Cosmopolitanism, 2nd Day of Research

Today, I found two academic papers on cosmopolitanism and education. Both describe the two opposing approaches to incorporating multiculturalism in school curriculums: cosmopolitanism and nationalism.


Hirsch, E. (1992). Toward a centrist curriculum: Two kinds of multiculturalism in elementary school. Retrieved, November 17, 2006, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/22/d7/ba.pdf

This paper describes two kinds of multiculturalism taught in school curriculums: universalistic/cosmopolitanism and pluralistic/ethnic loyalism. The former follows the philosophy of harmony across divergent cultures and the latter teaches the benefits of nationalism and individual ethnic identity.




Spinner-Halev, J. (2005). Teaching identity and autonomy. Retrieved November 17, 2006, from
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.darius.uleth.ca/ehost/pdf?vid=4&hid=119&sid=495c40af-6d28-4f6b-92ff-8ed654fa3f39%40sessionmgr106


This paper is pasted below. Essentially, it is a review of the book, Education and Citizenship in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities by Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg (2003). The book presents essays in support of the two opposing approaches to multiculturalism in educational curriculums: cosmopolitanism and nationalism. This paper highlights how the book illustrates how schools teach identity and autonomy – influencing both approaches to multiculturalism.



REVIEW ARTICLE
Teaching Identity and Autonomy
JEFF SPINNER-HALEV
Education and Citizenship in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for
Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities
Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg (eds), 2003, Oxford, Oxford University
Press. Pp. xii1444. Hbk $60.00.

Liberal theorists often link autonomy and identity together,
since, these liberals argue, an education that bestows a
particular identity on children undermines their autonomy.
The charge of schools ought to be to teach children to be open
to a variety of identities. Encounters with diversity and
cosmopolitanism are good, since they encourage students to
think deeply about their own identity, while traditional
religions and nationalism seek to impress a particular identity
on students. This standard liberal account, echoed in some of
the essays in this book, underplays the ways in which
education is a cultural practice like many others. Moreover,
as other essays in this volume point out, there are good
reasons to want aspects of a common culture to be transmitted
in schools—in democratic states we want citizens to be able to
understand one another, and to have some understanding of
important historical events in the country’s history. Yet
schools that teach an honest history of one’s country, and that
teach about the country’s political principles, will impress
upon students only a partially shared identity. That this
identity be only partly shared is important: it allows for
differences among students, differences that ought to be
understood, at least to some extent.

The themes of identity and autonomy dominate this lively and thoughtprovoking
collection of essays, and it is through the lens of these two
concepts that I shall examine this volume. Autonomy and identity are
often related and discussed in the same breath—an education that bestows
a particular identity on children, some liberals argue, undermines their
autonomy. On this account, the autonomous person should be able to
choose what is crucial about him or herself; since nothing is more crucial
than one’s identity, schools should teach children to be open to a variety of
identities. Diversity and cosmopolitanism are the liberal’s friend, while
traditional religions and nationalism are the enemies. Encounters with the
former encourage students to think deeply about their own identity and
perhaps change parts of it, while the latter seek to impress a particular
identity on students.

This standard liberal account, echoed in some of the essays in this book,
underplays the ways in which education is a cultural practice like many
others. Moreover, there are good reasons to want aspects of a common
culture to be transmitted in schools—in democratic states we want citizens
to be able to understand one another, and to have some understanding of
important historical events in the country’s history. This need not mean
that schools should ‘teach identity’; rather teaching parts of a national
identity is an inevitable (and usually good) by-product of laudable
educational practices. Overtly teaching about identity can have worrisome
consequences; what schools should do is to deepen students’ understanding
of aspects of both their and other cultures. Giving students a
nearly limitless choice about their identity should not be the charge of
schools, however; we do not choose our identity like we choose cereal at
the grocery store. But schools should give students the tools with which to
explore their identity, an exploration that should take place within the
loose confines of a national culture. These confines are loose because
people rarely have only a national identity: we also have religious, ethnic
and other identities. Teaching things common to everyone should not deny
the many differences that remain.

