elizabeth worden anderson 'teachers, citizenship, and memory: implications for post-conflict...
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Teachers, Citizenship, and Memory: Implications for
Post-Conflict SocietiesElizabeth A Worden, PhD
Associate Professor, American University
Fulbright Scholar, Ulster University
eaworden@american.edu21 January 2015
Setting the Stage▫Citizenship education▫Teachers▫Social memory
Northern Irish Context▫Current study▫Initial findings/ideas▫Implications▫Discussion
Citizenship Education•Key goal of mass/public schooling since
the 18th century▫“Imagined communities,” creating belonging in
a new social, political, and national landscape▫As subjects became citizens, education became
the vehicle for social order and cohesion•Different forms throughout history
▫From assimilation to diversity▫From patriotism to critical thinking▫From local to global
Explicit and Implicit
•Explicit▫Curriculum ▫Modules/Classes (history, civics, government,
politics & citizenship)▫Textbooks
•Implicit▫Extra-curricular activities▫“Benign nationalism”▫Atmosphere▫Relationships
Multiple Purposes & TensionsLogistics
1. Rights2. Responsibilities3. Procedures (e.g., voting,
taxes)
Values1. Public-spiritedness/
willingness to engage in public discourse
2. A sense of justice/ respect the rights of others
3. Civility and tolerance4. A shared sense of
solidarity or loyalty (Kymlicka 2001,
296)
Teachers•Most immediate link between most young
people and the government•Employed by the government but . . .
▫They close the classroom door▫Interpret and reinterpret curricula ▫Modify education polices to fit classroom
needs (or their own)
(see for example, Apple and Christian-Smith 1991; Luke, Luke, and Castell 1989; Mantilla 2001; Street 2001; Worden 2014)
Teachers as Experts
• Professionals • Use their judgment• Complex individuals (like
everyone else)• May or may not be acting in the
best interest of their students
Social Memory•“Memories can be images or stories
recalled. They can be ways of knowing, or acts embodied. Recollection, as a human practice, is as vast as its functions are varied” (Paxson 2005, 13).
•Collective memory is a social act and must be studied in the context of society – it is in society that people acquire, recall, recognize, and localizes their memories (Halbwachs, 1992, 38).
Studying Social Memory
•As practice (drawing from Paxson 2004)▫telling stories▫talking about the nation▫teaching
•Contrasted to representations▫memorials ▫museum exhibits▫textbooks ▫murals
Locating Social Memory
•May or may not be explicitly linked to historical events
•Understanding an individual’s world rather than asking direct questions about “remembering”▫Ask a memory question, get a memory answer
•Difficult (I don’t claim to have located memory in Northern Ireland yet!)
About the Present
•Shapes present day identities (Olick and Robbins 1998).
•Social memory can be malleable or persistent (Olick and Robbins1998). ▫Why does it change or stay the same?
•Memory also reflects society’s aspirations for the future. It is “both a mirror and a lamp—a model of and a model for society” (Olick and Robbins 1998, 124).
“The memory practices that take place in individuals’ everyday lives reveal which memories are salient, have meaning, and influence citizens’ actions and thinking. For some, practices of social memory might be considered as “culture” or “identity.” But these concepts, unlike social memory, do not adequately capture the act of remembering...” (Worden 24, 2014)
Social Memory and Education“If part of the state’s aim, therefore, is to create a sense of shared values and ideals, then it will
also be the state’s aim to create a sense of common memory, as foundation for unified
polis” (Young 2003, 6).
• Public schools can reflect social memory through official curricula and symbols yet not static spaces.
• Schools are an ideal place to study memory.
