Citizenship and Identity in Education

Abstract

Citizenship Education used to be conceptualized for socialization into the political community of a (nation-)state. The nation state itself claimed to have an identity and its foundation was said to be a community also referring to a specific identity. Inheriting this identity led to the access to political, material and social resources. In times of globalization, migration and postmodernism these concepts are becoming challenged and civic education needs to react. This is especially difficult as there are contradictory predictions, theories and approaches. Is it at all still appropriate to use the nation as a reference point for citizenship education? Is this perhaps even necessary in order to provide something stabilizing to the uncertainties of globalization? Or does this always lead to nationalist, exclusionary tendencies? On the other hand, if (national) states are not abolished in the close future or if they even experience an upswing as observed since the 1990s: How to handle identity/ies in increasingly diverse societies? Should it be the goal of civic education to make a unifying, possibly homogenizing identity offer or to demand such a thing - or should identity and state and citizenship be fundamentally rethought? The question of citizenship and identity is also linked to debates about democracy, its values and practices. Who belongs and who doesn't? Who is entitled to speak and when? Who is being spoken to and how? Who are we not talking to? Is it democratic not to talk to certain people and groups? How do you talk in a democratic way, entitling (or disqualifying) you as a democrat? Who do you have to be, what do you have to know and what do you have to be able to do in order to be involved in political discourses? And who decides about all that? This is aggravated by global and transnational questions: On what legitimatory basis are global and international demands made if it is not state citizenship? Do global citizens already exist, even if there is no world state? Is citizenship bound to states or, for example, to moral convictions? This panel will deal with those questions with a special focus on an adequate education. What shall the citizens of tomorrow learn? Education comprises institutional learning (e.g. at schools) but also informal settings e.g in social movements etc. - i.e. ultimately sources of political identity and their conceptions of communality. Of special interest are empirical and conceptual contributions about a) Situatedness and exclusivity of inter-/trans-/neo-national citizenship(s). How do political and other identities interweave or repel each other? b) Universal vs. particular identity approaches (e.g. national vs. cosmopolitan; concepts of glocality), global metatrends and specific praxes. c) Benefits and dangers of / inclusion and exclusion through "identity education": e.g.: - educating identity/ies (=> master narratives, e.g. "unity in diversity", "liberté, égalité, fraternité", constitutional patriotism, "Leitkultur" etc.) - educating despite of identities (e.g. laizism; "colour-blind") - educating through identities (e.g. multicultural, coexistence) - forms and goals of identity education (rational vs. emotional; patriots? critical citizens?).

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