The chapter by Jeremy Waldron argues that identity talk makes little
sense in a globalised and cosmopolitan world, where people have
multiple, shifting and hybrid identities, and where the idea of separate
cultures makes little sense. Waldron, however, says little about
the educational implications of cosmopolitanism. He does briefly suggest
that we should make world citizenship, and not democratic or national
citizenship, the focus of civic education, but mostly he refers the reader to
the chapter by Melissa Williams for ideas about education. Before moving
on to this chapter, however, it is worth considering how culture and
identity get transmitted in schools. Schools might sometimes directly try
to transmit a particular national cultural identity, but their practices are
also part of what constitutes a culture. Schools help transmit a national
culture by teaching in a particular language. The days of the week that
schools meet, the role that parents are (or are not) expected to play in
school, dress codes, lunch habits may all be practices that are part and
parcel of a national culture. Then there are some subjects that may be
taught for reasons other than to pass on an identity, but may do so anyway.
Anthony Appiah rightly argues in his chapter that schools should teach
students about their society’s political institutions. There are good
citizenship reasons to think that students should understand the political
system in which they live. Similarly, one might think that students should
spend some time learning about the history and literature of their country
so that they understand their society better. But teaching these matters will
lead students to know much more about their country than about others.
This is the case even if they do learn about other countries, as they should.
Obviously, students cannot learn about every single country in the world.
Moreover, countries with state-wide testing—of which there are many—
often help to force a uniformity on the curriculum within each state. By
insisting that all students in a political community understand the same
things, state-wide testing helps encourage a common culture.

National culture then is immanent in the practices of schools. To be
sure, national cultures are not monolithic: local variations within and
between schools are bound to occur. Teachers can and do adapt parts of
the curriculum to local circumstances. Yet in most places there is a limit to
localism, since many parts of the curriculum and some school practices
will be similar within a country’s boundaries. This need not be so: one
could imagine a country with a completely decentralised school system
with many local districts, with no national tests, where textbooks and
practices from each school district are different. No one in this book
suggests such a route, though, perhaps for good reason. Melissa
Williams’s argument on globalisation does suggest incorporating the
local into the curriculum, but not in a radical way. She argues that we
should think of citizenship as shared fate: because we find ourselves in
webs of relationships with other people, whether or not we consciously
choose this, our fate is intertwined and so we have obligations toward one
another. Good citizenship is then a matter of how we act, not what we
believe. If people see themselves as participants in a project of cooperation
that includes others that are distant and different, then they are
good citizens. Williams thinks that our fates are shared globally, but it is
difficult to see how this tracks onto a new kind of citizenship; perhaps this
is why Williams does not suggest a globalised citizenship. She does
sensibly contend that students need to enlarge their horizons, which they
can do by encountering diversity. Her practical suggestion is that students
should learn the history of their local communities, including immigrant
communities; they can learn about local diversity, much of which of
course comes from abroad.

This is sensible enough; it acknowledges and encourages local
variations in educational practices, but this is not a revolution in education
in response to a globalised world. Still, Williams’ objection to teaching
citizenship as identity is important and is further examined in a way by
Harry Brighouse, who argues that history should not be a vehicle for
teaching patriotism. Brighouse argues that while nationalism and
patriotism are not necessarily always offensive, in real life the way they
are taught will inevitably be offensive. Patriotic education harms children
by depriving them of the ability to consent freely to the state, since their
education will undermine their ability to examine it critically. Patriotic
education wrongs the whole of society by distorting the process of cultural
formation and reformation. It also may harm other loyalties and
attachments that are relevant to social justice (like class). The aims of
teaching history, according to Brighouse, should include teaching the truth
about history (what actually happened), fostering the ability to discern
causal connections in social processes, and teaching the history of the
particular social, political and economic institutions that the students
inhabit. Teaching patriotism interferes with these goals, since much of
what happens in a country is not pleasant, and many conservative patriots
want to gloss over this; many causal processes go against the official
reassuring version of things.