Northern Ireland
Fulbright Scholar Award with Ulster UniversitySeptember 2014 – January 2015 (5 months)Mapping the landscape
Data and Methods▫Interviews with 13 teachers (3 maintained
grammar, 2 controlled grammar, 2 controlled secondary, 1 maintained secondary, 1 integrated)
▫Approximately 28 hours of school observation not including time spent for interviews (classes, lunch with teachers, teachers' lounge, etc. )
▫Interviews with 5 curriculum specialists
Citizenship Education after Conflict
•Citizenship education (often aligned with history teaching) is used as a tool by governments and international organizations to establish and promote:▫transitional justice▫social reconciliation ▫tolerance, peace, and stability
(see, for example, Cole 2007; Cole and Baraslou 2006; Cole and Murphy 2011; Freedman et al. 2008; McCully 2010; Paulson 2009; Pingel 2008; Smith 2005)
Citizenship Ed in Northern Ireland
• Education for Local and Global Citizenship▫Part of Learning for Life and Work (LLW)▫Part of the Revised Curriculum▫How and when it is taught depends on individual
schools▫Teachers have great autonomy in choosing
materials
How have teachers’ responded to the new curriculum? And how might their everyday lives and attitudes affect how and what they teach in the classroom? And social memory?
VERY Initial Findings Across the separate schools, teachers had more in common than not1. Consistent feeling that the current political
and social structures undermine what they are trying to achieve in the classroom
2. Concern about current government stalemate3. Belief that Northern Ireland is not truly
democratic (yet?)4. Some felt that politicians are fixated on the
past
Factoring in Social Memory
•Is it social memory that makes teachers feel hemmed in by political and social structures?▫If so, why do they continue to feel this way? ▫What is it in their everyday life that reinforces
this feeling and/or memory?▫Or is it an excuse for inaction?
Implications & Discussion
Matters for the classroom because teachers transmit messages to their students.
• How can you teach citizenship (in the context of building social cohesion, tolerance, and understanding) if you think political and social structures undermine your work?
• How can you teach your students about democracy or to be democratic when you might not have clear models of it?
• How do you encourage healthy debate about government without cynicism?
Discussion
•Do the conditions need to be “right” for teaching citizenship in post-conflict contexts? ▫If not, how can teachers square what
happens outside the classroom with what happens inside?
Works Cited• Cole, Elizabeth A. 2007. Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.• Cole, Elizabeth, and Judy Barsalou. 2006. “Unite or Divide? The Challenges of Teaching
History in Societies Emerging from Violent Conflict.” Special Report 163. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace.
• Cole, Elizabeth and Karen Murphy. 2011. “History Education Reform, Transitional Justice, and the Transformation of Identities.” In Identities in Transition: Challenges for Transitional Justice in Divided Societies, edited by Paige Arthur, 334-367. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Freedman, Sarah Warshauer, Harvey M. Weinstein, Karen Murphy, and Timothy Longman. 2008. “Teaching History after Identity-Based Conflicts: The Rwanda Experience.” Comparative Education Review 52: 663–90.
• Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. On Collective Memory. 1st ed. University Of Chicago Press.• Olick,J. and Robbins, J. 1998. Social Memory Studies: From "Collective Memory" to the
Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 105-40.• ______. 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Luke, Carmen, Suzanne de Castell, and Allan Luke. 1989. “Beyond Criticism: The Authority
of the School Textbook.” In Language, Authority, and Criticism: Readings on the School Textbook, edited by Suzanne de Castell, Allan Luke, and Carmen Luke, 245–60. New York: Falmer Press.
• Mantilla, Martha. 2001. “Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Participation in Policy Choices: The Bottom-Up Approach of the Nueva Escuela Unitaria in Guatemala.” In Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy, edited by M. Sutton and B. Levinson, 123–44. Westport, CT: Ablex.
Works Cited cont. • McCully, Alan. 2010. “What Role for History Teaching in Transitional Justice Process
for Deeply Divided Societies?” In Contemporary Public Debates of History Education, edited by Irene Nakou and Isabel Barca, 169–84. Charlotte, NC: IAP–Information Age Publishing.
• Paxson, Margaret. 2005. Solovyovo: The Story of Memory in a Russian Village. Indiana University Press.
• Smith, Margaret Eastman. 2005. Reckoning with the Past: Teaching History in Northern Ireland. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• Street, Susan. 2001. “When Policies Become Pedagogy: Oppositional Discourse as Policy in Mexican Teachers’ Struggles for Union Democracy.” In Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy, edited by M. Sutton and B. Levinson, 145–66. Westport, CT: Ablex.
• Worden, Elizabeth 2014. National Identity and Education Reform: Contest Classrooms. New York: Routledge.
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