Chapter Two: Citizenship Education and Diversity in a Global Age
The U.S. is increasing in terms of racial, ethnic, and language diversity because more people are migrating to different countries seeking better economic opportunities. As such, these nations with migrants are also providing educational opportunities. With the Immigration Reform Act, I’ve also found that it is sometimes mentioned as the Hart-Celler Act. From my understanding, it erased or lessened the amount of discrimination within the law and how immigrants are allowed in (1965). This created more ethnic texture within the United States following 1965. The population of POC’s in the U.S. is growing. Banks mentions that forty-six percent of students enrolled in U.S. public schools in 2010 were ethnic minorities. Along with ethnic minorities rising, the languages spoken at home and religious diversity are also rising. Along with the increase in religious diversity, there is also an increase in hatred.
With the growth of international migration comes the growth of complex issues related to citizenship and citizenship education in nation-states. Terrorist attacks on nations put stress on nations and their government, especially on our teachers.
The concepts, paradigms, and projects that facilitated the rise and triumph of the West between the 16th and the 20th centuries are ineffective in the recreated world of the 21st century. (Banks 2018)
Since the world changes, so do our views and our teachings. Educators must bridge the cultural, ethnic, and religious borders. Multicultural societies often struggle with balancing shared values and a nation-state that incorporates the diversity of its citizens. Citizens should be able to participate in the culture of the nation-state while also maintaining their own culture. Banks gives three names that other theorists have used to describe this phenomenon: Kymlicka named it Multicultural Citizenship, Rosaldo refers to it as Cultural Citizenship, and Drachsler named it Cultural Democracy. One challenge that diverse democratic nation-states face is giving opportunities for citizens to keep their culture while also being included in building a nation where they are structurally included. With evolving views on religion and peoples, there needs to be an update for citizen education. This is a difficult thing to do, especially balancing unity and diversity. Plenty of countries have faced hardship with their effort. France was the biggest example that stood out to me; they created a law that stated that Muslim girls were not allowed to wear head scarves under the guise of equality. This creates other problems; plenty of Arab, Muslim, and black youths find that they don’t fit into French society. This might be because the French government prefers integration to diversity or race relations; this assumes that the cultural differences that people carry should be reduced.
What’s the difference between being a citizen and citizenship? This is a question that Banks touches on. Being a citizen means you are born in the country that you reside in and are entitled to its protections. In contrast, citizenship means you have rights, privileges, and duties that come with being a citizen. Banks talks a little about the nuances of being a citizen and having citizenship. With more citizenship education, there can be better citizens. Meaning that they can help the nation-state become more fair and just. From Brazilian Scholar, Gocalves e Silva, she says,
A citizen is a person who works against injustice not for individual recognition or personal advantage, but for the benefit of all people. In realizing this task—shattering privileges, ensuring information and competence, acting in favor of all—each person becomes a citizen. (p. 197 )
When a nation-state is more multicultural than not, the concept and the complexity of citizenship identification becomes tough. Becoming a citizen does grant a person the rights, privileges, and the duties of a citizen, but this does not include the structural inclusion of the nation-state’s mainstream society. A citizen’s racial, cultural, language, and religious characteristics often determine how much they are seen as a citizen in their society. More often than not, citizens with differing racial, cultural, language, and religious characteristics from the mainstream culture get asked deeply personal questions, “What country are you from?” (Banks 2018). To relieve this problem, there needs to be better citizenship education which is multicultural tolerance and acceptance, and recognition.
Principles and Concepts for Educating Citizens in a Global Age
Students should learn about the complex relationships between unity and diversity in their local communities, the nation, and the world.
Students should learn about the ways in which people in their community, nation, and region are increasingly interdependent with other people around the world and are connected to the economic, political, cultural, environmental, and technological changes taking place across the planet.
The teaching of human rights should underpin citizenship education courses and programs in multicultural nation-states.
Section II. Experience and Participation
Students should be taught knowledge about democracy and democratic institutions, and they should be provided opportunities to practice democracy.
4. Sustainable Development
5. Empire, Imperialism, Power
6. Prejudice, Discrimination, Racism
10. Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism
Source: J. A. Banks et al. (2005), Democracy and Diversity: Principles and Concepts for Educating Citizens in a Global Age. Seattle: University of Washington, Center for Multicultural Education.
Prior to the civil rights movement, there was a heavy belief in the U.S. and other Western nations that there should be complete cultural assimilation to mainstream society, meaning that community cultures and languages of students should be eradicated. This creates problems related to identity; students lose a part of their cultural identity, and they also lose a connection to their families and communities. Being alienated from their culture, families, and then society because being othered based on characteristics they can’t control puts them in a culturally and civically rough patch, being unable to function in either. Even with complete assimilation of the mainstream culture, they are denied structural inclusion and full participation in the civic culture. This brings up the idea of cultural democracy as Banks describes it; he explains that students have a right to express their cultural identity and to use their home languages in schools. (Banks 30)
Between nationalists and assimilationists, there are a couple of fears. Nationalists fear that if students only have a strong connection to their home country, they won’t have a strong connection to the nation-state that they are currently living in. Whereas other people fear assimilation of students because if they erase their culture, then the student will feel alienated and have a gap between their community and their mainstream community. Banks makes a wonderful statement about how citizens who are in tune with their community cultures, language, and values are more than likely to develop reflective identifications than their culturally stripped counterparts.
Assimilationist views on citizenship do not work in an ever-growing multicultural nation-state because of the rapid growth of diversity and the need for marginalized groups to have cultural recognition and rights. Multicultural citizenship is required for a multicultural nation-state, that being the recognition and legitimization of citizens' commitment to having a personal or community culture and a commitment to the mainstream culture. This deeply involves global education; students should be able to see how their community and mainstream culture affect the global culture, and how the global culture and its events affect their daily lives. If students don’t create a deeper understanding of global education, students might feel alienated and, in turn, focus on their personal community culture rather than helping solve overarching problems faced by a nation. By being able to help students develop the skill of thinking globally, a teacher can include more about how students' culture is intertwined with global cultures and is not just tied to a region, a state, or a nation.
Also I forgot to mention, people have four distinct identities in their lives: Cultural, Regional, Global, and National identities.
Banks , J. A. (2018). In Introduction to Multicultural Education (p. 18). essay, Pearson.
Gonçalves e Silva, P. B. (2004). Citizenship and education in Brazil: The contribution of Indian peoples and Blacks in the struggle for citizenship. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives (pp. 185–217). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
