Thinking Citizenship as a Cultural Mythology? Contemporary Good Citizenship Discourses at the Heart of K-12 Curriculum in Canada

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  • Author(s): Kim, Juhwan (ORCID Kim, Juhwan (ORCID 0000-0002-9473-9329)
  • Language:
    English
  • Source:
    Educational Philosophy and Theory. 2023 55(4):483-495.
  • Publication Date:
    2023
  • Document Type:
    Journal Articles
    Reports - Research
  • Additional Information
    • Availability:
      Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
    • Peer Reviewed:
      Y
    • Source:
      13
    • Education Level:
      Elementary Secondary Education
    • Subject Terms:
      Foreign Countries; Elementary Secondary Education; Curriculum; Citizenship Education; Citizenship Responsibility; Citizen Participation; Citizenship; Attitudes; Educational Policy; Discourse Analysis; Diversity; Bias; Cultural Influences
    • Subject Terms:
      Canada
    • Accession Number:
      10.1080/00131857.2022.2106848
    • ISSN:
      0013-1857
      1469-5812
    • Abstract:
      Following the keen interests in citizenship education across the fields of education, this study delves into the ways in which we conceptualize good citizenship. To do so, I focus on two theoretical concepts (i.e., "imaginary" and "cultural mythology") and the provincial level of education policy(ies) and the K-12 curriculum contexts in Canada. Based on my theoretical ground and critical discourse analysis of the un/official documents for Alberta education, I indicate diversity as one crucial element of a cultural mythology: it, as a sign in a second-order semiological system, serves to disseminate a monolithic and depoliticized vision of good citizenship based within a particular imaginary of the idealized Canada. This study thus elucidates not only our inherited cultural biases about the popular meanings of good citizenship, but also their invisible onto-epistemological presuppositions perpetuating the unchanged institutionalized structures of privilege and their exploitations of poor and minority peoples (e.g., elimination of Indigenous peoples and their land sovereignty). Hence, this study offers critical insights to address unequal relations of power in our prevalent notion(s) of citizenship we as educators presume to teach. This work, by doing so, follows the decolonial imperative to rupture the social inequality and discrimination we all strive to resist.
    • Abstract:
      As Provided
    • Publication Date:
      2023
    • Accession Number:
      EJ1382875