Year: 2024
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: A Commitment in the Search of a TheoryThe point of this approach is to continue mobilising a sociology that is at once classical, yet flexible and evolutionary enough to study educational phenomena sometimes labelled 'postmodern' .This anchoring in classical sociology avoids two pitfalls.The first is to embrace GCE in an uncritical way, claiming citizenship to be already global, or that citizenship education can be projected onto the world, though this would require bypassing national realities in terms of education policies, institutional realities and professional constraints.The second pitfall consists on the contrary in rejecting GCE in a dogmatic way by saying, contrary to a cosmopolitan Durkheimian perspective, that forms of social belonging do not evolve and that citizenship therefore is irremediably linked to its national anchorage.Debates on global citizenship education are de facto situated between these two poles.While some education scientists are explicitly in favour of GCE (Banks, 2008; Torres, 2017), others approach the notion with great distance (Matthews & Sidhu, 2005; Oxley & Morris, 2013) or even challenge it (Mannion, Biesta, Priestley, & Ross, 2011; Papastephanou, 2018).Discussions on GCE are too rich to be summarised here.Nonetheless, the tools developed so far make it possible to solve part of the problem, serving an inextricably linked sociological and philosophical approach in ETS.If being a citizen means taking part in the goals of a collective entity (nation, etc.) and being obliged by its decisions (cf.Chapter 3), then what does citizenship become if one tries to broaden its scope (internationally) or even reformulate it (GCE)?The answer will depend on the ability to identify (references to) a collective entity such as the 'global political community' , to specify its status in certain enunciations (logical, ontological, ideal), and to define its place in the ideology of modern societies -those whose collective representations promote individualism. 1Being a Citizen, Belonging to a Society However, to fully associate reflection on collective entities with a reflection on citizenship, it is necessary to specify the former's nature.Belonging to a nation
Source: BRILL eBooks
Authors: Sébastien Urbanski, Lucy Bell
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4395047149