The argument that schools inevitably teach matters from a particular
point of view is taken up by Kevin McDonough. McDonough’s setting is
Canada, where there are multiple national identities. McDonough prefers
that both minority and federal national identities be taught. He worries,
though, that a national minority might teach that the majority nation is
oppressive and terrible, and that any federal intervention into the minority
is inherently evil. He argues that this would reduce the chances of
minority members exiting their group, even if they have good reason to do
so, and reduce their ability to seek outside assistance in case of need.
Because of this worry, McDonough argues that there is a case for a civic
education that promotes a conditional national allegiance. But why couch
the solution to this problem in terms of identity? Kenneth Strike argues
that teaching in terms of identity, as opposed to conscience and principles,
has costs. Strike argues that the language of identity leads to questions
about shared culture and political stability—conscience recedes while
recognition advances. Strike worries then that the language of shared
culture trumps the language of shared principles (an argument similar to
that of Williams). The costs of identity talk, Strike argues, are high: one’s
choices and options may be shaped and constrained by the expectations of
others; adopting the practices of one’s group may become a matter of
solidarity and affiliation rather than appraisal.

Strike’s argument suggests a different way to treat McDonough’s
problem, which would be to insist that all citizens be taught about the
liberties (and obligations) that Canadians have; they should be taught
about their country’s political institutions and about their histories.
Following Brighouse, this history should include the terrible things that
the Canadian government did to indigenous peoples, and their more recent
attempts to treat indigenous peoples more fairly. The students then can
figure out how to shape their own identity, within the confines of living in
a particular set of institutions, without actually being taught an identity.
Schools may not be able to leave identity matters behind them completely,
but it may be better for them overtly to teach about principles and to help
us see how our lives are connected with those all over the globe. It may be
that we can teach about identity in schools, but as Stephen Macedo warns
here, schools should not ascribe particular identities to students. For
Black, Hispanic, Jewish students and others, how they interpret their
identities is something that they ought to decide for themselves.
The difficulties that common schools face in diverse societies are well
described by Terence McLaughlin. The pull between particular and more
general identities that McLaughlin describes yields no easy solution,
though most liberals favour the general over the particular, which makes
them suspicious of private schools. Both Walter Feinberg and Mark
Halstead are willing to grant public support for private schools, but only
under certain circumstances. Feinberg argues that publicly funding private
schools is acceptable if they meet the following three conditions: that
these schools teach that the political system is legitimate; that they
encourage their students to be autonomous, and teach the importance of
political equality; and that parents have a choice not to send their children
to parochial schools. Halstead similarly argues that the price for public
funds should be teaching a common democratic citizenship. While Rob
Reich does not say much about parochial schools here (he treats the issue
of home schooling at some length in his recent book, Bridging Liberalism
and Multiculturalism in American Education), his parallel argument
accuses some multiculturalists of giving non-liberal groups too much
power over the education of their children, which they will often use to
teach obedience instead of autonomy. The view offered by Reich,
Halstead and Feinberg reflects the mainstream liberal view on schools:
that at the minimum they ought to teach students to be autonomous and to
be good citizens, two matters that are closely connected.

But what does autonomy mean? In a smart and important counter to this
mainstream liberal view, Shelley Burtt argues that liberals tend to equate
autonomy with choice; liberals want to make individuals over in the image
of the free chooser. But this consumerist model of autonomy is hardly the
only or best one. Burtt contends that once we place independent thought
and action instead of free choice at the centre of autonomy,
comprehensive forms of religious and cultural education do not seem
quite so restrictive. Burtt recognises that some insular religious groups do
teach unthinking obedience (she also suggests that some mainstream
children who slavishly follow peer groups are similarly non-autonomous),
but she maintains that many conservative groups can and do teach
independent thought and action, which is the better key to autonomy than
choice. What is not explored by many liberals is the idea of a parent who
tells a child: this is the good life for you because of who you are, where
you were born, and who your family is; people who accept (or adopt) this
sort of relationship act autonomously when they reason responsibly and
critically about what it means to be this sort of person.

