CULTURAL IDENTITIES

Cultural Identities

Cultural Identities

In his study of the history of citizenship education, Derek Heater (2004) notes that education for citizenship was already flourishing in Greece by the eighth century BC. The purpose was to teach how people should act in the capacity of citizens and how to exercise allegiance to the abstract idea of the state. Current challenges to citizenship education, he suggests, are the consideration of the European dimension, as well as the idea of world citizenship. It is to be hoped that such concerns will be reflected in ways in which citizenship education is currently developed. It is questionable whether such practices are prevalent in schools at the moment, based on a review of research in schools in UK and in Finland, as well as school visits in California and in Vancouver, Canada. However, practices of inclusion can be observed too.

There are different patterns in ways in which equality and social justice are promoted. In the UK, the emphasis has been more on multiculturalism, in California on cultural diversity, and in Canada on a mosaic pattern. There are some difficulties in enacting the Californian and British aims, because differentiation between schools is connected to patterns of wealth reflected in housing. Therefore, a school in Oakland, California, may indeed encompass considerable cultural diversity, but white students tend to be absent. Such differentiation is also typical in many urban regions in the UK. The range of ethnicities in Vancouver included 'white' Canadians, so, in that sense, diversity was more comprehensive. However, the espousal of the 'mosaic' pattern meant that school had no deliberate policy of production of commonalities in the context of differences. The 'mosaic' ideal was interpreted in such a way that there was no explicit aim to support cross-national or cross-cultural collaboration. The current 'no child left behind' policy ...