate way to address the challenges of diversity and to foster cross-cultural understanding in a globalized and interconnected world (Miliani, 2000; Guilherme, 2007; Awayed-Bishara, 2020), due to its contribution in facilitating dialogue among different cultures. Against this background, the study uses English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education as a lens to delve into the conceptualisation and application of GCE in the school curriculum in post-colonial Algeria, interrogating the extent to which it promotes a cosmopolitan ethic or reinforces imperialist ideologies. It seeks to answer the following question: In what ways, if any, does the content of EFL school textbooks contribute to cultivating the values of global citizenship among Algerian learners?

The study adopts a qualitative case study design that offers an in-depth analysis of four middle school EFL textbooks that are currently used in public schools in Algeria. The textbooks constitute an important component of the curriculum, and their design and publication are supervised by the Ministry of Education. The selected textbooks also constitute part of deuxième génération (second generation) reform, which aims at reimplementing the principles of Competency-based instruction. Moreover, their publication was initiated from 2016 through 2019 to embrace the agenda of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The starting point of the analysis is the selection of sample texts and visuals using Fairclough’s (1992: 230) model. This centers on cruces or ‘moments of crisis’, i.e., crucial moments in discourse. Therefore, texts and visuals that center on the local identity and the way it is positioned and interacts with other identities, or the constitutive other (Crossouard & Dunne, 2020a, 2020b) is examined. Multimodal critical discourse analysis is used as an analytical framework to deconstruct the different ideologies embedded in the selected linguistic and visual structures. The different tools that are classified according to Halliday’s (1978) linguistic framework, that is, the ideational metafunction (thematic content) and the interpersonal metafunction (social roles and relationships), are used.

The findings suggest that the discussion of GCE centers on different competing discursive categories. First, the neoliberal dimension of GCE is embedded in the textbook content endorsing global literacy skills (Tsui & Tollefson, 2006). This plays out in the conviviality toward English, stemming from its anonymity and perceived neutrality as a language that is not associated with the former colonial power, in contrast to the resistance toward the French language. Likewise, the content embraces the liberal dimension of GCE, with its ethical dimension that implies a sense of belonging to a common humanity and a commitment to the protection of the planet. Second, despite the existence of the neoliberal and the liberal dimensions of GCE, which both imply human interconnectedness and participation in the global market, the findings also suggest the existence of a neoconservative–neoliberal–liberal (Pashby et al., 2020) form of GCE which underscores the sovereignty of the state. Third, there are four sets of conundrums that evolved from the analysis of the textbook narrative– namely GCE versus colonialism, GCE versus nationalism, GCE (cosmopolitanism) versus the Islamic values and GCE versus patriotism. These sets of conundrums point toward the significance of the colonial past of the nation and stand as a barrier in fostering the values of global citizenship. Moreover, the overemphasis on the French colonial history of oppression is used to challenge, resist and ‘delink’ (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) from the colonial forced policies of assimilation and, by extension, the secular narrative on GCE. In this sense, the unfolding of the Muslim Umma as ‘Other’ (Andreotti, 2014) is depicted as a form of global citizenship. This, in turn, points towards the need to reimagine an egalitarian framework of GCE that brings together other voices, histories, languages, cultures and wisdom traditions to the dialogue on GCE. The ultimate goal is to achieve the overarching goal of fostering a sustainable, harmonious and peaceful world. The study draws from the concept of “ta’aruf” (associated knowing) and “tarbiyyah” (human flourishing) to suggest a framework for a holistic education that advances global civic values while embracing local wisdom traditions.

The study is significant in different ways. First, using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it offers a framework for textbooks’ evaluation. This would raise coursebook designers’ awareness of the significance of a humanistic and ethical instructional material that embraces the values of global citizenship. Second, it offers a framework for teacher education programs which guides instructors to reimagine foreign language education beyond literacy towards embracing global civic values. Lastly, by deriving from the marginalized wisdom traditions, the study brings a new perspective about the discussion of GCE that embraces perspectives from the Global South; hence, it fills an important research gap especially in the MENA region.

Keywords: Global citizenship education; foreign language education; multimodal critical discourse analysis; ta’aruf; tarbiyyah, post-colonial contexts.

Author

• Fadhila Hadjeris, UCLA