Disenfranchisement and Power: The Role of Teachers as Mediators in Citizenship Education Policy and Practice

Abstract

In recent years, globalization processes, in the form of demographic changes, economic migration, the expansion of transnational and supranational allegiances, and (perhaps consequently) increased debates about ethnic and religious rights have presented new challenges to the nation-state. Indeed, the global era has induced states to question, and in some cases redefine, long held notions of citizenship and belonging (Klopp, 2005; Gutmann, 1997). Such notions have traditionally been taken for granted as legislated domains under the control of the national government. Whole groups of people, based on their heritage, immigration status, or other arbitrary variables, have been disenfranchised from participation in the democratic process of their state of residence. Other institutions, such as schools, have taken up the legislated definitions of “who can belong” and used them as the crux of their own policymaking with regard to citizenship education policy. In fact, citizenship education policy-makers have engaged in nationally (if not nationalistically) defined norms of belonging (Keating, Ortloff, and Phillipou, forthcoming) and now are faced with the task of reconsidering these definitions. As Banks (2008) concludes, there is a need to prepare young people for a transformative citizenship that, as Law (2004) notes, requires students to think beyond borders. This necessarily challenges the exclusivity of citizenship as a national domain.