Burtt’s argument is a much-needed antidote to many liberal definitions
of autonomy which too carelessly imply a consumerist version of
autonomy, yet it is unclear how Burtt’s argument tracks onto educational
practices. Burtt’s essay might be read as a defence of (some) parochial
schools. It is hard, however, to see public schools refraining from teaching
autonomy through an engagement with diversity, given that most public
schools will have some diversity within them. One possible but flawed
way to implement Burtt’s vision in public schools is suggested by David
Blacker. Blacker cites George Washington as arguing that religion and
morality are indispensable supports to citizenship. This means that schools
should be committed to teaching students to cultivate a conception of the
good. Yet the USA and other liberal democracies are committed to
upholding the non-establishment of religion, which means that schools
cannot directly teach students a particular conception of the good. To get
around this problem, Blacker argues that schools can delegate the
responsibility of teaching about the good to others. Students can work for
outreach programmes outside of schools; Blacker too would allow
outsiders, clergy and non-clergy, into schools to talk to and counsel
children. As interesting as Blacker’s argument is, citing Washington on
the need for religion and morality is not evidence enough that this is a
project for schools. Does a democratic polity need to rely on religion for
good citizenship? Why is not teaching about shared principles or shared
fate enough for good citizenship as others here suggest?

The two last essays, by the recently and prematurely deceased Susan
Moller Okin and by Stephen Macedo, discuss discrimination. Okin argues
that since gender discrimination violates a fundamental principle in liberal
democracies, it should never receive any kind of public support. She
argues that institutions like the Catholic Church should not be eligible for
tax-exempt status until they stop all forms of gender discrimination.
Macedo paints a more complicated picture in his chapter, which focuses
on discrimination against gays and lesbians in student college organisations,
though he also looks at secondary schools. In the college setting,
Macedo argues that, for liberal reasons of freedom of speech and
association, student groups should be allowed to discriminate. Yet
universities themselves should be firmly committed to the principle and
practice of non-discrimination. Contrary to Okin’s argument, Macedo
contends that the Catholic Church’s attitude toward women is more
complex than she grants, with women being important authority figures in
Catholic schools, and it is possible that students taught in these schools
will have more egalitarian attitudes than others. Macedo warns that
liberals should not treat the Catholic Church and other institutions that
may not embrace every aspect of liberalism too harshly and by fiat. We
would do better to treat them civilly.

Identity need only sit upon schools lightly. By that, I mean schools
should not concentrate on teaching a particular identity to students.
Schools that teach an honest history of one’s country, and that teach about
the country’s political principles, will impress upon students a partially
shared identity. That this identity be only partly shared is important: it
allows for differences among students, differences that ought to be
understood, at least to some extent. Schools too will teach students the
value of autonomy when they teach the virtues of democratic citizenship.
In the dynamic cultures of the West, encounters with diversity are
inevitable. Schools should help prepare students for these encounters, but
this need not mean teaching students the importance of trying on a variety
of identities. Teaching diversity is a balancing act, and liberals are right to
be concerned that parochial schools might not perform this act so well, by
emphasising too much a particular identity. Yet too often when liberals
present this worry, they assume that public schools present us with a good
alternative model, a questionable assumption. There are reasonable
worries about some public and some private schools. Good schools, both
public and private, will help students deepen their understanding of
themselves and of others, so that they can explore their identity as they
wish.

This collection of essays contains excellent discussions of autonomy
and identity in education, and it is a very good introduction to these
debates, while also carrying them forward in an intelligent and
illuminating way. Strangely, though, this book is riddled with more than
the usual number of typographical errors: footnotes are often incomplete;
Melissa Williams’s name is misspelled in the table of contents and on the
book jacket; and perhaps most oddly, the title on the inside cover
(Education and Citizenship) is reversed on the book jacket and spine
(Citizenship and Education). These mistakes do not detract from the
quality of this fine collection of essays, but they are unnecessarily
distracting.